Our Lady Of Lourdes, sometimes referred to as "the French church," is Minneapolis' oldest church in terms of continuous use. Its origins date to 1857 when the First Universalist Society constructed the building on a hill overlooking St. Anthony Falls. Following a ten year period of vacancy, French Canadian Catholics purchased the place in 1877, and named their parish Our Lady Of Lourdes in honor of the Blessed Virgin's appearance in Lourdes, France to fourteen year old Bernadette some nineteen years prior. Their new parish became the first one so-named in the United States.
Prior to our joining Our Lady Of Lourdes ("OLL"), Momma Cuandito and I had been registered members at three other parishes: St. Joseph's (Hopkins) where Gina and Michael were baptized, Holy Family (St. Louis Park) where Jill was baptized, and Most Holy Trinity (St. Louis Park) where we taught school for a combined fifteen and a-half years. Toward the end of our stretch as MHT parishioners, we found ourselves attending Sunday evening Mass at OLL much more often than Sunday morning Mass at MHT. If memory serves me correctly, a secondary cause for this practice was the Minnesota Vikings. Getting out of bed in time to make it to the early Sunday morning Mass at MHT was asking too much, and attending the late Sunday morning Mass there meant I would have to miss the first quarter of the Vikings' noon games, which in those days meant most of their schedule. Again, that was asking too much in those pre-DVR times. Way too much!
But the main reason we started going to OLL's Sunday evening Mass was that the celebrant was often a priest whom we both enjoyed immensely, Father John O'Hara. He was a middle aged man with rugged good looks, reminiscent of Kirk Douglas. Besides helping out OLL with these Sunday night "guest appearances," Father O'Hara was also doing parish work at St. Bridget's in north Minneapolis, and was the chaplain for the Minneapolis Fire Department. For seven years in the '80's he had been a chaplain in the U.S. Air Force. His homilies often included stories of bravery and heroism which he witnessed from his unique vantage points. Some priests simply have a knack for combining scripture stories (which we've all heard a million times) with real life lessons, and Father O'Hara was at the top of that select circle.
In January 2001, after the Vikings had embarrassed themselves, 41-donut, versus the New York Giants in the NFC Championship Game, Momma Cuan and I decided that, football or no football, we liked the Sunday night gig much better than the Sunday morning one. And, since it was now our plan to continue ending our weekends with Sunday night church at OLL, it was only fair that we should register as parishioners there. (Note: There was another reason having more to do with MHT. Here is the truncated version. The pastor, whom I won't name -- hint: his first name rhymed with "menace" -- had a personality much like a bag of rocks. With an air of entitlement and disinterest, he was totally clueless in Seattle. A short example was his failure to acknowledge, much less thank, all of the parishioners who did things voluntarily behind the scene. In my case, I was on one of the four four-man crews of money counters who took turns meeting on Sunday afternoons in the school's stuffy, un-air conditioned second floor library. We tallied the contributions from the collections of all the Masses that week, making sure to credit each parishioner for his or her offering. Then we deposited the funds at Citizens' State Bank. I did this for four years. The number of times the pastor thanked any of us for this work was easy to count: zero.)
Here is the kicker. A few months after Mary and I officially enrolled at OLL, it became spring. There were a couple of weeks in a row when we were out of town. When we returned home there were a couple more weeks when a different priest celebrated the Sunday night Mass. Finally the next week we asked one of the regulars why Father O'Hara was MIA. "Oh, he won't be saying Mass here any more. He moved to Jacksonville, Florida last month."
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Now it's eighteen years later, and we still belong to OLL. Over the course of our forty-three year marriage, it's by far the longest stretch of our belonging to the same parish. For me personally, a weekday noon Mass, not always on the same day each week, has replaced the Sunday night routine. I made an exception this past weekend for Easter. While Mary took her mother to Christ The King, I went by myself to the 11:00 Mass at OLL. Here are some quick takes from that experience.
* The Easter morning bombings by terrorists of three churches and three hotels in Sri Lanka less than twenty-four hours ago is the top news story worldwide. More than three hundred innocent people have been killed, with hundreds more injured. What is to stop the same thing from happening here? Even a lone wolf gunman or a single suicide bomber can do untold harm. Our church has hired an off-duty, uniformed and armed Minneapolis cop to stand guard in the back of church. How much of a deterrent to crime can one policeman be?
