St. Mary church in Green Bay will soon look new, just like in the old days: guest column

CLOSE

GREEN BAY - The church doors were propped open with a one-by-four board, just as I had hoped. Inside, I was greeted by a magical scene that took me back to my childhood.

This was my old home church, St. Mary of the Angels in Green Bay, where a major renovation project is under way. I had come from my home in Stevens Point on an early December day for some business in my old hometown, and I allowed myself time for a trip to the past.

The church renovation is really more a return to what once was, as the interior is being returned to its original orientation, rescued, in my mind, from the theater-style remodeling job of the 1960s that spun the altar and pews on a 45-degree left turn. The resulting semi-circle of worship was off kilter with the original church design. It was surely well intended, but didn’t work, according to many.

Now, the church is being returned to some of its original glory. Powerful construction lights blended with natural light streaming in from the old stained-glass windows, giving the scene a halo effect. The interior was gutted, with pews and carpet stripped away, but soon they’ll be in place, and the old church will welcome parishioners to experience what once was.

I swear, the building was breathing a sigh of relief. All of its angles were in the right places again. The light from the stained-glass windows would soon cast warm rays on congregants in pews facing east, the original location of the old altar. A new one would be constructed, and from the architectural drawings, it looks to mimic the original.

Construction workers with The Commonwealth Companies, the Fond du Lac developer that now owns the property, greeted me at the door. They showed me around and seemed glad to do it. I guess they were humoring me as I told stories from long ago, an old man brimming with recollections. They were pleased when I told them the old church looked like it was coming alive again.

The mind is an amazing thing. I was surprised how much I remembered, right down to the little details, like the Polish inscriptions on the stained-glass windows and the old transept lights that will again hang above the parishioners. Someone had the foresight to store these lights for the past half-century, knowing perhaps their work wasn’t done.

St. Mary’s was a thriving parish in my childhood, as were many of the inner-city parishes in Green Bay. It was the post-war baby boom, and young families filled the church pews. Across the street, the handsome elementary school held several hundred of us kids at a time when enrollments were at their peak in the 1950s and ‘60s. We all piled into church weekdays for morning Mass before beginning the day’s lessons.

A kid’s mind drifted in those church pews, especially in the days of Latin masses. It was hard not to laugh at the slightest provocation by a pal. Once it started, the giggling was hard to suppress, until the shadow of one of the sisters leaned over us. That would end it.

The church kept all these memories, I realized. There were joyous occasions like weddings, and wrenchingly painful funerals that brought the whole parish family together. There were Easter celebrations and May Day fetes. There were Masses for confirmations and first communions and graduations, all of which my siblings and I celebrated at St. Mary’s.

Even though the renovation was still under way, I could place where my family sat on Sundays, and also where my friends and their families would have been.

The experience was brief but sublime. And on a December’s day, the richest memory of all was how the church of old was dressed up for Christmas. It was spectacular. The church elders, priests and nuns built a remarkable crèche scene every year, with dozens of towering balsams and spruce trees. The main altar and two side altars were also dressed up with conifers, and lights glistened everywhere. Come Midnight Mass — and it was held at midnight — the pipe organ would shake the rafters with "Silent Night," and voices would rise from the pews.

I couldn’t help thinking that next year, when the renovation is done, it might be nice to return to see the church all dressed up one more time.

According to the parish, construction and restoration of the interior will be completed on or about Dec. 31. The outfitting phase of the interior by Feb. 22. A re-dedication ceremony and other activities are planned that day.

Bill Berry is a Green Bay native and writer who now lives in Stevens Point.