We went to Church on Sundays.......

 

I was born and raised a Catholic and Sunday Mass was a constant in my life. My nanny gave me the church offering of a gold half sovereign on the day I was born in lieu of putting it in the plate. My dad and uncle had been altar boys and my nanny worked for the nuns while possibly working for free. Our Catholicism flows down through the Irish sides of my paternal family.

My mum, a Catholic convert was not as versed in all the ritual but was a fierce believer. There was no thought of doing anything that would displease the parish priest, Father Nolan.

We had moved from their childhood parishes in Neutral Bay and Woollahra. When we first moved to the northern suburbs our parish was Our Lady Help of Christians Epping. A new parish of St Gerard Majella, Carlingford was formed when I was about eight. My father was like a pillar of the church. He and his mates renovated the old World War II radio communications building to become our first church in the new suburb. They built the school classrooms, room by room as the years progressed. The project gave great satisfaction and achievement to the parishioners. Every weekend they removed the weeds and lantana and used all their trade skills to make this old and neglected building into the parish church.

 

Converting an old WW2  building into a church

Building the school class by class

Several working bees were held to build facilities, school rooms etc. The ladies supplied the cakes and sandwiches. From the outset it was a very social church full of young families moving to a new suburb. With all the building came social events to raise funds. The altar ladies gathered up flowers, ivy and decorations to adorn the event ball tables.

The name of the parish, St Gerard Magella, was suggested by the mothers of the parish. He was patron saint of mothers and family life, something we all felt at peace with and it certainly encapsulated the spirit of our Parish.

The male parishioners formed the St Vincent of Paul Society and my mum was in the Altar Society which cleaned and decorated the church with flowers each week or on special religious occasions.

We were always late for church on Sundays. I remember my First Communion day. Late as usual and wearing my pure white dress and veil, Dad took a corner too fast and too sharply to see a plate of savouries for the communion breakfast slide off the tray and all over my dress.

Each Sunday we donned our Sunday best and the ladies and girls  wore hats and mantillas. Some days we would pick up a poor family to transport to church. All of us Kerrs crammed into our little car plus the mother and her two children. We would be running late as usual and when we arrived Dad would turn into “usher mode” because the church wardens used to walk the aisle and find spare spaces for the late comers. Churches were always filled in those days. Often these spaces were in the front row. He'd indicate with a pointed hand and then the spaces with his two fingers. So embarrassing for us and the other family we brought to church.

Dad and his mates always had plenty of customers purchasing Catholic weeklies, cards and calendars at the piety shop.

Later the modern church was built. It had a huge space out the front and I'm sure Father Nolan went home for breakfast and lunch while waiting for the stragglers to stop chatting and the children to be gathered up and taken home.

Sometimes if it was a good day those who were left would opt to go on a picnic at Windsor, Ebenezer or Mount Wilson. The mums had to always plan for this by having barbecue meat and baked cakes in anticipation.

Needless to say it was not in and out in an hour even though Dad tried to shave off a few minutes at the beginning. Nine o’clock Mass became at least eleven o’clock home. Long enough to leave the Sunday roast cooking at home for our return.

Sometimes it was a Sunday night meet up for early tea at Manly Beach or a trip to Mona Vale for a swim. The families were good friends and being Catholic there was an ever-increasing number of children. The families formed good lifelong friendships with the mums supporting the school at the Mother's Club and the men up at monthly golf, weekly St Vincent de Paul meetings and squash nights.

At our particular Mass a bus load of children from the North Rocks School for the Deaf came along to church . A few of the girls took a liking to my brother and heads were turned and their fingers wiggled with sign language. They giggled away  and we had no clue what they were saying amongst themselves.

The children of the parish went off to various local Catholic High Schools. Later our parents started youth groups at Church and we had rock masses. A few of my friends and I married the boys we met at the newly formed youth club. My husband and I married in the church and brought our growing family back to visit from time to time when visiting on weekends.

Our wedding at the new church with some  members of the youth group

Taking the idea of family picnic days a step further, the Carlingford crowd began holidays together and eventually began camping on several weekends a year. One of the parishioners had the idea of buying a dilapidated old home on the water at Empire Bay. Enough room for all the families and their caravans. We just met up at a different church at Ettalong on those weekends and conveniently the priest was a local boy from our area.

Sadly, I buried my parents and some of their good friends from that church.

I still feel the loss of that special community which cannot be replicated in the same way at my local church in Dapto although it is very vibrant in its own way. One day a friend from Dapto church told me that someone at the St Luke's Nursing Home had asked after me. He was my dad's old friend Gordon- a man with much shared history with us. He had recently located down here to be with his children. I raced over to visit him and reminisced over the old days.

I took along a  book about the history of our old Catholic parish and we talked about what a great community it was. He was too polite to mention all the time we turned up late. In fact, he had been a part of writing that book. For my part I was glad to be able to welcome a dear old friend to our Parish and introduce him to my local priest who performed masses at the nursing home once per month. I felt like we'd come full circle.

St Gerard Majella Congregation March 1966 (Looks good on a full screen- tap to expand)