* The altar boys are identical twins, Miguel and Louis. I remember them serving Mass when they could not have been more than seven or eight years old. Back then I could not tell them apart. Now they are only a month away from graduating from high school. They have always been excellent servers who obviously take their job seriously and perform it very reverently. I still cannot tell them apart, down to their facial features, hair and glasses.
* Today's gospel recounts the story of the first Easter, aka the Resurrection. Saints Peter and John hear that the tomb where Jesus was buried two days ago is now empty. They both rush to the scene. John, who is at least twenty years younger than Peter, outraces the older man to the entrance. He peers in but does not enter the sacred place, deferring to Peter. Why did John wait for Peter to enter? The reason is that Jesus had appointed Peter the head of the newly-founded Church. "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I shall build my church." The younger apostle waits for his elder out of respect. There are a handful of short stories from the Bible that have made me proud to have John as my patron saint. That is one of them.
* Our paster, Father Daniel Griffith, also happens to be an attorney who is on the faculty of the University Of St. Thomas Law School. Occasionally he will make reference to his double duty and the difficulty sometimes presented by his responsibilities to both the parish and the school. Part of the pomp and circumstance in the Easter Mass liturgy is the blessing of the congregation by the priest, performed by the sprinkling of holy water from a small bucket as he walks up and down the aisles after the opening prayer. Before he started his homily, Father Dan had a confession to make. He told us that whenever he performs the sprinkling of holy water ceremony, he is always worried that the heavy metal ball at the top of the dobber which he dips into the bucket will fly off from its base as he thrusts his hand forward to spread the water over the crowd. He admitted that, due to his legal training, he wasn't totally sure if he was worried more as a pastor that one of his parishioners would be injured, or as a lawyer that the victim would sue for personal injury damages. Laughter abounds.
* Jesus Christ is referred to in scripture and dogma by various descriptive names such as the Good Shepard, the Son Of God, the Son Of Man, the Second Person Of The Blessed Trinity, Lord, the Messiah, etc. "Christ The Redeemer" is the most apropos for Easter. It is the teaching of the Catholic Church, among other christian faiths, that Christ's sacrifice was in redemption for the sins (original or otherwise) of mankind. This was the theme of Father Dan's homily today. He cleverly started by pointing out that over the last two weekends there have been two remarkable redemptions in the world of sports. Two weekends ago in the Final Four, the Virginia Cavaliers won the NCAA basketball championship. This was viewed as an act of redemption for the team's performance in the 2018 tournament when the Cavs became the first-ever # 1 seeded team to lose to a # 16 seeded team, the University Of Maryland-Baltimore County. Father Dan could not resist pointing out that the Cavs are coached by a fellow Wisconsinite, Tony Bennett. (As you might have guessed, Father Dan is a Packers fan.) Last weekend, Tiger Woods won the Masters golf tournament for the fifth time. If one looks at redemption as a kind of deliverance or rescue, Woods' historic comeback from multiple injuries and surgeries, which at one time rendered him barely able to walk, let alone golf, might qualify.
* It never fails at a well attended Sunday Mass. Two ushers who, today, happen to be a man and a woman, are charged with taking up the collection from the center aisle. Both carry long-handled baskets. Because the aisle is only a few feet wide, they jostle each other with their handles' ends as they attempt to go side-by-side simultaneously. I thought at one point the male usher's basket handle was going to impale the female right below her rib cage. Who knows? Maybe he is a hockey player who is used to spearing. Here is a novel idea. Why doesn't the guy let his partner get a thirty second head start so that they won't be right next to each other as they promenade toward the back, thus avoiding insult and injury? Failure to recognize this makes one wonder if the age of chivalry is, indeed, dead.
* Finally, an illustration of the wisdom of the adage "you catch more flies with honey than vinegar." When we were parishioners at St. Joe's, we unfortunately could count on one of the associate pastors, Father Beckman, to admonish the so-called "Easter birds" for their failure to attend Mass on the other fifty-one Sundays of the year. That is not how to encourage better attendance. Contrast Father Beckman's style with Father Griffith's, who simply concluded the Mass by saying, "Thank you for coming. Have a wonderful Easter. We hope to see you again soon." Amen.
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