It has been a long and difficult journey over the past couple of years for the parishioners of St. Paul Mission and the community of Sabine Pass.

Hurricane Rita severely damaged the church and the parish hall when it plowed through Southeast Texas Sept. 24, 2005. Five feet of Gulf of Mexico water crashed into the church and hall, tearing apart the walls, throwing around the pews and chairs and rampaging the altar.

On March 2 the church will open a new chapter with a Pontifical Mass celebrated by Bishop Curtis Guillory, SVD.

“Bishop Guillory will be blessing the facility which lost its blessing because of the destruction. If something is severely damaged to the point where it is broken in multiple places, in that destruction the blessing is lost,” Father Sinclair Oubre, pastor of St. Paul, said.

Last year the church finally reopened its doors after months of construction. Mass was celebrated in the yard of the church only days after the water receeded and then in the parish hall mere weeks after the storm had made landfall and soon after citizens had returned to Sabine Pass.

With no electricity available, parishioners brought generators to help with the lack of power. Construction did not begin for many months. Finally the repairs were to a point that Mass could be celebrated in the church which was still without electricity.

In December 2007 the renovations were completed on the church and the parish hall.

The Mass will be a community effort, Father Oubre said.

“We have the choir from St. Therese, the Little Flower of Jesus, in Port Arthur coming to sing during the Mass. And servers from my other parish St. John the Evangelist, Port Arthur, are also coming to help,” Father Oubre said.

After the Mass a reception will be held in the parish hall. Father Oubre invited the Sabine Pass community to come and celebrate the blessing and join his parish at the reception.

Things in the Sabine Pass community, however, are not moving along as quickly as residents would hope.

“There’s a real frustration down there in the community. We have around 50 families still living in FEMA trailers. These trailers are not meant to be lived in for over a year, and here we have folks living in them for three years,” Father Oubre said.

More federal funding for the area is on the way but won’t arrive until sometime around September.

“Habitat for Humanity is building some homes in the area but the main problem with that, coupled with the federal money, is that you have to take one or the other. If you sign up for the federal money you can’t participate in habitat and vice versa,” Father Oubre said.