My husband, who helped create this website, isn't Catholic. Just tonight, something like a week later, I finally got around to reading his little blog entry on St. Mary's. I thought it was touching. He really gets it. Yeah, I guess that's why we're married.
Martin's plug for St. Mary's
The "struggle for authenticity, humanity and the remembrance of the experience of those who struggled before us," as Martin puts it, is something that drives me. All that is, after all, is our common yearning for God, who is our origin and final home. On this earth, we join Him on the cross--that's how we find Him. In our daily struggles: the big ones and the little ones. And we hope that in the midst of our mundane lives, we can offer something, however small, to God and it will please Him.
My own ancestors, very much like the founders of St. Mary's, were Italian farmers who came to South Jersey for a better life. They grew tomatoes, raised chickens, ran a printing business. My grandmother taught in a one-room schoolhouse in East Vineland. She had strawberry blonde hair and green eyes. She cared for her sick relatives with MS. She was tough and had a good heart, ate Goldberg's peanut chews even though she was diabetic, taught me how to play Pinochle, made the best ravioli known to man, and force fed me pesto. She was deeply devout, but her relationship to Our Lord wasn't something she talked about. She lived it. Same with my grandfather. He was a short, stocky man and I'm not sure he ever had hair on his head. His hands were tan and tough. His nails had dirt under them. He was quiet, loving, smelled like pipe tobacco, gave a hug that could temporarily stop your breath, and would give you the shirt off his back. He was a proud Kiwanis member for something like 60 years, a K of C, North Italy Club, Diamond Social. Loved to watch baseball and grew the meanest garden ever. I'll never grow cantelopes so sweet. He had the greatest belly laugh and would slam his fist down on the table after repeating a story, cracking himself up. He really was the greatest. The both of them always dressed nice--my grandfather always wore a brown suit--but they wore clothes until they were irreparable. They wasted nothing, they bickered continually. (That's how they showed their love. They were good Italians, after all.) I love them dearly, and know that now, together with their daughter, my sweet mother, must be praying for me in Heaven. (That and shaking their heads at me, I'm sure.) Next to God, I owe the three of them everything. They not only provided for me materially, but were tangible examples of what it means to live the Faith.
In this, all I mean to say is that I have never been so clear about anything in my entire life. Not anything. That God wants us to work to save St. Mary's, I am sure about. So until he tells us to stop, we must keep working. Think of the hundred founders of St. Mary's who, like my own relatives, must be watching us now and praying for our success. Think of it, with the choirs of angels around them, just as the angels hover around the holy altar at St. Mary's and all places where the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass takes place. They're praying for us. Whether we succeed or not is ultimately in God's hands, but as we seek to glorify God in all the little actions of our lives, let's remember those who went before us and what they struggled to give us: a little slice of heaven here on earth, our little St. Mary's.*
*My own grandparents' ancestors helped found the original Sacred Heart, which I guess you could call St. Mary's "mother." And then later, the "new" Sacred Heart on Landis Ave. in Vineland. My grandparents were married in the rectory in suits, very un-fancy. How very them. Presumably they'd been baptized there at Sacred Heart, but it's possible that on my grandmother's side they might've been over at St. Mary's in East Vineland, on Union Road. That's where many of my Piccioni relatives are buried and where that side of my family's from. My own parents were married in Sacred Heart and my mom had gone all through school there. My grandparents are buried at Sacred Heart Cemetery. To the best of my knowledge I have no familial connection with St. Mary's, but in this area anything's possible. My godmother does, as it turns out, and taught CCD at St. Mary's herself.
Martin's plug for St. Mary's
The "struggle for authenticity, humanity and the remembrance of the experience of those who struggled before us," as Martin puts it, is something that drives me. All that is, after all, is our common yearning for God, who is our origin and final home. On this earth, we join Him on the cross--that's how we find Him. In our daily struggles: the big ones and the little ones. And we hope that in the midst of our mundane lives, we can offer something, however small, to God and it will please Him.
My own ancestors, very much like the founders of St. Mary's, were Italian farmers who came to South Jersey for a better life. They grew tomatoes, raised chickens, ran a printing business. My grandmother taught in a one-room schoolhouse in East Vineland. She had strawberry blonde hair and green eyes. She cared for her sick relatives with MS. She was tough and had a good heart, ate Goldberg's peanut chews even though she was diabetic, taught me how to play Pinochle, made the best ravioli known to man, and force fed me pesto. She was deeply devout, but her relationship to Our Lord wasn't something she talked about. She lived it. Same with my grandfather. He was a short, stocky man and I'm not sure he ever had hair on his head. His hands were tan and tough. His nails had dirt under them. He was quiet, loving, smelled like pipe tobacco, gave a hug that could temporarily stop your breath, and would give you the shirt off his back. He was a proud Kiwanis member for something like 60 years, a K of C, North Italy Club, Diamond Social. Loved to watch baseball and grew the meanest garden ever. I'll never grow cantelopes so sweet. He had the greatest belly laugh and would slam his fist down on the table after repeating a story, cracking himself up. He really was the greatest. The both of them always dressed nice--my grandfather always wore a brown suit--but they wore clothes until they were irreparable. They wasted nothing, they bickered continually. (That's how they showed their love. They were good Italians, after all.) I love them dearly, and know that now, together with their daughter, my sweet mother, must be praying for me in Heaven. (That and shaking their heads at me, I'm sure.) Next to God, I owe the three of them everything. They not only provided for me materially, but were tangible examples of what it means to live the Faith.
In this, all I mean to say is that I have never been so clear about anything in my entire life. Not anything. That God wants us to work to save St. Mary's, I am sure about. So until he tells us to stop, we must keep working. Think of the hundred founders of St. Mary's who, like my own relatives, must be watching us now and praying for our success. Think of it, with the choirs of angels around them, just as the angels hover around the holy altar at St. Mary's and all places where the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass takes place. They're praying for us. Whether we succeed or not is ultimately in God's hands, but as we seek to glorify God in all the little actions of our lives, let's remember those who went before us and what they struggled to give us: a little slice of heaven here on earth, our little St. Mary's.*
*My own grandparents' ancestors helped found the original Sacred Heart, which I guess you could call St. Mary's "mother." And then later, the "new" Sacred Heart on Landis Ave. in Vineland. My grandparents were married in the rectory in suits, very un-fancy. How very them. Presumably they'd been baptized there at Sacred Heart, but it's possible that on my grandmother's side they might've been over at St. Mary's in East Vineland, on Union Road. That's where many of my Piccioni relatives are buried and where that side of my family's from. My own parents were married in Sacred Heart and my mom had gone all through school there. My grandparents are buried at Sacred Heart Cemetery. To the best of my knowledge I have no familial connection with St. Mary's, but in this area anything's possible. My godmother does, as it turns out, and taught CCD at St. Mary's herself.