Rev. Jim Ryan, PhD — jimryan6885@gmail.com
Community blog, Apostolic Times: https://maryofmagdala-mke.org
Springtime in eastern Kentucky is intoxicating (that is, apart from the moonshine). My first experience of this came in the Spring of 1980, having arrived in the mountains in the Fall of 1979 which required me to wait until the next Spring for this surprise. But, don’t take my word for it. Here’s Wendell Berry’s take on the Bluegrass commonwealth’s vernal gift:
“At the wood’s edge, suddenly
the air around him was perfumed
with the scent of wild plum flowers.
The whitened trees were accompanied
by several redbuds also in bloom,
especially beautiful, and both
together more beautiful than either
alone. Nothing in the long winter
prepared him to imagine this, a moment
in a thousand years never old.”
This Day: Collected and New Sabbath Poems, 2011, IV
Easter Sunday, 1981, fell on April 19. By that time of the month in the Kentucky mountains successive “springs” would have already taken place. In their turn the daffodils, then the forsythia, then the redbuds, the wild plums, the dogwood, and finally, if placement and protection from lowered temperatures are just right, the magnolia. Heightening the visuals of this tipsiness – the hardwoods don’t leaf out until late Spring. In this way each wave of yellow, white, pink, red, et. al. exuberantly shows itself.
The liturgy of the Easter Vigil in 1981 benefited from springtime’s fragrance and visions. As the scheduled presider for the service which took place at St. Julianna’s Church, Martin KY, there was much for me to look forward to. The Pastor, Bill Poole, was on his Irish sabbatical and had left me in charge. That may or may not have been wise.
In the previous 20 months I had enjoyed settling into ministry in the mountains. Many people participated in my settling. They welcomed and included me in mountain and parish life. Early on, I contracted a case of head lice. Ellen Joyce, parishioner, doctor, and former Springfield (KY) Dominican sister was my go to health care person to call. I had known Ellen for a short time by then. She was amused at the new guy’s case of the uninvited critters; so much so that her first response to me in advance of prescribing the shampoo required for elimination was, “Well, Jim, that’s one way to get close to the people.” That eventually became funny.
Ellen’s husband, Ron Marsten, parishioner, former priest, Australian, and writer for the Floyd County Times, did an early interview with me for the newspaper with the thought that this would be a good introduction to the wider community. It went well until Ron went into hard-nose reporter mode and asked, “Jim, since the Catholic population in this county and all surrounding counties is less than ½ of 1% of the entire population, and since there already is a Catholic priest living in the county, why are you here?” Having landed the hard-ball question in his Aussie way of smiling throughout as he laid the trap, I was caught up short. I mean, could I tell him that I enjoy backpacking in the mountain forests and that I was looking for a much more pleasant climate than the one in Detroit where I had spent the last 5 years? Probably not.
I gave what I thought was an acceptable response to the effect that Jesus instructed his disciples to go out to all the world and preach the Good News. Acceptable perhaps, but fairly thin on justification for my presence in Floyd County. Eventually, I came to appreciate being put on the spot by Ron. After all, why was I there? Besides, since 99.5% of the county’s residents weren’t Catholic – who would care?
Then there was Sr. Marie Gangwish who had a very flexible view on who was Catholic and where one conducts funeral Masses. Marie, a sister of Divine Providence, Melbourne KY, was the chaplain at Our Lady of the Way Hospital in Martin. As a result of a few of her conversations with patients they would say that they very much wanted to believe what she believed. In Marie’s way of thinking this constituted the desire to become Catholic which resulted in her baptizing them. She worked it out with Fr. Poole and Bill would register the baptisms in the Parish Register. Bill was very open that way.
Well, since I was in charge, Marie reported to me that a patient she baptized had died a few days after his baptism. I figured the precedent had been set, so I registered the sacrament as Bill had done before me. But there’s more since the newly baptized was also newly deceased.
Marie proposed that we have a funeral Mass at the church where the body was to be laid out for 3 days. She said she talked with the wife who agreed. Back then people took seriously the three day wake. The body was taken to the church and the coffin was opened, not to be closed until the funeral that followed those three days. Once the body was in place the family moved into the church and took up residence 24/7. Family and friends, church members and neighbors brought food so that the family could keep its vigil all that time.
This is the church at which Marie scheduled the funeral Mass. Now, let’s step back a little. The church was of the Old Baptist persuasion – a denomination composed of independent congregations that spread across the southern mountains of Kentucky, southern West Virginia, southwestern Virginia, and northeastern Tennessee. No mountain holler was deep and impenetrable enough for an Old Regular Church to be planted. Old Regulars believe they had an immediate and direct connection to the Savior. I recall driving by one such church whose sign out front said, “Katy’s Branch Old Regular Baptist Church – Founded by Jesus, 33AD.” It struck me as a sign of conviction, plus being just a little quaint, that this clapboard structure far up Katy’s Branch (original name replaced here) housed a gathering of believers who were certain that their location was selected by Jesus himself.
Anyway, the simple church that was the site of this funeral Mass was up one of those hollers where, once you get there, the only way out was to backtrack. In essence, we were trapped. As Marie proceeded to disassemble the preacher’s stand (one could hardly call it a pulpit) and place upon it the liturgical hardware for a proper Roman Catholic Mass, and as the little children – who had lived in the church for the past 3 days – ran around looking at Marie and me as though we were alien beings, I had visions (nightmares, actually) of the church’s Deacon’s/Elders pulling up in their pickup trucks with gun racks mounted in the cab just behind their heads. It was a distinct feeling of being isolated among hostile surroundings.
Well, that didn’t happen. What did happen was 2 Catholics, Marie and myself, conducted a funeral Mass for a person who had just been baptized less than a week earlier. Needless to say, apart from us 2, no one in that church had any idea what we were doing. But Marie, bless her, had fulfilled her commitment to the deceased that he would receive a Catholic Mass upon his death.. And so it was entered into the Parish Sacramental Register. To this day, I am willing to bet that I am the only Catholic Priest to have ever offered Mass in a church of the Old Regular Baptist denomination.
These are just a few of the people who welcomed me into life as lived in Floyd County, Kentucky, 1979-81. By spring of 1981 I was ready for an Easter Vigil liturgy worthy of mountain life. Those intoxicating smells surrounded us – all 12, or so, of us – so we moved as much of the vigil liturgy outdoors. A proper bonfire was the source of New Fire. Songs and Alleluias accompanied ritual words. We blessed water at the entrance of St. Julianna Church just in view of Beaver Creek which runs through Martin. The same Beaver Creek that, at times, floods through Martin giving a clear awareness of the people who live there of water’s strength for both destruction as well as new life.
When the time came to renew Baptismal Promises we went back outside standing around the re-stoked bonfire with candles in hand. We may have been less than ½ of 1% of the county’s population, but we were mighty in promises to reject sin and evil and to believe in the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Holy Spirit. We 12, or so, were Church in the Vigil celebration – intoxicated as we took in the aroma of that night. For, as Wendell Berry says:
“Nothing in the long winter
prepared him (us) to imagine this,
a moment in a thousand years never old.”
