By Rita McInerney

Today a faithful remnant remains of the congregation that worshiped at Purification Mission in Sharon, an old church build in 1883 that has its roots in the late 18th century.

These few members were pessimistic several months ago when their pastor, Father Jimmy Adams, told them Archbishop James P. Lyke, OFM, was coming for a pastoral visit. They feared he was going to announce the closing of the mission, which is the direct offspring of the log church built in 1790 at Locust Grove and known as the first Catholic church in Georgia.

The archbishop was impressed by what he found in the historic old country church: The pride of ownership in its members for their faded yet beautiful church, their appreciation of its history and the memories it holds, their willingness to clean and dust and look after the grounds.

He mentioned how touched he was that generations of families have been baptized, married and buried from the church.

Along with his celebration of the Eucharistic Liturgy and his blessing, Archbishop Lyke gave the Purification flock a ray of hope.

Archbishop Lyke said he desired that Catholics know about Purification in Sharon, a once-thriving railroad town. It is important for them to visit the area where the spiritual roots of Georgia Catholicism were first planted. Perhaps, the archbishop said, the old mission could become a place of pilgrimage.

"The archbishop thinks it's important to remind Atlantans there is so much out there for Catholics," according to Rev. Mr. Michael McWhorter, the transitional deacon who accompanied him.

Shortly after he returned from his visit to Sharon, Archbishop Lyke asked Bill Lyday, director of new construction and facility maintenance for the archdiocese, to have an architect inspect the church and "get some idea of how much it would take" to put it in shape.

Lyday and Kermit Marsh, of the Atlanta firm of Harris, Norris and Marsh, drove to Sharon and went over the structure. Later Marsh estimated it would cost about $55,000 to refinish pews, put in carpet, replace broken window panes, and install a display case for the old vestments.

The church seems to be in fairly good condition, Marsh said in a telephone interview, with repairing the roof the greatest need. A separate estimate of $9,450 was obtained by Father Adams.

After the heavy rains of August 13 caused part of the ceiling on the right side near the altar to break through, the situation "is getting to be critical," the pastor told The Georgia Bulletin.

Other repairs Marsh saw as "cosmetic," with the old confessional in the back area replaced and the display cases placed either there or around the altar area. The very old glass in the windows, with all kinds of imperfections unique to an earlier period of glassmaking, he would keep unless they had been broken.

"I would leave it alone and just clean it up," the architect said of Purification Mission.

Today, Sharon is a ghost of the 19th century railroad town frequented by cotton growers, small farmers and merchants. The once-handsome wooden rail depot is boarded up. An old brisk carriage works on the corner no longer hums with productivity. A gas station is abandoned. The tiny post office remains open for business.

Each weekend Father Adams celebrates Mass for a congregation of six, seven or eight people.

Everyone is there when he arrives from Washington, about 15 miles to the north, for the 7:30 Sunday morning Mass.

Someone has opened the windows, Mrs. Geraldine Bracey has prepared the altar, and a handful of people are quietly waiting in their front section pews. Long ago members brought small oblongs of carpeting from their homes to mark their regular places and to protect knees from the harshness of the wooden kneelers.

The open windows welcome the fresh morning air and the birdsong that is the only music during Mass. When the celebration ends there is a quiet conversation with Father Adams and a friendly tour of the church for the visitor. Points mentioned are the discolored spot in the ceiling where the roof leaks and a small hole in the original old glass in one of the tall windows.

Someone volunteered that the painting of the interior, a light tan, and the exterior, white, were done recently with funds provided by the archdiocese.

Father Adams pays all the utility bills from the offertory and the members do the cleaning, washing and ironing of altar linens and grass cutting.

Because the building lacks air conditioning, Masses are said early Sunday morning in the summer and at 5:30 Saturday evening the rest of the year.

"We don't want to see it moved," Mrs. Bracey says of the old church that has been such a large part of her life.

At 83, she is the senior member of the mission congregation. Her grandparents on her father's side, the Kealys, came to Sharon from Ireland and are buried in the "new" cemetery across lightly traveled Highway 47 from the church. Her mother's people were not Catholic.

She is the last of her immediate family and lives about one mile from the church. Although crippled by arthritis in the left knee, she gets about on a cane. She drives herself to church and arrives early for her altar duties.

She has spent all her life in this quiet countryside amid families and friends bound by their common past. She made her first communion and was confirmed at Purification.

As a child she attended the Sacred Heart Seminary run by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Georgia in Sharon. It was a boys' boarding school, but local children also received their primary schooling there.

Mrs. Bracey and Virginia Hinderlider share the task of keeping the altar linens washed and ironed. Mrs. Hinderlider, another native of the area, was a Southern Baptist until after she married Bill Hinderlider. She was 38 years old and pregnant when she made her first communion in Oberlin, Ohio, where the Hinderliders lived while raising their three children. A daughter, Sue, made her first vows as a Dominican sister in Great Bend, Kansas, in June with her happy parents in attendance.

The Hinderliders take care of the grounds around the church and the cemetery, and expect to do it "as long as we can." They both "think quite often of the future" of the old church.

Like Mrs. Bracey, Mrs. Annette Ray, of Stephens, also traces her ancestors to the Irish who came to Sharon in the 19th century. They were the Burkes, Sullivans and O'Keefes.

She was among local children who attended the Sisters of St. Joseph school. She remembers when there were 30 or 40 church members. They would get together for church picnics. Nowadays, the members who are able, go to St. Joseph's in Washington for their church socials.

Another member, John O'Stephenson, of Norwood belongs to the Knights of Columbus in Thomson. He hopes that "maybe someday in my lifetime and that better be pretty soon," the Knights will take the church as one of their good works and preserve it. In the meantime, he appreciates Father Adam's support of efforts to keep it alive.

For O'Stephenson, the visit of Archbishop Lyke was "one of the greatest lights since I've been here. I thought our doors were going to close."