Holy Spirit

April 23, 2020. Holy Spirit church, Kimberly, Wisconsin

The tranquility of an empty church produces great memories and powerful sense of serenity. Holy Spirit reminds me a lot of the simple elegance of my childhood parish church in Eden, Immaculate Conception. From 1958 to 1969, Immaculate Conception was a cornerstone of my childhood, with kindly pastors and the Grey Nuns, for five years of school, and for all the ceremonies and celebrations that made it part of our family life. There was midnight Mass -- at midnight, no less! -- in a cold, dark church, back when almost every Mass was celebrated in bright morning sunlight. We had Easter egg hunts in the field (now a baseball diamond) and hill behind the church. We played baseball in the gravelly makeshift ball diamond (now a paved parking lot) behind the old convent. We played lengthy football games on the expansive front lawn of the church. We celebrated baptisms and confirmations in the church built in 1958. We performed our Christmas pageant in the old church, probably in third grade, 1959.

The 'new' church itself was pretty austere. Cinder block walls. Simple statuary at each side of the altar. Before they 'turned the altar around' in the early 1960's, the altar had an almost magical aura, with the candles, the hand-rung bells, the incense and the Latin prayers. There was a typical ritual of four altar servers, each with an assigned role.As students at the elementary school, we spent many hours in the church in prayer, neatly arranged by class and section, hands folded on the rail in front of us -- never any elbows, please! If we misbehaved enough in church we'd have to write phrases such as, "I will be quiet in church," up to 100 times to allow the nuns to make their point about discipline and respect.

By fifth or sixth grade the altar had been reversed and I was at times assigned to be the lector/reader, standing at a microphone at the front of the church, way off to the left, leading my peers in the English prayers. I also had earned an assignment as an altar server for funerals. At that age, for me, funerals meant a release from classes for an hour or so and, if I dallied enough after the Mass, I could go straight to lunch.

Confessions were a challenge, as the class would line up outside the confessional, waiting our respective turns, all the time worrying that the boy behind me would be able to hear my recitation of my sins, as a simple curtain and perhaps six feet separated the two of us. The priest's sliding of the small, perforated plastic door on the opposite side of the confessional signaled the departure of the last student and signaled the imminent sliding of the door between me and the priest, creating an almost Pavlovian reaction of guilt and sweat.

Other than the confessional, the church seemed to be a pretty joyful place. A lot of singing with the choir, colorful priestly garb, a well-established ritual, occasionally a homily of interest, and a rhythm and life all its own. Today, Holy Spirit evokes those memories, even more so in this pandemic time, where the silent church offers a chance to pray, to reflect and to remember, to remember those formative yet carefree childhood days, when we had our entire lives in front of us, and no threats other than some seemingly distant cold war tension with the USSR, which meant little other than a rare moment of fear, like the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.

After you read this, if you have thirty minutes, consider a trip to your church -- assuming its open and its not too late in the day -- and just kneel and reflect for ten minutes. Say some prayers, ask for forgiveness, offer thanks for your blessings, remember your parents, realties, classmates and friends from over the years. It is priceless serenity, if only for a few minutes.