Once every month or so, we would take a ride to Fall River, MA, to go to Saint Anne's Church. In those days the church dominated the town; you could see it on your right as you drove south and east on I-195 and crossed the Braga Bridge over the Taunton River. We'd get off at the first exit and drive through a little warren of triple deckers and tenement houses, relics of the days when Fall River was a mill town, and turn on South Main Street, only to have the landscape open up with the park at our right and the big church on our left. In those days you could park right out front, across the street, and look at the magnificent structure; the original Catholics in Fall River were French, and the church was built in homage of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupre in Quebec City. Upstairs the sanctuary looked like a little cathedral, with smaller chapels in the rear. Mother would patiently go from chapel to chapel and light a candle at each and pray for her family and Dad's family and anyone else who was ill. No matter what the season the church was always quiet, dark and so peaceful. The old wood in the church—the pews, the confessional booths, the other seats—were worn smooth, and it smelled of candle wax and incense.
Downstairs there was a second sanctuary which was eventually fixed up with pews, but originally had folding chairs. In the corner was a big pile of mostly wooden but some metal crutches, some of them ancient. These were the implements of dozens of people who had come to the church praying to be cured—and they were. Like the sick man who rose from his pallet, they walked unaided for the first time in years. It was awe-inspiring.
There was also a little antechamber downstairs where a priest was always seated in the office. Mom would go in to speak with him to have a Mass said for her parents or someone else, and I would look at the little booklets and tracts in metal racks outside his door. (The church used to have a little shop, but it closed back in the 60s.) Some of the little booklets were for children, and some were of the saints, called Miniature Stories of the Saints. I had four of them; there was a story about the saint on the left side and a picture of the saint on the right, and they would be similar to this. Even when the story of the saint was something horrible, like St. Sebastian being pierced with arrows or St. Andrew hung on a cross upside down or St. Catherine tied to her wheel, the picture could always make you believe that person went straight to sit by God when they were martyred. It was comforting.
St. Joseph had to be an exceptional man. Think about it, you are to be married and then discover your fiance is pregnant. You love her, and then you realize "Oh, she must have cheated on me!" How that must have hurt! And then she tells you this incredible story, about an angel! Preposterous! Angels don't come to speak to working people like us, they are for the high priests and the mighty. Of course he doubted her—until the angel found him as well. So he brought up this unusual boy like his own son, taught Him a craft, took Him to Jerusalem like a good parent of those days would. I wonder if Joseph was dismayed at twelve-year-old Jesus talking with the temple elders, his excuse being He was doing His Father's work. Aren't I his father? But from all indications Joseph understood.
He died before Jesus fulfilled his destiny.
Buona festa di San Guiseppe, and peace and long life to all exceptional fathers everywhere.
(I just found out Ste. Anne's closed last year. They celebrated their last Mass on the final Sunday of the liturgical year, November 25, 2018. Apparently the church was in disrepair and the diocese of Fall River has no money to fix it. I am very sad.)
