Tag Archives: The South

Resurrection Chapel: Or, God Makes a Home for the Lonely

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Nesterov, Resurrection (c. 1892)

Resurrection (c. 1892), by Mikhail Nesterov. (WikiPaintings.org)

As I’ve relocated, I have lamented most of all leaving behind my mother parish, the one that gave birth to me as a Catholic and nourished me as a neophyte. It is not easy for me to make friends, but at Saint John’s I found such love and welcome and hospitality and cultivated several friendships that I will always cherish.

The parish here in my hometown is much larger and rather overwhelming. In the year I’ve been occasionally hearing Mass there, in times I’ve come home to visit, I have yet to make a new and real connection. This, I know, is partially my own fault, for not stepping out of my shell and introducing myself; but I just don’t do well in crowds.

I have dreaded the loneliness and the struggle to make friends and find a place here. But I should have remembered that God has always taken care of me, every step of my way. Though I tend to be a loner, I have never been alone. He has always provided, placing just the right people in my life at just the right time. And He has done so again — in a most prodigious and unexpected way, as if to affirm that every step of my road so far has been His, and to remind me that He continues to order the road ahead. Though it may appear dark and unknown, He will always provide a lamp for my feet and a light for my path (Psalm 119:105).

Tintoretto, The Resurrection of Christ (1565)

The Resurrection of Christ (1565), by Tintoretto. (WikiPaintings.org)

My first week at home was a struggle. Saturday I went Christmas shopping with my family, and missed the scheduled time for Reconciliation in the parish at home. I felt I desperately needed to go, and feared going another week without His Eucharistic presence. I was browsing MassTimes.org (a very handy website) and found a listing both of Mass times and Confession for parishes in my area. And then, my eyes lit on something unexpectedly familiar.

I have known for a while that there was a small mission parish in Lawrence County, Alabama, the neighboring county to mine, the root from which some dozen of my family lines sprang, and also (not entirely by coincidence) the county on which I’m focusing my thesis research. The last I heard, the Catholic mission in Lawrence County was meeting in Moulton, the county seat, and did not have a permanent church building or a priest. That, as it turns out, was old information. No longer a mission, they still do not have a priest, and rely on visiting priests from all around the diocese to celebrate Mass on Sunday evenings. They have since inhabited the building of an older church that had disbanded, a very old and storied church — among the oldest churches in Lawrence County, that gives its name to the surrounding community: Morris Chapel.

My eyes went wide. Morris Chapel, once a Methodist Episcopal church, is also the church where a number of my ancestors were members. My great-great-great-great-grandfather, Dr. William Alldredge, and his family were, I believe, members there; and my great-great-great-grandfather, Rev. Thomas Benton Parker, was at one time pastor of the church.

Dr. William Alldredge (1809–1880), ca. 1850.

Dr. William Alldredge (1809–1880).

Dr. William Alldredge is one of my more illustrious ancestors (in my own family, anyway). He was among the earliest settlers of North Alabama, coming down the river from Tennessee with his father in 1816. During the 1850s, he traveled to New York to attend medical school, and returning home, he settled in Lawrence County as a country doctor. Dr. William was also a staunch Methodist, of whom the story is told that once while engaged in a heated and lengthy argument with a Baptist friend on the issue of predestination, he struck the friend with his riding crop, arguing, “I couldn’t help it. It was predestined.”

Rev. Thomas Benton Parker (1844–1913) and his wife Frances Jane (Gray) Parker (1839–1910).

Rev. Thomas Benton Parker (1844–1913) and his wife Frances Jane (Gray) Parker (1839–1910).

Thomas Benton Parker was a longtime and well-known Methodist circuit rider and preacher in his day. I do not know a lot about his personality, don’t have any letters from him or stories about him, or any sermons that he preached (though some of these might exist). But I know that he must have been a good and faithful man and an inspiring preacher, because he was the father, father-in-law, or grandfather of some half-dozen Methodist ministers after him — including a young William Warren Aldridge, Dr. William’s grandson and my great-great-grandfather, who was saved and called to preach as a member of Thomas Benton’s flock, and married Tom’s daughter.

