St. Patrick's first Vigil and Sunday Masses were celebrated on October 29 and 30, 1988
at the Disabled American Veterans Hall on Bee Ridge Road.
February, 1989
St. Patrick's moved into an office complexat the Center Gate Office Park.
This facility, which was modified to form a large room, had a maximum capacity of 250.
Saint Patrick's Day 1991
We were finally able to break ground on our 15.4-acre site on
Construction of the Church began in August and was completed in July,1992.
August 2, 1992
The first of our regularly scheduled Masses were celebrated.
We held a Sunrise Service in our unfinished Church on Easter Sunday, April 19, 1992.
Father Michael D. Hickey, the first Pastor of St. Patrick's, felt a parish is
"much more than a collection of individuals who come together once in a while to worship and then go their separate ways. A parish is the People of God called together as a community of faith, as God's Family, to worship together and to discover and experience the presence of God in our community."
In 1993, plans for the Parish Center were started
and in 1995 the Parish Center was dedicated,
providing meeting space and classrooms for the Faith Formation Program.
At that same time, plans for the construction of a chapel were approved,
and through the generosity of Ray and Maxine Schirmer,
the chapel was completed in 1996.