Faith amid an Ash Wednesday blizzard
Young and old turn out at Waterloo church to mark start of Lent.
WATERLOO — I try, with varying degrees of success, to take joy wherever I find it. I found it in the middle of a blizzard on Ash Wednesday at Sacred Heart Catholic Parish , the church I grew up in.
I thought I'd slip over (not literally) for 8 a.m. Mass because I knew the weather wasn't going to get any better for any later services, there or anywhere else in town.
I really didn't know what to expect.
The Grout Museum District a block away, where I work, was closed. I half expected to find the church locked, and I wasn't sure how many people would be there anyway given the weather, particularly since Ash Wednesday is not a holy day of obligation in the Catholic Church (i.e. you won't go to Hell for missing Mass on Ash Wednesday -- the threat of eternal damnation can be a great motivator with many practicing Catholics).
But it was a very nice turnout. The church was maybe a third to 40 percent full. In addition to all of us gray haired Anglos there were a lot of Burmese families there - young families with a lot of little kids. They obviously had a snow day from school, but their folks still got them to church. Probably makes sense from a parenting standpoint not to deviate from the routine, but obviously their faith life is a big part of that routine.
Two pews in front of me, there were two little Burmese kids, a brother and a sister, whose feet didn't even touch the ground when they were seated. I could see the shadows of their little legs swinging back and forth, like little metronomes. If they'd been marching, they'd have been in perfect step. They were so cute. Reminded me of another little brother and sister at Sacred Heart about 60 years ago.
The first snow day I remember was when I was in second grade at Sacred Heart in 1964-65. It just happened to be St. Patrick's Day. Mom was baking frosted shamrock cookies. I was wearing my little "Erin Go Bragh" button with the U.S. and Irish harp flags and green ribbon that Dad had given me to wear to school the year before, and I was ready to show it off again. I was a little confused because I didn't know anything about snow days, but I knew Mom’s warm shamrock cookies fresh out of the oven were going to be pretty good.
My old parish grade school closed a few years ago but it is now home to Royal Legacy Christian Academy, co-founded by Chassidi Fergusion, grandniece of late longtime civil rights activist Anna Mae Weems. Anna Mae brought Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to Waterloo in November 1959 — and one of their first stops was at Sacred Heart to visit our pastor, Monsignor E.J. O’Hagan, who welcomed them with open arms. Monsignor O’Hagan was ordained a priest in 1918 and one of his first parishes as a young priest was the target of cross burnings by the Ku Klux Klan. He told us kids about it at an assembly celebrating the 50th anniversary of his ordination in 1968.
I also remember from my grade school years that one of our teachers, or Monsignor O'Hagan himself, told us a story about another snow day when the local paper ran a photo of folks trudging to church during a big snowstorm. The headline above the photo caption said, "Hope it was a short sermon."
The folks who showed up in the Ash Wednesday blizzard at Sacred Heart that morning were a living homily to me. And as author C.S. Lewis put it, I was surprised by joy.
Pat Kinney is a freelance writer and former longtime news staffer with the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier and, prior to that, several years at the Ames Tribune. He is currently an oral historian with the Grout Museum District in Waterloo. His “View from the Cedar Valley” column is part of “Iowa Writers Collaborative,” a collection of news and opinion writers from around the state who previously and currently work with a host of Iowa newspapers, news organizations and other publications. They are listed below. Clink on the links to check them out, subscribe for free - and, if you believe in the value of quality journalism, support this column and/or any of theirs with a paid subscription.
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Thank you for writing this story and bringing joy to my morning, Pat.
Loved reading this!