And Thomas Benton Parker lies buried there in the cemetery at Morris Chapel — which is what especially struck me in learning that a Catholic church now occupied the site.

Resurrection Chapel, at Morris Chapel

Resurrection Chapel, at Morris Chapel.

I was elated by my discovery — and relieved by the fact that the church offered Confession before Sunday evening Mass. It being only a few miles away, I resolved to attend, for the sake of Reconciliation, for curiosity, and to share my connection.

I found much more connection than I expected: an intimate, personal atmosphere in which I truly felt communion with the people around me and with the Lord. The parishioners — of whom there were only a couple dozen on this stormy night — were gracious, kind, and hospitable, more than any church I’ve ever been a part of. They immediately embraced me as a member of the family. Rick Chenault, the church director, in the final stages of entering the permanent diaconate, warmly welcomed me, and invited me to stay for a meeting of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul: this parish, though small, gives abundantly to do God’s work of caring for the poor, such that even other churches in the area send their cases to them. Everyone I met there heartily introduced themselves and treated me as a brother. And to my surprise, I already knew several of them, from school and work years ago. I had the distinct feeling that I was home.

Inside the church

They have made some additions since this photo was taken, but you can still tell it was once a country Methodist church. Also, it's not easy to retrofit Methodist pews with kneelers.

Resurrection Chapel was founded in 1992 by Glenmary Home Missioners, a Catholic society dedicated to reaching and serving the spiritual needs of the Catholic faithful in rural areas across America, and to spreading the Gospel of Christ and the Catholic faith into new areas. Currently, all of their missions are in the rural South, in traditionally evangelical, but today heavily unchurched, areas. Now in their own church building — at Morris Chapel — Resurrection Chapel is a growing and dynamic parish, full of love and life and faith. (I can attest to this even though I was there on such a stormy, messy night.)

I was surprised and again elated to learn that the first Catholic Church in North Alabama, in what would only in 1969 become the Diocese of Birmingham (that’s /ˈbɜrmɪŋhæm/, or bur´•ming•ham, for you Brits), was established in Moulton in Lawrence County in 1835 by Rev. Peter Mauvernay, to serve the local community of Irish immigrants. It lasted only a few years, until Fr. Mauvernay was called away to become the president of Spring Hill College in Mobile. Now, so many years later, we are striving to be a Catholic presence in such a heavily Protestant region.

T.B. Parker grave

The grave of T.B. Parker.

My dad quipped that T.B. Parker would turn in his grave if he knew that Catholics had now taken hold of his church — and that might have been the case in his earthly life. But I like to believe that Tom, now living with Christ, has discovered the truth of Christ’s Church, and was instrumental in bringing Resurrection to Morris Chapel, and bringing me there, too.

It is sad that the Methodist congregation of so many years has passed away; but the labors of the Methodists are a seed that has fallen to the ground and borne good fruit here. Resurrection is a more than apt name. Resurrection Chapel is a light in the darkness — both to the lost of Lawrence County, and to me.

It’s been a good while since I’ve believed in mere coincidences. And here are too many to stack up: that I would be longing and praying for a Catholic family in my new home; that Resurrection Chapel would be longing and praying for a permanent church home themselves; and that our needs would coincide, and we would find each other on the very ground my ancestors trod and laid down their dust. I am still overwhelmed and amazed by God’s providence — truly a home for the lonely (Psalm 68:6, NASB), and another signpost in the road.

In Christ There is No South or North

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So, hi. It’s been a while. My break has unfortunately been nearly as frazzling as school, with just as many thousands of things to do, but without the enforced structure of the academic week. I’ve had a lot of things on my mind, not least among them the Church. So I have several items to share. I’ll try to pace myself and not dump them all on you at once.

Benedictine Vespers

Benedictine monks singing Vespers on Holy Saturday (Wikipedia).

