St.. Alphonsus

St. Alphonsus Catholic Chruch was on Constance Street, right off of Magazine, not far from Jackson Avenue...still is.
Perhaps the thing I most remember about this church was that it was always open. That made an impression on me. That church trusted people, even me.
Houses and apartments in the Irish Channel were not air conditioned. In fact, not many places were.
Air conditioning was such a big deal that businesses advertised it. There would be a penguin somewhere on the door or front window of a place to get the point across. St. Alphonsus didn't have a penguin, but word got out.
My cousin, Mary (Mibby), and I would be out playing in the streets during the summer, and when the heat got the best of us, we would go over to the church, pull open one of its big doors and.....oh, the cool!
It was Mibby who knew about the holy water in the bowl at the entrance. I would put my hand in it, lick it, wipe it on my cheek. Holy water felt good.
It was a beautiful place! I partucularly liked all of the prayer candles in the back. We were not Catholic, but we loved lighting up all those candles in little red glasses. I think we were supposed to pay something, but no one ever fussed us for doing it.
All those candles lit up was an amazing sight.
St. Alphonsus smelled good too. Later on, I would find out about incense. But at the time, the cool, the glow of candles, and the rich, heavy smell were very special.
Sometimes there would be ladies kneeling, praying silently. Some would go into the small rooms to the side of the church where is was said that priests waited to speak with them. There were times when I tried to get Mibby to go with me to see what the priests had to say. We never did.
We would get into a pew and sit or kneel....taking in the wonder of the place, it's art.
No other place I had ever been was like this...with it's quality of light, its richness. Some people might have thought it odd that this jewel of a place was in the middle of such poverty and need. But maybe we needed a jewel all of our own.
There were statues everywhere. Mary holding the baby Jesus, Jesus on the cross.... The statue that made me curious had Jesus reaching into His chest for His heart. What was He going to do with it?
It was so quiet and peaceful! Someone coughing, the knock of a kneeler being put back into place, the rustle of a woman's dress as she got up. Only sounds like these pupnctuated the silence and made the lack of noise even more obvious.
At some point, we knew we better go....it might be that we knew a case of the giggles was on its way.
That wouldn't be a good thing for the magic of the place and the people who had come seeking it out.
Opening the door as we left the church, it was all out there waiting for us....the glare of the sun, the heat, the noise....and in the distance the red brick of the St. Thomas Housing Project. There was something significant that we were leaving...leaving a place that made me feel cleaner, lighter.
But we knew that we could always go back whenever we wanted to. They trusted us.

Mary Ida (Mibby) died very young of breast cancer. It would be a good thing if she made it to some place like Saint Alphonsus.