"Our people were scattered around the country like refugees, " he says. "I thought, 'The church is a way to bring them home."
-Fr. Tony Ricard

So true! There are so many scattered sheep. Our churches are ways to bring them back to home to God and to the Faith. Closing them up just closes that familiar door, the only way they know back to return to Him.

Although following Katrina this parish was slated to be closed, the parish pitched in, with their pastor at the helm. They believed in themselves, their faith, their parish, and, well, you read the story. It'll bring tears to your eyes.

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Determined priest provides place for parishioners after Hurricane Katrina

by Sheila Stroup, The Times-Picayune

Sunday August 30, 2009, 5:00 AM

It was September 2005, and New Orleans was a ghost town. The 8th Ward neighborhood that surrounded Our Lady Star of the Sea lay in ruins. His rectory had taken in 6 feet of water from the levee failures that followed Hurricane Katrina.

But the ebullient priest never doubted that the red-brick church on St. Roch Avenue would reopen.

"There was something in my heart that told me, 'People are coming back to Our Lady Star of the Sea no matter what, ' " Ricard, 45, says. "So I never asked, 'What do we do if they don't come back?' I asked, 'What do we have to do to bring everyone back?' "

During 77 days of living in exile with his family near Leesville, his faith grew stronger.

"My parishioners were people who had always lived in New Orleans, and I knew they wanted to come home as much as I did, " he says.

The native New Orleanian -- "Father Tony" to his parishioners, the young men he mentors and members of the New Orleans Saints, for whom he serves as Catholic chaplain -- reasoned that if he opened the church, his flock would return to the city.

"Our people were scattered around the country like refugees, " he says. "I thought, 'The church is a way to bring them home.' "

The 75-year-old building, raised several feet above the ground, sustained relatively minor damage from Katrina: The air conditioning and heating units were ruined, and the wooden floor needed refinishing, but otherwise, the lovingly refurbished church was in good shape.

He and his parishioners had brought it back from the brink of death once already. He knew they could do it again.

"What we had going for us was faith and an awful lot of love, " he says.

. . . . . . .

When he became pastor in July 2001, the church at 1835 St. Roch Ave. was crumbling. Active members numbered 120, and there were rumors that the archdiocese was going to close the church.

But instead of performing the last rites, the young priest challenged the people to breathe life back into Our Lady Star of the Sea.

He told them, "I will bring my gifts to the table, but you need to bring your gifts, too."

His lively homilies made them believe in themselves and their church and convinced them to be generous during the offertory. The congregation grew week by week as word spread about the dynamic new pastor, and in eight months the working-class worshipers donated $50,000 to restore the church's interior.

"They were determined to save their parish, " he says.

At that time, a pastel mural behind the altar showed Mary surrounded by a host of fair-skinned angels.

"But all those angels had moved to Metairie, " Ricard jokes.

New Orleans artist Vernon Dobard convinced the new pastor that behind that wall were other angels trying to get out. As part of the renovation, the New Orleans artist created "The Dance of Holy Innocence, " a vibrant floor-to-ceiling mural that shows Mary surrounded by gorgeous angels in flowing gowns, representing the various cultures that have worshiped at Our Lady Star of the Sea.

"It was so beautiful, " Ricard says, "people cried when they saw it."

. . . . . . .

In the dark days that followed the hurricane, Ricard had another reason to reopen Our Lady Star of the Sea. His second parish, St. Philip the Apostle in the 9th Ward, had been under 10 feet of water for weeks and couldn't be salvaged. He wanted members of St. Philip's to have a place to call home.

"It was really a kind of natural migration, " he says.

He had been appointed pastor of that church a few months after becoming pastor at Our Lady Star of the Sea, and for five years he had the difficult job of dividing himself between the two church communities.

"It was like having two families, " he says. "It also meant I had two sets of old ladies who thought they knew everything about running a church."

At the same time, his reputation as a national speaker was growing, and he was traveling nearly every month.

"It was tough going back and forth, " he says. "It was a challenge for the parishioners and for me."

Katrina left far greater challenges in its wake, but Ricard was undaunted. On Christmas, less than four months after the storm, he celebrated Mass with more than 400 parishioners.

"I called it the 'we-opening' of our church, " he says.

In February 2006, after he learned that Our Lady Star of the Sea was not on the reopening list released by the Archdiocese of New Orleans, he asked for the chance to prove his church could survive.

He explained to the congregation what that meant: They would have to pay their bills. They would have to pay their monthly assessment to the archdiocese. They would have to come up with the money for repairs to the church.

"I told them, 'We have to do this all on our own, ' " he says.

They opened their hearts and their pocketbooks, and when Ricard traveled around the country speaking he would ask the congregations to take up a second collection for his church instead of paying him.

At the gospel Mass on Dec. 16, 2007, when he read the letter from Archbishop Alfred Hughes announcing the official reopening of Our Lady Star of the Sea, 525 people stood up and cheered.

"Today, we rejoice that like that reed swaying in the wind, we have not been broken by the disaster of Katrina, " their pastor told them. "We have not faltered. We have not failed."

(Click on the link above to read the rest of the article. Thank you to our friends at "The Insuppressible" St. Henry's Parish New Orleans for recommending it to us.)