|
|
|
|
Archives |
|
| POW! Finishes bike
ride through diocese
Special to the Globe - When you get life slowed down to the 10 to 12 miles per hour pace that most of us have in bicycling, you see more, hear more and feel more. Couple that with a seven-day itinerary that wound up being 445 miles of rural
northwest Iowa, and you come to The Pilgrimage on Wheels (POW!) bike ride finished June 15 with a climb up the big hill to Briar Cliff University here, a breath-sucking 300-foot rise in two-tenths of a mile. The 150 or so of us who were POW! riders probably have different perspective
on all this than we did a week ago. That's when we started riding from Storm
Lake St. Mary's Catholic Church, with successive overnight We had to endure 90-degree heat on opening day, then violent weather, drenching rains and headwinds. But our last day's ride turned out to be a sun-kissed beauty with mild temperatures and a tail wind, the best cycling day not only of the week but of this whole year. The past seven days provided us dozens of eye-opening experiences that were, well, they were as moving and inspiring as what we saw and felt Saturday morning. We pedaled south from Granville, and from miles away, we could begin seeing the steeple of St. Mary's Catholic Church in Remsen, and it was like a beacon. When we finally rolled up in front of it, and looked up 158 feet to the top of the gold cross on the steeple, we were awed. We went inside to discover a worship space so beautiful it stops you in your tracks. Here are towering, ornate wood altars with gold leaf. At the right side altar, which honors St. Joseph, parishioners carefully open the base to show us a hidden, life-sized sculpture of Christ in the Crypt. It's opened for viewing one day a year - Good Friday - and then closed on Holy Saturday. To one side of the church is the small statue of Our Lady of Luxembourg, patroness of the country from which so many immigrants came to settle in the Remsen area. You of course notice the beautiful stained glass windows, said to now be worth more than $1 million. The massive pipe organ has recently been re-tooled to concert-quality. And here are Stations of the Cross, which you first notice because their titles are in the German language of the early Luxembourger and German settlers. Then you hear how these stations were hand-carved from wood in Austria, and you realize that parishioner Paul Loutsch is probably right when he calls them "the finest pieces of art in the whole Diocese of Sioux City." My God, this is church, shrine, concert hall and art gallery all in one. And then the real lesson of Remsen St. Mary's hits you. This magnificent edifice was built in 1904! Can you imagine building a church back then so large and so grand that nearly 100 years later, it would still serve and inspire a congregation of 2,175 members? "Sometimes I think about that and think, 'Those people must have been nuts!' " said Mary Roder, a member of the congregation. "But it does inspire you to say, 'If they could do this back then...' " She didn't finish her thought, but the point was already made: The vision and boldness of the Catholic pioneers in northwest Iowa stand as fantastic challenges to all of us today, Catholic and non-Catholic alike. We need some of that. We need it especially as we rebuild a church torn by the horrors of the sex abuse scandal which now occupies the full attention of the public, media and especially the church leadership. But we also need it to come to terms with the shortage of priests, which we learned on this trip has four and five parishes "clustering," which is fine, but some of those clusters are served by a sole priest. We are obviously going through a reshaping of our church structure, our Catholic schools, our communities and our personal faith commitments here early in this 21st century. We're going to be building, just like the pioneers were building late in the 19th and early in the 20th centuries. We can only hope we are as successful as they were. We also saw their handiwork Saturday at St. Catherine's in little Oyens, one of two churches in the Diocese that continues to have the traditional Corpus Christi procession one Sunday in June. The congregation marches together, reciting the rosary as they go, from the church to two small chapels on the back corners of the block-square church property, with benedictions at both of those and another back in the church. "I hope we never quit doing that," said Myrt Weiler, a parishioner for all of her 80 years. Over lunch at St. Joseph's church in Le Mars, adjacent to the Gehlen Catholic schools, we heard how the Germans established St. Joe's and the Irish established St. James church, 10 blocks to the west. Both are still very active parishes. What a religiously-mixed community early Le Mars must have been, with the two Catholic communities, a huge English community that established St. George's Episcopal Church and the early Methodists who established the now-closed Westmar College. In Merrill, we heard how active the 120 families in Our Lady of the Assumption parish are. They send about a dozen of their kids to the Gehlen schools in Le Mars, but they also have 80 children in their religious education program at the church. Judy Nelles told me the music ministry is especially vibrant. "We have three different organists who play, we have about 15 in the adult choir and we have a helluva lot of fun," she said. "Our director is Jeanette Wankum-Spies, and she is very energetic with a lot of fresh ideas. I'll tell you, we get a little jivey at Christmas and Easter." Wankum-Spies is Catholic, her husband Dick Spies is Methodist and they both sing and play in each other's church choirs. Over the hills to the west we found St. Joseph's Catholic Church in the rural neighborhood called Ellendale. It's one of the two or three "country churches" left in the Diocese. There's a huge grain bin 50 yards from the front door. There are cornfields on three sides of the church. A John Deere tractor with harrow was parked nearby. The first St. Joseph's there was built in 1880, blew away in a violent windstorm in 1885, re-built then and blown away again in 1887. "Then they decided to try a little different site," said Erma Hecht. "They moved it here where we are now." They're down to 60 families now, and "we all hope we hang on as our own parish," she said. Among a lot of other reasons for continuing St. Joseph's is this one - each fall since 1989, the church members have made, baked and sold more than 1,000 lard-crust apple pies that are the hottest buy in Plymouth and northern Woodbury Counties from mid-September into early November. The full beauty of Saturday's ride bloomed from Ellendale to the northwest corner of Sioux City, a 12-mile glide that is nearly all downhill - until you get to the base of the Briar Cliff campus. "That name 'Briar Cliff' tells you there's going to be something interesting up ahead for you if you're riding a bike," said Larry Mefferd, of Laurens, who was driving a support vehicle Saturday for his wife Julie, who has been riding with us all week. Greg Banach, a rider from Jackson, Wis., ended his POW! ride with a bang. Banach had been hoping his frayed front tire would make it through the week, and he'd noticed a couple of small bubbles in it Saturday morning. But it held all the way until he was directly in front of the check-in stand on the hilltop campus, where riders were being cheered for their finish. As they began applauding for Banach, the tire blew! The food, music and relaxation were worth the struggle up the hill. "Juvenil," a 9-piece mariachi band made up of members of the growing Hispanic community in the Cathedral of the Epiphany parish, provided a lively first hour. They were followed by a Heelan High School guitar and vocal duo of Jonathan Keane and Tom Meiers. Then guitar-vocal soloists Jane Doocy of Bancroft and Father David Hemann of Ida Grove lifted the crowd with their soaring songs. The wind-up was outstanding baritone John Moore, 20, of Milford, who has become one of Iowa's best singers since starting his performing career as a boy singing in St. Joseph's church there. His accompanist was Jessica Hurley, now a Simpson College music major who has been playing for Moore since both were Okoboji High School students. Another highlight was all of us singing the "Briar Cliff Hymn," written a dozen years ago, with the words by BCU faculty member Phil Hey, the noted poet. Leading the singing were the BCU President Bev Wharton and the three Briar Cliff students who worked as interns on the POW! ride - Rick Kellen, Becky Wittrock and Lloyd Johnson. Our intentions were strong, even if our melody was wobbly, as we sang through a first verse that seemed a good anthem not only for Briar Cliff University, but also for our just-completed Pilgrimage on Wheels: To each day a charge is given
|
