The lingering memory of incense filled my senses. That’s what this parish is filled with — memories. Both the memories from today’s Mass and the memories of my childhood. For major liturgical days, Grandpa would drive us a few miles farther to the Mission San Luis Rey.
Now, both my great-grandparents lay buried in that cemetery that’s over 200 years old. The Mission is full of memories, but here, Star of the Sea, is what I think of when we go to Mass.
The church secretary unlocked the door for us after I explained that we were on an unofficial pilgrimage of sorts. This is the parish I was baptized in when I was 5, wearing my cousin’s hand-me-down First Communion dress. Almost every Mass I went to as a child — irregularly, since only my great-grandmother took me — was at this parish. That’s where Grandpa parked the Galant that ended up being my first car. This is the pew we sat in when I was a child.
My Italian great-grandmother didn’t allow curious glances at the beautiful statues and windows, her bony old-lady elbows sliding between ribs as a stabbing reminder to pay attention. And the scent of incense lingering only reminds me of how a single smoke-induced sniffle would magically produce a tissue from a sleeve before you could dare to actually sneeze in Mass. This is where we held Grandma’s funeral when I was 16 — and Grandpa’s, decades later, when I was in my 30s with five children.
I remember the time we had an Irish priest who was completely unintelligible to me at 11, and the priest who preached the most beautiful homily on the Gospel I’d ever heard when I was still going to a non-denominational church.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
This day, with all these memories filling my mind, I’m here on a trip back home to deliver my son to his new military duty station — miles and years away from where I am now. For the first time, I look at the statue I spent my childhood not looking at (it was St. Anthony, if you were wondering). I see the beams holding up the ceiling, carved with stars that are echoed in the design of the Tabernacle, reminding us that our Blessed Mother is the true compass bringing us safely to shore, lighting the way to Jesus.
I remember the day I sat on the stairs here and told my high school best friends this is where I was baptized. I cry again over the priest who invited my family forward during Communion at my grandfather’s funeral to bless us, even though we weren’t Catholic at the time, and how it made me weep. I tell my son these stories.
More than all that, I remember my grandmother putting her knobby hand on my cheek at 15 and telling me to love Jesus and make my mom take me to church. I remember my grandfather picking up donated food and delivering it around town to the needy and the monastery without telling any of us what he was doing.
My grandmother either went to or watched Mass every morning and said the Rosary daily at 4 p.m. every single day of my life. I still have the glow-in-the-dark Rosary and the booklet she gave me when I wanted to learn. And then, of course, there were the moments of levity — like when jokester Grandpa would play the Marine Corps Hymn from his keychain during Mass, just to get Grandma riled up.
Our legacy of faith is the most important gift we pass on to our families. For me, that legacy is rooted in a little parish on the coast of California. I remind my son — who doesn’t remember his great-great-grandparents — that this is where, and who, he comes from.
I encourage you to live your faith boldly and to share it with your family. Because one day, our great-grandchildren will be standing in a church somewhere, listening to the stories we left behind when we moved on from the Church Militant.
Hope, peace and grace to you.
Brandi Skidmore, now of Indiana, is the former vice president of the Ladies Altar Society at Our Lady of the Lake Catholic Church at Lake Village, Ark.
Editor’s note: Pastors, ministers or other writers interested in writing for this section may submit articles for consideration to shope@adgnewsroom.com. Writers should have connections to Southeast Arkansas. Please include your name, phone number and the name and location of your church or ministry.