It is good to be back in my academic, and Catholic, home. My church is such a comfort to me. Daily Mass centers my day, and my week, on Christ. Despite that, I lost my Magnificat again a couple of weeks ago, throwing my daily routine into disarray. I’d grown accustomed to it for my morning and evening prayer, the bookends to my day. It gave me such peace to devote my day to the Lord at its beginning, and to go to him again at its end in the joy of thanksgiving, or the comfort of penitence. And suddenly, my guide in that devotion was gone. The good thing about it was, it forced me to do what I had been meaning to do for a long time: introduce myself into the actual Liturgy of the Hours. (I’ve been using the Universalis app for my new iPad.) And I’ve found in it such a deep, such a steadfast, such a constant companionship with the Lord. (Then, once again to the credit of my parish: After nearly a whole week of being missing, my Magnificant mysteriously showed up again in the book holder of the pew behind where I usually sit, where a man who remembered my carrying one pointed it out.)

Introit HymnsAs I mentioned not too long ago in a comment, our parish uses a very cool hymnary that sets the Church’s prescribed entrance antiphons (introits) to the music of established and respectable hymns. (I reckon this is the one: Introit Hymns for the Church Year Accompaniment by Christoph Tietze.) Many parishes, such as the one in my hometown, simply dispense with the prescribed introits as stuffy or unwieldy and replace them with hymns of their own choosing — something that apparently was allowed in limited circumstances by the 1970 Missal, but which many have gone over and beyond, to the regret of those of a more traditional, liturgical bent. The cool thing about what our church does is that we use the Church’s traditional introits as prescribed in the Missal, while losing the perceived stuffiness and unwieldiness of singing them in Gregorian chant, and yet retaining, in setting them to traditional hymns, a very traditional, churchy feel that many contemporary hymns lose. We’ve used many tunes that were familiar to me as a Protestant, some of Wesleyan or Lutheran origin.

And then today, our introit had a distinctly Southern feel. I could imagine, as we sang, the blue-haired old lady at the organ (not Ms. Betty — her hair is not quite blue), the good Baptist men and women in the pews around me (honestly, we Southern Catholics don’t look or dress much different than our Baptist brethren). I looked down at the byline. “McKee”. African American spiritual. No wonder it sounded Southern. The tune, as it turns out, has even older origins in an Irish folk tune, before it was adapted by African American slaves here in the South. How fitting it is, I thought, that we would sing it here today — the most ancient and exalted words of Scripture and the Roman Missal, set to the music of Southern slaves and common folk.

How fitting it is, too, that the tune of “McKee” was also set to such a hymn of communion and reconcilation as “In Christ There is No East or West”:

In Christ there is no East or West,
in him no South or North,
but one great fellowship of love
throughout the whole wide earth.

In Christ there is no East or West, North or South. Though there are still so many earthly divisions between us, the fact of us, Americans of evangelical Protestant background and descent, having reunited with Rome, is a testament to our longitudinal progress towards communion in Christ. And the divide between North and South — so ever-present in the memory of my city and state and region, especially to me as a Southern historian — is so completely bridged and blotted away by the Gospel of Christ, especially in his visible, Catholic Church, which covers all the world.

In him shall true hearts everywhere
their high communion find,
his service is the golden cord
close-binding all mankind.

Join hands, disciples of the faith,
whate’er your race may be!
Who serves my Father as a son
is surely kin to me.

Bishop Joseph Oliver Bowers

Bishop Joseph Oliver Bowers (b. 1910, Dominica), the first African bishop consecrated in the United States.

