St.
Eugene’s eventually closed in the Year of Our Lord 1989 due to “white flight”
and demographic changes after the 1967 riots in Detroit, and with this the
demise of the place where I spent some of the holiest years of my life, years
in which neither I nor my classmates were ashamed to publicly give
witness to our faith in Christ (yes, I too dressed in sheets and played the
priest in acting out the Mass with my siblings). My memories of participation
at Mass are glorious ones. There was a sense of the sacred that has
since, through misimplementation of Sacrosanctum Concilium, long since
evaporated at Mass.
I
graduated from St. Eugene’s in 1966, when the liturgical changes after the
close of the council promulgated in Sacrosanctum Concilium to the best
of my memory had not yet been thoroughly implemented. I journeyed off to
Detroit Cathedral High School downtown, where my experience of the presence of
Christ in the Eucharist began to fade, as I no longer was required to attend
daily Mass, and cannot remember one thing taught to me in high school religion
class by my teacher, who was also the Business Ed. and Typing teacher and track
coach. A rumination of the yearbooks for these years reveals photo captions
such as “DC Sodality Men Reach Out,” and “Fr. Trainor Celebrates Mass Facing
the Seniors as he Closes the Senior Retreat.” To be sure, in my adolescent
years I hadn’t the foggiest idea of what was happening in the Church in the
United States after the Council, and, after seeing a pretty, red-headed
Sophomore on the bus on her way to Immaculata High one day (in the end I proved
too shy to sit next to her on the DSR bus...), I confess I really never paid it
much attention.
Comments
Post a Comment