St. John The Baptist Auction
With UFC 168 in the books and her Championship defended, Ronda Rousey found another way to give back to the community and to help contribute financially to St. John the Baptist Church.
Father Michael Gutierrez has been the family parish priest for most of Ronda’s life. After 10 years at St. Anne’s in Santa Monica, Father Michael was transferred to St. John the Baptist in Baldwin Park, a diverse community where masses are given every Sunday in English, Spanish and Tagalog. The church is very active in social justice issues, taking to heart the Biblical injunctions to feed the hungry, comfort the sick and visit the imprisoned.
The church wanted to remodeled their chapel to make it available for perpetual adoration. In short, many of us remember when we were young you could go into the church any time of the day or night. It was never locked because who would dream of robbing a church? Well, unfortunately, that’s just not true any more.
A chapel for perpetual adoration is open 24/7 and people come into pray all of the time. In fact, members of the parish volunteer to come and pray one or two hours a week so that there is ALWAYS someone in the chapel at prayer.
Additional funds for safety locks needed to raised because no one wants their 92-year-old grandmother praying all alone at 4 a.m. with anyone able to walk right in. Through Ronda’s contributions, the church was able to remodel their chapel, purchase the necessary safety locks, and new pews and kneelers. St. John the Baptist Church also intended on putting a statue of St. Joan of Arc in the chapel along with the Virgin of Guadalupe.
The total total cost of remodeling is was approximately $20,000.
Dr. AnnMaria DeMars standing in the newly remodeled chapel built with funds given to the church by Ronda Rousey.
