By Thea Jarvis

Finding your way to Sharon, Georgia is no mean feat.

From Atlanta, it involves almost two hours of steady driving down an I-20 that quickly changes from city-busy to country lonely. Even the hum and murmur of familiar radio stations soon takes its leave.

Once off I-20, the best is before you.

Two-lane roads flanked by overgrown fields wind their way lazily over untended railroad tracks, past mom and pop groceries and vacant, windowless storefronts.

The news that you have finally found your destination comes in a surprise sign by the side of the road--Sharon. The center of town that sneaks up half a mile farther down is as quiet as a schoolhouse on a Saturday morning.

The question surfaces like a full moon on a clear autumn night--what am I doing in Sharon?

To be sure, looks are deceiving. In the sleepy, unhurried town of Sharon--that once-thriving railroad hub that sent cotton off to the mills and factories of Yankee land--lie the roots and remnants of Catholic Georgia.

The Church of the Purification stands not far from Sharon’s main thoroughfare, a street empty now and silent in the wake of a population exodus to richer, if not greener, pastures. Purification is the successor to the first Catholic Church in Georgia.

Around 1790, Catholic settlers from Maryland migrated to Locust Grove, just about a mile or so down the road from Sharon. They were seeking greater religious freedom.

Their first church in Locust Grove was a log cabin. Close by, space was cleared amid pine and hardwood for a quiet graveyard to shelter the dead. In 1877, when church members deemed a move to nearby Sharon would more centrally establish their facility, the old burying ground was left intact, and the present Church of the Purification was erected.

Big city bustle has left the Locust Grove-Sharon heritage a veritable orphan. Catholics were never a majority in this area of middle Georgia, but the little community in Sharon has now dwindled to about seven.

On Sundays and first Fridays, Oblate Father Bill McGrath, who lives at Queen of the Angels Church in Thomson, Georgia, celebrates Mass in the white frame church.

“It should be preserved,” he said recently before leaving for a brief visit to the Philippines, where he spent most of his mission years. He was speaking not only of the lonely lady Purification, but of the history of the Catholic Church in Georgia, for there is a deep symbolism in this tired matriarch.

The paint is peeling--inside and out. Wavy windowpanes made of old glass are threatened by the elements. Some have already succumbed. Broken panels let in the heat of a Georgia summer and the chill of a Georgia winter.

Aged Stations of the Cross line the wall, unprepared for the gift of time--decay. The old Mass vestments are still used by Father McGrath on his weekly visits.

Across the street from the Purification, a new cemetery stands, having sprung up because the Locust Grove burying ground became too overgrown and hard to reach.

Even now, a car trip to the old graveyard requires strength of will, an unerring guide, and a vehicle ready to brave low-hanging limbs and high-growing brush.

Father McGrath is concerned about what might be lost here through neglect, disinterest and the ravages of time.

“A lot of the angels on the headstones have been broken off and taken by tourists,” he said sadly, walking gingerly through the sun-baked weeds and briars.

Some of the tombstones--dating to the early 1800’s--have broken in half and lean two-faced against a sheltering tree. Others lay flat, taking refuge in the warm red earth.

Within a few years, without attention, the cemetery will be a jumble of woodland wanderings, with nothing to distinguish it from any other overgrown field.

Who will cherish this heritage of Georgia Catholicism? Who will scrape and paint and dig and prune? Who will clear and clean and spruce and save? Who will leave to future generations of Georgia Catholics the early monuments of their faith?

Seven Sharon Catholics and one mission priest surely cannot bear this burden alone.

The Church of the Purification and the old Locust Grove cemetery offer a silent challenge to Catholics of north Georgia--preserve them and you will preserve a part of yourself.