St. Mary's Catholic Church has been a part of the Cochrane landscape for 125 years. 

The first church was constructed in 1895 and the parish has seen a lot of parishioners pass through the doors of multiple buildings throughout the years. Currently, St. Mary's sits at 10 River Heights Drive.

Over its 125 years, the church has laid witness to two pandemics the Spanish flu of 1918 and now COVID 19 in 2020. Needless to say, the pandemic has affected the anniversary celebrations. Anniversary committee chair, Jennifer Foy says, "Our plans have been curtailed because of COVID, of course, the committee has been working on this project for just about three years. So, it is somewhat disappointing that we have had to cancel some things or amend some things, but none the less we have been soldiering on and we have been able to do a few things."

One of those things was this summer the church had a name the bell contest. The church has three bells and two of them were already stamped with the names Julius and Maria. So a contest was put out for Catholic school children to name the third bell. A grade seven student from St.Timothy's won the contest with the name Gabriel. 

Another recognition was that a committee member wrote an anniversary prayer that the parishioners have been saying before the weekend masses. As well, a commemorative bookmark has been created that has been handed out to parishioners and to the catholic schools in town. 

Finally the highlight of the celebration will be on Saturday, November 21 when Bishop McGrattan will come from Calgary to say mass at 4 p.m. The mass will be live-streamed on St. Mary's Facebook page.

For more information can go to St. Mary's website by clicking here.