The LuLac Edition #380, Dec. 27th, 2007

PHOTO INDEX: MY GOOD CHILDHOOD FRIEND DAVID DELLARTE AND THIS BLOG EDITOR, THE LAST CHRISTMAS DAY COMMUNICANTS AT ST. JOHN'S AND THE CHURCH BUILDING KNOWN AS ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST CHURCH.

THE LAST CHRISTMAS

I got there early, I thought it was going to be overcrowded with people from the past. Arriving at 8:45AM, I parked out in front of my boyhood parish, St. John the Baptist Slovak Church on William Street in Pittston. When the Diocese said they were closing the church in June, I knew I had to be there for the last Christmas service. Never really religious or pious, that church was still a huge part of my being, my life. My parents would take me there as a young boy. We'd sit in the third row so I could pay attention. We always got a ride from a Duryea insurance man, Gussie Massacara, his wife Anne and son Michael. Gussie always drove a huge polished car and never was without his rosary. Later I learned he was a POW in WWII but as a young boy, I only knew him as that jovial man who prayed intently every Sunday in the pew. I was taken by the ceremony of the Latin Mass, intrigued by the colors of the vestments, the movements of the priests saying the Mass. Father Super was my favorite because he had a flair adjusting his vestments, and the cover of the chalice. I had even thought about being a priest, prevailing on my sainted sister Sandee to make me a few sets of vestments. I played priest in my house. My parents were convinced I had the calling, I even thought I did but then along came fourth grade, girls and major leaguer baseball. The vestments, so carefully crafted by my sister now became dust rags.

In grade school, I attended Mass every single blasted, er blessed morning. Boys on the right side, girls on the left. I'd see my Aunt Sue (my mother's sister, a homemaker who walked over every morning from Warren Street in West Pittston) for that morning Mass. The Mass was the start of our day. In 1962 I recieved my first Holy Communion there. It was the only year that it was decreed by someone that all the boys must wear white suits with white bucks. What a nightmare for our mothers who scrambled to find those clothes in the early 60s. (I mean we were a bunch of John Travoltas even before there was a Travolta with those silly white suits.) It was a chilly morning and after recieving our first communion all of us went to Angelo Bufalino's photo studio for our group and individual photos. His studio was chilly so someone on his staff went out and got a few dozen cups of hot chocolate for us. One of the mothers gasped, "hot chocolate with a white suit? Oh no not that!"

During Lent we went to the Stations of the Cross Wednesday and Fridays. When my confirmation came, I had the good fortune to be confirmed with my cousin Paula and older class members. We were all terrified of the Bishop, Jerome Hannan because legend said he loved to trip the kids up on the questions he might ask. I think that was the nun's way of getting us to study because he was nothing more than kind and filled with humor. He would pass away a year later.

As a young boy, I went to three funerals of our priests. On Sept. 9th, 1961 while we watched the West Pittston Fireman's parade, we got the news that Father John Bednarcik died of a heart attack. On Christmas Day, 1964, his successor, Father Michael Krupar died of cancer on a warm, rainy night where the temperature never dropped below 55 degrees that evening. Then in April of 1965, Father Andrew Jurica, one of the first parish heads died at a very old age. Many people my age have never attended a funeral of a priest, by the time I was 11, I had been to three seeing first hand the solemnity and pomp of the ceremony. Death was a companion we knew, one Memorial Day weekend in 1965, 4 parish members died and our pastor talked about the fragility of life.

The first girl I ever had a real crush on would purposely enter enemy territory when returning from Communion during those morning Masses taking the long route around to slap me in the arm or the side of the head as I sat on the "boy's side". We were both sanctioned but we didn't care, we were kids. In 1968, my eighth grade class graduated from that school in that church. The boys now had blue suits on, the girls in white. That graduation Mass sent us on our way to adulthood. But leaving that church, we knew we had accomplished something for ourselves and our parents. We had become a generation that recieved a Catholic education because our parents made the sacrifices. Even at that young age, it was not lost on us.

In high school and college, I'd attend that church sparingly because of school and work commitments. There were few weddings to attend but many, many funerals. My late cousin, Francis Zujkowski, a frequent pallbearer for many of our relatives said the steps at the Baptist were the second toughest to navigate a coffin through. The toughest was St. Rocco's in Pittston. At my father's funeral on January 9th, 1980, a priest named Richard Tershak gave a euology our family never forgot. Six weeks later, my grandfather was buried from there too.

After I married, I'd attend church there once in a while to no emotional effect. It wasn't until later in 2005 when I worked for a company of heathens that I had to adjust my schedule for Mass. I wound up at the Saturday night mass at the old Slovak Church. An ailing Father Strish said Mass and that brought back a flood of memories for me for the years 1967-68. It was when he first started as an assistant to Father Super. He ran our first co-ed dances, imposing his musical tastes (Hensen Cargell's "Skip A Rope" vs. Mitch Ryder's "Too Many Fish In the sea", needless to say Cargell won out) chatted with us in the playground and even speculated on the Presidential race and Olympics of 1968. Seeing him age, seeing me age and looking around that church just brought back raw emotions that usually ended with me weeping. The life I had known, the people I cared about were going, going or gone.

As I entered the church on this Christmas morning, I was sure there would be an emotional breakdown. I was prepared to be a holy mess looking at the church from the distance of the back of the edifice. But something strange happened on Christmas, I felt peace. Peace that for over 100 years this church was the lifeblood of the Slovak community in the Greater Pittston area. Looking around the church, I saw the majority of people were over 75. I heard just one baby crying, and saw less than 10 teeners in the pews. Everyone else was over 40 and older including me. No one from my graduating grade school class was there except for my buddy Dave Dellarte. Everyone it seems had moved on. Except me. The church was cold and the heat began to hiss out of the radiators. A camera crew came in from WBRE to film and I understand some people were upset. At the start, I was prepared to go out and be interviewed on TV and talk about the injustice of it all. But I just sat there as the service went on, drinking in the atmosphere of the last Christmas Mass. It is a tragedy that the church I knew my whole life was closing. But as I thought of the many people who passed through its doors, in birth and death, I realized St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic Slovak Church had done its job ministering to the faithful exceptionally well. As I sat in the pew, with faces and events flashing before me at warp speed in my mind's eye, I consoled myself with the fact that the greater tragedy would be if this church, my church, founded by my forefathers had never existed.