Another Liturgical Year, Another Bare, Ruined Choir

In this dumpster-fire of a year, I received yet another blow to my liturgical desert-life.  My home parish’s historic church building, located at 8th and Sycamore in Columbus, Indiana, will be demolished shortly after Christ the King weekend, to make way for a multi-million dollar apartment complex.

Week 41 (St. Bartholomew Catholic Church) | 52 weeks of Columbus, IndianaGreat.  Yet another historic landmark (the church’s cornerstone was laid in 1891) bites the dust…bulldozed under a wave of American consumerism and lack of religiosity.  Not that I’m bitter.

But, wait.  The Catholic historian inside me tries to talk some sense: Roman Catholic resources are limited.  The Archdiocese can’t afford to keep paying bills on a (literally) crumbling space.  American Catholics were too optimistic in developing parallel resources that couldn’t be supported once budgets cost more than a shoestring.  And, don’t forget that the building has been ABANDONED for nearly twenty years.

Such cold-hearted logic must prevail.  And, yet, I’m still sad.

Why should I have such sadness about a space—once clad in angels and filled with music—that is now just another bare, ruined choir?  What does this necessary right-sizing of diocesan property have to do with the liturgical life?

If my year has been a shade like anyone else’s, I’m guessing that a lot of our liturgical lives look a lot like the inside of this dying church building.  The sanctuary is bluntly empty.  The painted-over angels cascade in peels from the walls.  Sacristy drawers hang slack-jawed, left open by the hands of the last looter who broke in, hoping to find a lost coin or two.

Has the coronavirus robbed us of our liturgical lives?  It has impoverished our sense of community with conspicuously empty pews.  Some days, we might feel as if more demons than angels are bouncing off our walls.  And then there are those among us, sitting in our living rooms on a Sunday morning, hands and mouths empty, without sacramental participation.

Yes, for some of us this year, the spaces and places of our liturgical lives exist only in memory.  As for me, I didn’t need to have a beloved liturgical space crushed into a parking lot to make the point stand out.  But, thank you, 2020, it sure does help.

On the other hand, perhaps it is most appropriate to confront the demise of “the old church” during this Season of the End-Times.  Its coming has invited me to confront long-dead memories.  I can imagine each corner of that well-loved space, from its mysterious choir loft (already verboten because you could fall through it in the 1990s), to its grey-carpeted nave, to its sacristy packed with decades of treasures.  In my mind’s eye, I can see where I stood when I first served an Easter Vigil Mass…where I helped drag live Christmas trees into the sanctuary (before the county fire department put the kabash on that kind of thing)…the piano bench where I first sat, and became a church musician.

St Bartholomew Church Sycamore Street Columbus, Indiana - YouTubeThese spaces and things form my own sacramental memory—but they exist only in memory.

Advent asks us to move through a desert of memories, for the beginning of the end of time is coming.  Christ is coming, and it seems we must be razed to the ground before we may be raised from the dead.  Just possibly, the destruction of my home parish’s historic building might remind me, or us, that empty shells are not meant to hold worshipping Christians captive—in memory or in life.  There is something more to the liturgical life, even, than having the privilege of gathering in person with one’s community in a particular space.

The Mystical Body of Christ is real—and nothing can more powerfully present that reality to us than the absence of our sacramental spaces, and sacramental participation.

This Advent will likely be another desert time for all of us—whether or not we’re mourning the loss of a beloved space.  Many of us have far deeper things to mourn.  But may this Advent be more than bare, ruined choirs and bare, ruined hearts.  May it be that perennial season of hope: a renewal of hope…a renewal of life.  May we all be ready for the coming of the Lord.  And some bulldozers.


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5 responses to “Another Liturgical Year, Another Bare, Ruined Choir”

  1. Ron Jones Avatar
    Ron Jones

    How very sad and yet completely understandable. Our Church has always been built of living stones even though we become emotionally attached to the non-living variety.
    I am reminded of a song penned by M. D. Ridge – By Cross And Water Signed:
    “See your church in worship gathered,
    Lord of heaven and of earth.
    In the cross is our redemption,
    In the waters our rebirth.
    We were Church before these walls were built, by cross and water signed.
    And we carry Church within us
    when we leave these walls behind.”

  2. joseph mangone Avatar
    joseph mangone

    I only hope and pray that the diocese made some type of arrangement to remove the stained glass windows. Believe me, some church somewhere would die to get those treasures asd give them a new home where they can begin another life cycle….

    1. Aidan Smith Avatar
      Aidan Smith

      The windows were removed by members of the St Bartholomew Parish, we got multiple of the side windows that were still intact and a large circular window that has now found a home inside our church. We also recovered the old vestry cabinets.

  3. Katharine E. Harmon Avatar
    Katharine E. Harmon

    One of my local informants told me that the bricks have been sold…but I don’t know the status of the windows. There were numerous objects which were sold to parishes in other parts of the Archdiocese, as well as objects which became part of the newly built parish space, such as the altar (which itself was repurposed from the original altar rail in 1973), a large semi-circle stained glass window of the Good Shepherd, and the marble Mary and Joseph statues.

  4. Rafael Vega Avatar
    Rafael Vega

    Thank you for this wonderful little reflection. Change and a living Church go hand in hand. I join you this Advent in a prayer that, “we all be made ready “for the coming of the Lord. And some bulldozers.”

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