By Bill Karabinos

On the western tip of Long Island, across the East River from New York’s massive skyline, is the Borough of Brooklyn. Brooklyn is almost legendary in the annals of this nation; hallowed in literature, drama and song. It has produced sons and daughters that are famous in so many fields and in such vast numbers that one hesitates to even begin a list. In recent years, like so many great cities, it has gone through a sorrowful transition and much of its romance has decayed. In that vast metropolis, there are also numerous and imposing Catholic Churches; it is the nation’s largest diocese. One of those churches, St. Teresa’s, a sentinel for the Irish Catholics since the 1880’s, has probably baptized, over the years, more souls than is the population of the Catholics in North Georgia. The numerical multiplications of the other Sacraments administered there, is staggering.

St. Teresa’s is only one of the many Cathedral-like churches that ministers to that vast population. Others like St. Joseph’s, Queen of Angels and St. Jerome’s, to name just a few, continue to serve their seventh, eight and even tenth generations in this New York City borough.

Those Brooklyn parishes, together with their parishioners, have known joys and sorrows, elations and hard times, wars and depressions, poverty and tearful struggles for survival, these last 100 plus years. They have buried their youth from three and four wars; they ran soup kitchens during more than one hard time; and they scraped and saved to build these magnificent edifices to their Creator.

In Fairburn, Georgia, there is another Catholic Church; actually a converted funeral home that resembles a Catholic Church only in the fiery dynamism of it’s heart’s blood - only in the Eucharistic presence of the Blessed Sacrament. It is St. Matthew Catholic Church and it has not lost a son to any war. The baptisms have been few, and even the numerical count of the other Sacraments would not stagger anyone’s mathematics skill. But St. Matthew’s is growing. The Church is evolving in South Fulton County.

Over the past 20 to 25 years, Catholics have moved away from the great Brooklyn parishes - as they have migrated from thousands of other large inner-city parishes all over the northeast. They moved to the West first, then to Florida, and now to the real South. And the Church has moved with them.

Of course, the great stone, granite or brick churches have not moved; nor has the massive parish plants that occupied entire city blocks and scheduled Masses so that parking lots could empty and fill again and again on a Sunday morning. It is likely that we won’t see the great parish schools of 1,500 or more and with at least 30 dedicated Nuns; nor the stalwart “Irish” pastors, who together with the ward leader and local saloon-keeper, provided social services long before HEW.

No, the real Church moved in the Person and Presence of the Second Person of the Sanctified Trinity. The Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist - that is the essence of existence for a Catholic Church.

And so, a funeral parlor in Fairburn, an office complex in Dunwoody, a high school in Lilburn and numerous other structures have sufficed as a temporary home for our Eucharistic Lord and His faithful.

In June of 1929, John and Anna were married at St. Joseph Church in Brooklyn. In June of 1979, John and Anna celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in St. Matthew Catholic Church in Fairburn.

Many of us have probably witnessed a 50th wedding anniversary in our lifetime and some of us may have known that joy for our own parents or grandparents. Those occasions are indeed rare and eminently deserving of the few gold-plated trinkets and warm thoughts offered the celebrants. For John and Anna, I would have wished for a glorious Solemn High Mass with three priests, a 60-voice choir singing Gregorian melodies in Latin, seven branch candlesticks illuminating a massive Cathedral and reflecting against a sculptured marble and gold altar; a special train, chartered from New York, bringing their family, former neighbors and surviving friends; tuxedoes for the participants and long gowns, children in “white dresses with blue satin sashes” and the archbishop presiding in full liturgical regalia.

Those are the thoughts and dreams that I would extend to John and Anna, and any couple in the archdiocese, that has celebrated - or will celebrate, 50 golden years together.

But the deep faith of those Golden Jubilarians makes me ashamed. For them the celebration of the Mass is the celebration of Christ’s true sacrifice - no matter how it is decorated. The Mass at St. Matthew’s in Fairburn that marked their 50th year was as great and as beautiful for them as any dream that I might elaborate upon. As perfect a sacrifice as the one in Brooklyn 50 years ago; the same perfect prayer, as the Mass in their daughter’s home in College Park that marked their 44th anniversary, the year they came to Georgia.

I guess I like to write about people because there are no ordinary people. Each individual is so unique and so interesting that there is always a great story existent in their past and there will be one, most assuredly, in their future. John and Anna are indeed, unique.

When they married in 1929, in that great parish in Brooklyn, they probably expected to live out their lives in Flatbush or Prospect Park. Atlanta was a sleepy southern town that was to be glamorized by Margaret Mitchell and had been burnt by William Tecumsech Sherman. As the years passed, John and Anna watched their children grow and use the “wings” they had given them and strengthened. First a daughter to New Jersey, a son to upstate New York, another daughter in Atlanta, and finally their “baby” girl off to Mississippi. And so they too, took flight from Brooklyn, and retired to the salubrious Georgia climate, where they continue to build up the Church.

I think John and Anna may have brought the Statue of Liberty with them and placed it in front of their condominium. They seem to have a penchant toward “the tired, the searching, the huddled masses...” and provide support to those who are “...yearning to breathe free.” Anna’s known devotion to St. Teresa of Lisieux, the Little Flower, keeps her phone ringing constantly with requests for prayers of petition to the saint. John too, seems to gather around him, with his kindly bearing, a variety of seeking, searching people looking for direction.

Isn’t that how it should be? Should not 50 years of happy marriage grant to them the credentials as human and even “spiritual” consultants”? Fifty years of marriage is not easy to accomplish in any era. Age and health are formidable enough foes, and when one considers the marriage dissolution rate in recent years, a Golden Jubilee becomes an even more admirable accomplishment.

Yes, John and Anna continue to build up the Church; their faith continues to attract people to the Eucharistic Lord. A young man from Tennessee and a University professor in Mississippi are led to the Church in recent days by their influence, and numerous others, just as varied in background and profession, have been attracted over the years.

The “white dresses and blue satin sashes” were not as important as the leather hat and vest worn by the young Tennessean, that they had introduced to Christ in their 50th year. Their faith and devotion to the Body of Christ is not diminished by the absence of Latin Gregorian hymns or a solemnly sung liturgy; nor has it lessened because of worldly conflicts, nuclear families or disappointments through the years.

In June of 1929, John turned to his young bride Anna, and quite possibly, the words of Robert Browning came trippingly over his tongue, as he asked her to “grow old along with me, the best is yet to be.” In June of 1979, John and Anna laughed hilariously with their friends and echoed that thought once again, “...the BEST is yet to be.”