About San Antonio Mission · El Pueblo, New Mexico
San Antonio Mission is a small Roman Catholic mission chapel in the village of El Pueblo, San Miguel County, New Mexico, that belongs to San Miguel del Vado Parish in nearby Ribera. As one of seven mission churches served by that historic parish on the upper Pecos River, it is celebrated on a rotating basis with Saturday vigil Masses. The mission is under the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Santa Fe and continues a centuries-old pattern of Hispanic Catholic village life along the old Santa Fe Trail corridor.
- Patron
- San Antonio (Saint Anthony)
- Diocese
- Archdiocese of Santa Fe
Why belong here
San Antonio Mission is one of seven small mission chapels lovingly served by San Miguel del Vado Parish in Ribera, and it offers a deeply traditional, bilingual (English/Spanish) Catholic community where the sacraments come to the village on a regular Saturday rotation. Parishioners who worship here participate in a centuries-old Hispanic Catholic heritage in the upper Pecos River valley, with a parish office that can be reached Tuesday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., for schedules, sacramental needs, and community support.
Mass times at San Antonio Mission
Weekly Mass schedule
About San Antonio Mission
San Antonio Mission is a small Catholic mission chapel in the village of El Pueblo, San Miguel County, New Mexico. It is listed by GCatholic as a mission of San Miguel del Vado Parish in Ribera and falls within the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Santa Fe. The mission is dedicated to Saint Anthony and is one of seven historic mission chapels in the upper Pecos River valley that are served by the same parish priest.
Parish Family: San Miguel del Vado, Ribera
San Antonio Mission does not stand alone. It is part of San Miguel del Vado Parish in Ribera (7 Sagebrush Way, Ribera, NM 87560), whose parish church was built by 1805 and whose village was founded in 1794 by Lorenzo Márquez of Santa Fe with fifty-one other Spanish families on a Spanish colonial land grant. That parent community is among the oldest continuously active Catholic communities in the Archdiocese of Santa Fe and is one of the key mission churches along the historic Santa Fe Trail corridor.
- Parish church: San Miguel del Vado, 7 Sagebrush Way, Ribera, NM 87560
- Parish phone: (575) 421-2780
- Parish office hours: Tuesday–Thursday, 10 a.m.–2 p.m.
- Languages: English and Spanish
The Seven Missions
San Miguel del Vado Parish shepherds a constellation of seven mission chapels scattered across the surrounding villages and ranches of the upper Pecos valley. Saturday vigil Mass at 4 p.m. rotates through these missions so that each small community still receives the Eucharist weekly.
- Santa Rita — Bernal
- San Antonio — El Pueblo
- Our Lady of the Rosary — Lagunita
- Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe — San Isidro Sur
- San Isidro Labrador — San Isidro Norte
- San Jose — San Jose
- San Juan Nepomuceno — San Juan
History of the Region
The villages served by San Miguel del Vado Parish were settled in the late Spanish colonial period to buffer the New Mexico colony against Comanche raids and to anchor a string of Catholic communities along what would later become the Santa Fe Trail. San Miguel del Vado grew rapidly after Mexican independence in 1821, and the 1827 census recorded almost 3,000 inhabitants, making it briefly one of the largest towns in New Mexico. Its prominence faded after the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad was routed through Las Vegas in 1880 and after the U.S. Supreme Court's 1897 ruling shrank the San Miguel del Vado land grant from about 300,000 acres to about 5,000 acres — but the Catholic life of the surrounding villages, including El Pueblo, has continued uninterrupted.
Contact and Practical Information
Because San Antonio Mission does not have its own resident priest or office, all inquiries (Mass schedule, sacraments, sick calls, etc.) go through the San Miguel del Vado Parish Office across the road from the parish church in Ribera. The Facebook group at facebook.com/groups/910669986052166 is also listed as a community touchpoint.
- Parish phone: (575) 421-2780
- Parish office hours: Tuesday–Thursday, 10 a.m.–2 p.m.
- Address (parish): 7 Sagebrush Way, Ribera, NM 87560
- Facebook: facebook.com/groups/910669986052166