Monday, 12 May 2008 01:48 am Mountain Time

About Us

Our Lady Of The Lake

Our Lady of the Lake was first called Our Lady Of Perpetual Help, and was established in 1916, as a mission of St. John the Evangelist Cathedral in Boise, Idaho. The first Catholic church building in McCall is now the Alpine Theater, on Roosevelt Avenue on the east side of Payette Lake.

In 1963, Father John Koelsch, became the first resident pastor. Under his leadership, the present church was built and dedicated in 1964 as Our Lady Of The Lake. Under the leadership of Father W. Thomas Faucher, the church was remodeled to its present configuration in 1993.

Father Donald Fraser, current pastor, was appointed administrator of Our Lady Of The Lake, soon after his ordination, in 1975. Having served in several pastoral assignments for Idaho since then, he returned as pastor in 1997.

The feast Day of the Parish is celebrated on August 15th, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

From Father Fraser....

Our parish is huge. Just to give you a perspective, let me recite some of the statistics of this parish, Our Lady of the Lake, with two other church sites of Saint Katharine Drexel in Cascade and St. Jerome in Riggins. In sheer size, it is over 9 thousand square miles, extending from the Boise County line in the south to the Salmon River in the north, from Adams County in the west to the Frank Church/River of No Return Wilderness in the east. It comprises over 10 per cent of the area of the state of Idaho. The parish is also larger than the states of Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Vermont!

Religion (and, by extension, liturgy) is not a spectator event.

What we are called to do begins to take shape within our local parish, and from there extends to the rest of the world.

We have been given a call to create a movement in these mountains that could have far-reaching impact. In any event, there will always be ripple effects to what we do and say, and what we do not do or do not say. If we are active ministers, responders to God's call to ministry, then God will do the rest. If we are silent and passive, the waters will be still and when we are done and gone, it would be as if the gospel had become silent as well.

We are blessed with so many willing and able responders to God's call to serve not just the Church, but the wider community; in fact, ultimately the whole world. We start here, but our eyes are on a much larger area than a few thousand square miles of rivers, lakes, mountains and trees.