CHURCH FIRE

                                            

I’m not sure how many of you were ever to St. Mary’s church in Melrose. My wife was born in Melrose and so many of her family members had called that building their religious sanctuary over the years. Entire families were baptized, and raised in their Catholic faith, within that church that was built in 1899. Stearns County has a lot of these old parishes. As you drive around the countryside their steeples are often the first thing you see stretching into the rural Minnesota sky. You have to feel how important their faith was to these German People, who settled the area, and fully realize how important that building was to their lives.

The city of Duluth had a similar situation with a church fire at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church in the downtown area last February. Like St. Mary’s, the church had been around since the eighteen hundreds. Years ago the people who built these churches made them a monument to their faith. Huge stained glass windows and ornate woodwork. Paintings, statues, altars and murals that told a story of how the church evolved through the ages. But then at some point we need to say where does the building leave off and the church began. It’s the house verses the home discussion. Not that the building isn’t important, it is, and the longer the building lives on, in the hearts of the worshipers, the more important it becomes to them.

As a fire fighter I witnessed first hand the grief that comes with the loss of a historic building. You feel just how much of somebody’s life that building represents. Not that we, the firefighters, didn’t try hard to save everybody’s buildings but I think in the times that I am talking about here, there was just an extra special effort, because this was a one of a kind place and you can’t just order up another. I am sure in Melrose, many of the firefighters were very familiar with St. Mary’s Church and this was the one place they never wanted to see burn.

A lot has changed not only in the churches we build but also in the attitude of the people as it pertains to the church buildings. I go to the Cities quite often and pass many churches in the suburbs. A lot of them, if it wasn’t for signage, could be mistaken for any commercial building. No more stained glass windows, no steeples or bells. Just a nice, comfortable place to worship. Not that that’s wrong and maybe it says “Hey it’s the message that is really important here.” But if you’re at all nostalgic you would understand

Some years ago our Church in Crosslake moved to new quarters. I knew at the time there would be some hurt amongst the older parishioners that were leaving the church they had known for so many years. But as time evolved-- and even though there is a picture of the old church in the assembly hall-- we found out we had a new place to make memories that was so much more functional then the old one. The walls changed but look around-- the people are the same. It is my hope; my prayer that St. Mary’s in Melrose can be made whole again. That somewhere down the road the doors will open once more and those same people, who always sit in that special pew, will be back to worship their God, once more in the place they call home.