Now This Is A Church

Saint Mary Star of the Sea in Beverly, MA

The thought of leaving the only parish you've ever know can be unthinkable for some Catholics.  In fact, the sudden closure of several churches within the Boston Archdiocese several years ago caused much discord and upheaval.  If your spiritual needs are not being met, however, changing parishes can be quite easy.  During my childhood at St. John the Evangelist in Beverly, I just assumed our great priests would always be around but by my early teens, they were no longer there due to a series of transfers and the death of our pastor.  At a time when I was seeking closeness with my faith, the new priests assigned to our parish seemed distant and cold.  Their sermons just didn't do it for my family and soon my older brother and I were making up nicknames for them like Fr. Forgetful and Fr. Boring.  With the departure of our interim pastor, we were assigned Fr. George Butera.  He seemed friendly enough but was a bit quirky and after a while my mother came to the realization that he was always asking his parishioners for money.  This was a real sore spot for us because the church's interior had already undergone a recent and unnecessary renovation.

After sticking it out for a few years, my mother wanted something more so on a random Sunday in late 1992, she decided we would give Saint Mary Star of the Sea in downtown Beverly a try.  It was a large traditional looking church (circa 1908) made out of red brick with a steeple that could be seen for miles.  My first time inside had actually taken place many years before when my mother introduced my brother and me to the Holy Thursday tradition of visiting seven different churches in one evening.  When we entered St. Mary's again and took our place amongst the parishioners, the only thing I had remembered about the building from that initial visit was the high ceiling covered in ornate woodwork.  My brother admired the architecture and remarked, "Now this is a church."  I was struck by the large and diverse congregation which seemed to include a good amount of young people.  I guess we get so attached to our parishes, it almost felt like I was a spy trying to blend in with the crowd or at the very least, a stranger who had been invited to a friend of a friend's party.  The teen girl who sang during the Mass was very talented and my brother thought she was cute too.  The priest, who was nearing the end of his assignment here, gave a very upbeat sermon which only added to the positive energy we found at St. Mary Star of the Sea.

After Mass, we decided right then and there to make this church our new spiritual home.  The beautiful architecture was a plus and despite my brother's remark, it was a combination of many things that drew us to this place.  You just got a sense that the congregation was dedicated in its faith and had worked hard to build a wonderful community that was a reflection of God's love.  As my mother, brother and I returned week after week, we didn't feel like strangers anymore.  The pastor at the time was Fr. Richard Johnson.  He seemed to be a likable grandfatherly figure with a positive attitude that often shone through in his sermons.  There was also Fr. Richard Mehm who was extremely conservative in his beliefs and took his faith very seriously.  You could always count on his sermons to tackle the hot button issues head on without apology.  New to St. Mary's in 1990 was the fairly young and somewhat jocular Fr. Richard Beaulieu who had belonged to this parish as a child.  He was more liberal in his outlook and wasn't afraid to call out the hypocrisy of conservatives which of course upset some parishioners.  I wondered if he and Fr. Mehm often butted heads behind closed rectory doors.  This was all so very refreshing to me because at the very least, these priests had something to say and their sermons usually gave you something to think about which had not been the case with the church we left behind.

A regular sight at one of the morning Masses was a little boy who liked to shake hands so much, he left his pew and went up and down the isles in order to reach as many people as possible.  I marveled at that kind of innocence and it reminded me of how I saw the world during my early childhood at St. John's.  How cynical it was for me to wonder when he would stop doing that.

My initial experiences with St. Mary Star of the Sea were uplifting but I wanted so much more from my faith and this church.  Doubt and awkwardness had punctuated my high school years.  Would this house of worship provide a nurturing environment to help me find my place in the world?