I looked around me as we sang. At the end of the next pew was an African American family. There are not very many in our parish; demographically our town, whether including or excluding the University’s student body, is predominantly white by far. Historically in the South, voluntary segregation between the races has continued within evangelical Christianity. Black people go to their own churches and white people go to theirs; there are even whole white and black denominations. I am blessed and thankful to have grown up in an ethnically diverse church with a long tradition of racial harmony; for many other Southerners, this hasn’t been the case. In the Catholic Church, I suspect there has been at least a little more racial diversity than elsewhere in the Deep South — the Church first established itself in more racially diverse, coastal, urban (and founded by the French) areas such as New Orleans and Mobile; Bishop Joseph Oliver Bowers, the first African bishop consecrated in the United States, was consecrated in Mississippi in 1953. But by and large, as the Church has moved into the upland South, it has been slow to take hold with traditionally evangelical African Americans. There are no black people in my RCIA class. But I pray, as racial division is healed in so many other ways in the South and throughout the U.S., that African Americans can find hope and healing and welcome in the Mother Church as I have.

In Christ now meet both East and West,
in him meet South and North,
all Christly souls are one in him,
throughout the whole wide earth.

May it truly and ever be so. May we find, too, reconciliation in Christ across political and cultural and regional and sectarian lines, the South with the North and the East with the West — between Protestants and Catholics, and Catholics and Orthodox. May we truly be one Body in Christ.

I Heart My Parish

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Magnificat, October 2011Yesterday morning at early Mass, absentminded as I am, I laid down my copy of this month’s Magnificat, and walked off. I’m not sure where I left it — either in the pew in the nave, or outside in the piazza where I sat with Audrey eating donuts.

I didn’t realize I was missing it until last night when I got home from RCIA, and was preparing for bed and evening prayers. This is the first month I’ve received Magnificat, but already I’ve grown very attached to it, and was rather distraught to be without it. I prayed on my own, read the Bible for a while, and resolved to go back to the church as early as possible today to look for my magazine.

There were two other Masses yesterday following the early one. It was a crowded day on account of football traffic; several hundreds of people passed through the church yesterday. Anyone could have picked up my book and left with it. And yet when I got there this morning, there it was on the table in the narthex.

And I had little doubt that it would be. I heart my parish. I trust the people in it. Everyone I’ve met here has been good and loving. The Church is full of all kinds of people, sinners and saints alike; but combine Christian charity and virtue, Southern honor and manners, and small-town respect and reciprocity, and you get a generally good and honest bunch of folks here in our parish.

“Peace be with y’all!”

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Today at Mass I sat near a man with a thick Southern accent. And it brought a smile to hear him say, “Lord, have mercy.”

One of my favorite things about our parish is the juxtaposition of the Catholic Church, a deeply traditional institution, with the American South, a deeply traditional place and people. I am passionate about my Southern identity and culture. I love to see very Southern, traditional people embracing an even older tradition.

In many ways, Catholicism is still a relative newcomer and an outsider to the uplands of the South I call my home. It is much more prevalent in the older, coastal cities such as New Orleans, Biloxi, and Mobile, which were settled by the French; it has been slower to penetrate into more rural regions. Of all the states in the U.S., Mississippi and Alabama have the two smallest percentages of Catholic adherents among their populations as a whole (about 7 and 6 percent). The Church is viewed with some skepticism and even hostility by many evangelicals and fundamentalists. Here, the predominant tradition — going back more than two centuries, to the period of settlement in these states, and even beyond — is evangelical.

I have deep roots in that heritage. I’m proud to have at least half a dozen Baptist and Methodist ministers in my family tree. It troubled me, at first, to consider departing from that. But now, I find it fitting. Catholicism may not be an essential part of the Southern tradition, yet — but one of the key aspects of the Southern identity is that it embraces, incorporates, and celebrates traditions of many forms and origins: our food, drawn so much from slave culture and from a variety of other cuisines; our music, again influenced by African, European, and Caribbean sounds; our customs, such a blending of the Celtic and English and our very own cultivation. The South is a great big cultural melting pot; nothing that enters it stays the same, but takes on a distinctly Southern character. Already, we Southerners are embracing Catholicism and giving it a very Southern flavor. Catholicism joins well with Southern hospitality. And it is fitting that a people who value tradition as much as we do should be a part of the tradition of Christ. Peace be with y’all!