Coming to better-know my grandmother through her ‘medieval’ parish

By Sean McLaughlin

(OSV News) -- Since learning to drive, I had passed Our Lady of Hope church innumerable times. In a sense, though, I was driven by it, before then.

It was my grandmother’s parish.

The church sits on a hill overlooking Philadelphia’s main north-south thoroughfare, its distinctive tower soaring above the low-roofed homes, a good distance from the downtown canyons of skyscrapers and visible for blocks in any direction.

Tracing its roots to 1909, the church -- whose cornerstone was laid in 1928, after years of planning and fundraising -- was, in its heyday, one of the area's most prominent, receiving an architectural award in 1930 for its design, which was based on England's medieval Durham Cathedral.

Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII, had once graced Our Lady of Hope's sanctuary; Ven. Fulton Sheen had preached there during a visit to the city.

Despite its legacy, though, the church had never sparked my curiosity. The family connections were all well and good -- my grandparents married there, and they had my father baptized there -- yet I'd never cared to know anything further. I had certainly never considered what might be inside.

That changed a few years ago when I made a list of historic churches in the area that I wanted to visit, including Our Lady of Hope. In the spring, two friends and I – all fathers of young children – decided to visit three churches on Good Friday morning, in a kind of mini-version of St. Philip Neri's "Seven Churches Pilgrimage" practice. I put my grandmother’s parish first on the itinerary.

A volunteer who was mowing the lawn led us to the baptistry, which, as with older churches, stood in a dedicated space -- in this case, between the rectory and the church. Our eyes were drawn to the font at the center of the octagonal room, lit by a single hanging lamp and a few simple stained-glass windows. The intricately carved stone incorporated text, images and gold mosaic tiles; everything about the space conveyed the gravity of the sacrament of baptism.

We continued from the baptistry into the nave which was almost completely dark; the church would not open until later that afternoon. The overcast sky shed very little light through the tall, and narrow stained-glass windows.

I could barely see. But smelling the damp stone I could suddenly feel the volume of air above; I could sense the magnitude of the church interior. As the lights flickered on, our mouths dropped and our necks craned to take in the magnificence before us.

We spent just half an hour wandering around through the church, praying silently and pointing out various details to one another, but it felt much longer. The profound beauty of the space was overwhelming -- nearly every inch within glorified God in stone, statuary, and stained glass.

It was only the soft sound of the subway rushing underneath that reminded us of the time, and that we had two more churches to see. We retraced our steps through the baptistry and into the rectory to thank our guide and got to chat with the choir director and the pastor, who shared some of the parish's history with us.

My grandmother did more to hand on the faith to me than virtually anyone else in my life. After all these years of just passing by, I'd finally entered the sacred space that had hosted the sacramental milestones of her life: her first Communion, her marriage -- the baptism of her first child. Decades of my family’s history and formation, I realized, are compressed into those pews.

Had I visited Our Lady of Hope years earlier, it would not have had the same effect. Only now, as a husband and father, can I begin to appreciate it. It was in this church that my grandmother was fashioned in the faith, the woman who so lovingly guided me to know, love and serve Christ.

My children will never meet her on earth. But I will bring them there, in time, and give to them what I received from her.