On St. Joe's of the Palisades...

A few weeks ago, I walked around the dusty building where I used to go to high school a few decades ago.  There were still some things I recognized, some worn down beyond care and past use.  In the former guidance office of St. Joseph's of the Palisades High School, West New York, a sculpture of trophies lay in the middle of the floor, scattered golden memories of skinny fast kids who ran the streets and tracks of Hudson County.   My former classmates and I were told that we could take whatever we wanted (we made a donation at the end of our adventure.)  I took the heavy cross off the wall.  I am looking at it right now- INRI.

The school hung on for a while through the beginning of this century, but it has finally come it its end.  With our great history of fine athletics, St. Joe's could have become one of those elite Catholic jock schools that feed the NBA, but it did not.  It could have become an academy of learning and scholarship, if anyone were interested in that.  It did not go this way either.  It went the direction of many Catholic Schools, it went to join it patron saint.  Someday it may resurrect itself, but the Catholic Schools of the 20th Century were special schools for a special time, and that time has passed.
Most of the kids who attended St. Joe's and other schools like it - St. Mike's in Union City or St. Pete's in New Brunswick, for example - are third-generation European immigrant kids.  Our grandparents were born in some well-loved but hard-to-live-in place that made them have to leave.  Some of them saw this country as a wonder, but were wary of the anti-Catholic bias abounding here.  They also, like all immigrants, wanted to hold onto the most important remnant of home and their religion.  Parish dances, the Knights of Columbus, the Holy Name Society, throat blessings for St. Blaise Day, green mashed potatoes in cafeteria food on St. Patrick's Day all helped them to connect.  Each of these tangents became less relevant as we Catholics became more assimilated.  The primary source of new immigrants is not even European at all.  The culture of the church is evolving, as it should.

I miss St. Joe's - Bluejays are the best!  Hit 'em in the chest! - but I still hold on to the feeling that being Catholic is being something special.  A chance, as Mother Theresa said, "to do something beautiful for God."  If I got that message, then St. Joe's is still alive, and the real trophies are piled somewhere else.

Glad to be back on the blog,

Maureen

*I usually try to include a poem, but this article put me off it today.  However, you've got to love that Kanye uses the word spiel.