Talking church

When I was about 14 my friends and I were playing ball on the hill I grew up on in South Troy when we heard the sirens. Firetruck after firetruck whizzed down 4th street heading towards the Menands Bridge. We were sure the bridged collapsed so we hopped on our bikes and gave pursuit only to see the trucks turning up Stow Avenue instead. It was then that we saw a terrible thing; the church on the hill was burning.

Fires are evil things. They take and destroy without mercy or conscience. There is nothing sadder than watching a family watch their home burn. But this was not a home per say; it was St. Michael’s church.

Growing up a half mile away I was a St. Joseph’s boy, meaning that is where I was baptized, an altar boy and attended mass. I had never set foot in St. Michael’s and looking up at the flames it was clear I would never have that chance. To see the faces of the parishioners losing their house of worship was heartbreaking but something told you this wasn’t the end of the story. And it wasn’t.

I’m waxing nostalgic about old churches because I recently paid a visit to St. Michael’s in the place they rebuilt next to H.V.C.C. A nice woman in charge of the Sunday breakfast invited me to be a guest speaker last year but I was too busy so when she asked me again I couldn’t say no. It was kind of an “All God” weekend for me since the night before visiting St. Michael’s I sat with the Bishop at a fundraiser in Albany for local Catholic schools. I was their emcee. When I stand before St. Peter someday listening to a recitation of my sins I’ll be sure to mention this 24 hour stretch.

As for the breakfast at St. Michael’s I told the church crowd some silly stories about working in TV news. A nice nun asked me what I thought about Donald Trump’s distaste for the media and I told her in most cases it was well deserved. She said, “You really surprise me with that answer.” I told her I call a spade a spade and while Trump brings much of his media misery on himself he has been treated unfairly by the press. At that point I think we both wanted a change of subject so we tended to our scrambled eggs.

I then turned my talk to morality or the lack thereof in the world. Sometimes I think I’m the only one who sees the direct correlation be- tween a society that has turned its back on the belief in a higher power and all the troubles we now endure; crime, war, drug addiction. I won’t be so trite as to say “God is the answer” to all of society’s ills but believing there is something much larger than us, someone who will hold us accountable, certainly gives one pause. I once watched two men who are much smarter than me have a debate over the existence of God. The guy who was prodeity made the simple point that if there is no God then people are free to do whatever they want without consequence. It does seem like we have a lot of that going on these days.

I won’t pretend that I find myself in a church pew every Sunday morning but I do know, for me anyway, whatever troubles the world hoists on my shoulders I always feel better walking out of church than I did walking in. In fact I can’t walk by a church, even in a strange city, without wanting to go in and say a prayer. I guess I’m strange that way.

It was nice spending time at St. Michael’s and seeing how well they have risen from the ashes of that fire so long ago. You can tell they are happy there and very much a family. My only regret was not telling them the joke I told the Bishop the night before. You want to hear it?

One Sunday a priest told the congregation that the roof was leaking and needed to be fixed so if people could put a little extra in the collection plate that would be swell. The following week when people came to mass they saw the roof was patched and the priest happy. He thanked everyone for helping out but singled out 95 year old Mrs. O’Grady for generously donating $10,000. The priest called her up on the altar and said, “We don’t usually do this but as a way of saying thanks I’m going to let you pick out the three hymns we sing at church today.” Mrs. O’Grady was hard of hearing and asked again and again what he wanted her to do? “Pick out your favorite three hymns!!” he shouted in her ear. The old gal looked out over the parishioners, picked out the three best looking men and said, “I pick him and him and him.”