GARY – New entries into the story of a faith family are made every Sunday at Mass, in service at the parish food pantry and soup kitchen and at social gatherings such as a winter dance. At Ss. Monica and Luke, a core group of seniors share the wisdom of years expressed in words and in their remarkable energy.
Parishioners entered the parish at 7th Avenue and Rhode Island Street, catching the eyes of their longtime friends and neighbors and those who have long since moved from the Steel City. “Sunday best” still includes formalwear for the gentlemen, while many of the ladies wear stylish dresses and matching hats.
Lector Paul Mulligan extended greetings to visitors and previewed the scriptural themes of the liturgy as Father Aaron Richardson, OFS, associate pastor, lined up behind cross bearer Dominique Pruitt.
In attendance for Mass on Feb. 23 were several nonagenarians, highlighting an age spread approaching 100 down to young children who accompanied their parents. Anne Thompson, 95, sat a few pews away from the altar. Fellow parishioner Minnie Durosseaux, also 95, sat across from her grandson, who manned the video camera providing a livestream.
After Mass on her birthday, Mary Turner, 93, waited for a ride home. She transposed her age, joking that she was “39 and holding.”
“I started at the church on 25th Avenue and Jackson Street, then we moved up here in the ‘80s with St. Luke,” Miss Turner said of the independent parish of St. Monica that was later combined. “The only thing that I can really think about at this moment, as I do every moment, is the Good Lord. If the Lord’s presence wasn’t here, I wouldn’t be 93.”
St. Monica church was born of a 1927 petition to Bishop John Francis Noll of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend from a growing number of African-American Catholics who lived in Gary, where most residents were from European-American heritage. Thirty years before the Diocese of Gary was established, the first worship space for a predominantly black congregation was opened at 25th Avenue and Jackson Street.
By 1945, the former Holy Trinity church at 23rd Avenue and Adams Street housed a burgeoning school and, later, a redecorated church for St. Monica faithful. The Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament staffed the school.
Early pastors included Father Daniel Finnegan, OMI, and Father Joseph Barry, OMI. When the Oblate Fathers left the diocese, Bishop Andrew G. Grutka appointed Father Patrick Meehan, who served the parish until 1968. Subsequent Ss. Monica and Luke leaders included Father William Martin (1979-1985), Father Sammie Maletta (1985), Father Joseph Viater (1986-1994) and Father Patrick Gaza (who ministered starting in 1992 through senior priest status in 2013).
A wide range of ministries and organizations thrived, including an Altar Guild, Boy Scouts, Catholic Youth Organization, Legion of Mary and the Saint Monica Federal Credit Union. By the early 1980s, plans were underway to merge the church with another in the city. St. Luke was located in a more distressed section of Gary and its school had closed in 1969. Ss. Monica and Luke has charted a course as a combined parish since 1982.
As a girl, Gary native Durosseaux, who had a career as a biologist, was impressed at seeing the leading black city residents gathering at the nascent parish in her neighborhood. She met some nuns from the parish at the local library and remembers them entertaining the children in the days before television.
“I have always been with St. Monica, and I would like to always be with St. Monica, because really, I’m in love with my church,” said Durosseaux, who has been a widow since 1989. “With all the things that I’ve had going on with health issues, the Lord has kept me able to come to St. Monica.”
The seniors stood fast in the face of the changes – socio-economic, political, and racial – that brought Gary various titles from “City of the Century,” describing the impressive growth of plots of sandy land on the south shore of Lake Michigan into an industry-rich Midwest metropolis, to unflattering monikers including from a period in 1990s when the city led the nation in murders per capita.
At Mass, the communion hymn was a Negro spiritual, soulfully sung by members including Phil Hinton, who stood with his fellow members on risers set near the sanctuary. The verses echoed the call the faithful said bring them back to church: “Hush, hush, somebody’s callin’ my name … sounds like Jesus.”
When she was drawn to Gary in 1954 from her native St. Louis for a teaching position at Roosevelt High School, - “The best high school in the world” - Thompson remained true to her roots of as a fourth-generation Catholic.
“It’s my home parish, where I thoroughly feel that the Lord God is always with me,” she said. “He gives me strength, He gives me courage, and He surrounds me with other believers. I love my parish, Ss. Monica and Luke.”
As one of the first African-Americans to graduate from St. Louis University and someone who taught classical Latin at Roosevelt, she said she was impressed at meeting so many “all intellectually intelligent and all upscale” blacks living in a “nice little city,” with a church whose members shared her heritage.
At just 90, James Henley sat near the rear of the church keeping a sharp eye on the entire congregation. Born and raised in Gary, he taught photography classes for many years at the city’s career center.
Like a snapshot emblazoned in his mind, Henley recalled the days of worshipping at St. Monica’s, starting as a young boy who said he told his parents, “I want to go to that church,” having seen “some pretty girls going there.”
Henley married his wife, the former Janet Maxine Wallace, with whom he was joined for 56 years until her passing in 2011. Loss and change can be difficult for many people and the consolidation with St. Luke was no different for the Henleys.
“I don’t recall what they told us about the idea of moving here; we were satisfied where we were and the church was full,” Henley recalled.
He remembered his original interest in attending Mass at the small, A-frame church that served as the earlier home for his faith family. “My mom said, ‘All right, you can go there, but you better go every Sunday.’ And I’ve been there since 1946,” Henley said.
Caption: After Sunday Mass, longtime Ss. Monica and Luke parishioners Minnie Durosseaux (front, left), 95, James Henley (front, center), 90, and Anne Thompson (front, right), 95, stand in their pews in Gary on Feb. 23. A combined church since 1982, Ss. Monica and Luke brought together a parish with a long history of being home to many of Gary's black Catholics who not only serve among their fellow parishioners in word and sacrament, but also offer charitable initiatives such as a food pantry and soup kitchen for their neighbors. (Anthony D. Alonzo photo)
