A parish building closes but the church lives on

By Dc. Tom Cuskey, editor

“We remember, we celebrate, we believe.” This headline from the Epiphany Parish bulletin is lyrics borrowed from a hymn that capture the emotions experienced by the parishioners of Immaculate Heart of Mary Church. The last Mass was celebrated at the 4 p.m. Saturday vigil on Sept. 23, marking the closing of a building that has served a growing Liverpool community since 1950.

All the pews are full for the closing IHM Mass.

IHM, as it is known, and its Liverpool neighbor, St. Joseph the Worker Parish, were linked in 2011 and became a single community with two worship sites in 2019 when Epiphany Parish was formed. Just one year later, trustees from both churches started evaluating their situation. Town hall meetings and deliberations came to the conclusion that maintaining two sites did not make good stewardship sense. The closing of IHM was announced in August and preparations for the final Mass soon began.

Mary Ellen Roach met her future husband at a wedding at the church in 1964. “Got married in ’66, and we joined the parish in ’68. And then in 2012, I said goodbye to him here.” Mary Ellen looked back on a lot of memories and service that she and her late husband Jack shared together at IHM. Her involvement will not end with the closing of the worship site. “I’m the wedding coordinator for these churches. I’m a Eucharistic minister. I’ve done a lot of stuff. It’s a chapter that you choose, but I’m very grateful that I have another church to go to,” she shared.

Clergy gathers with Bishop Lucia before Mass.

“Another church” is St. Joseph the Worker, the remaining half of Epiphany, a church that has served the community since 1890 and will now solely serve a combined congregation from both worship sites.

John Cerrone has just completed 12 years of service to IHM as a trustee and has played an active part in the church’s life cycle. He’s been a parishioner for 42 years. “It’s definitely bittersweet,” he shared about the final Mass. “It’s understandable, we’ve been preparing for it.” Father Daniel O’Hara, the Epiphany pastor, first got Cerrone involved in the linkage committee. As the linkage turned to merger, church leadership turned their attention to the long term. What became an inevitable step for them concluded with deliberations over which church to close. “That’s been decided now. We move forward in faith and recognize that it’s just a building. The parishioners are the church.”

Parishioners John Cerrone and Mary Ellen Roach share a hug and many memories of IHM.

The Gospel reading for the day was Matthew 20: 1-16, the parable of the workers in the vineyard, harvesting the crop. The contributions of those who toiled all day and those who worked only a brief time are all valued equally. In his homily, Bishop Douglas J. Lucia asked, “Are we hearing God’s word to us, even in this moment? He’s inviting us to become laborers in the harvest, to go beyond our own thoughts of fairness for something deeper … about how God wants us to share his love, and to watch out for one another.”

Father O’Hara thanked all of those who shared the love and contributed to the parishes individually and as Epiphany through the years. He greeted parishioners as they entered before Mass and again outside as they left. Many lingered for a while, enjoyed light refreshments and friendly conversations.

Epiphany pastor Father Daniel O’Hara greets guests and parishioners before Mass.

Maryanne Odai was one of them, a member “since the day it opened.” She feels sadness in that her six children grew up in the church, receiving their sacraments and attending faith-formation classes. She plans to continue as a member of Epiphany at St. Joseph the Worker, even though she shared, with a laugh, that “we were hoping it would be the other church.”

Mary Ellen Roach understands that sentiment and agrees that the only choice is to keep doing “the same as we’re doing right now. Make everybody feel welcome, make everybody realize it’s not the end of the world.”