Ste Anne Shrine

December 2005

Glorious Saint Anne,

we think of you as filled with compassion
for those who invoke you and with love
for those who suffer.
Heavily laden with the weight of my troubles,
I cast myself at your feet and humbly beg of you
to take the present affair which I commend to you
under your special protection.
Amen

for my Mother

Interior of Ste. Anne church with statue of Ste. Anne holding the infant Mary.

This magnificent Dominican church was built by people who were of French descent via Canada. It has long been one of the city's great institutions with its own school and hospital.
It was the hospital in which I was born. There was no doctor present at that moment. My Mother said that I came out on my own volition, that I wanted out.
Ste Anne's was where she had her own baptism in the early part of the 20th Century and where she had her funeral Mass in January 2009.
In 2002 it was the last place my Mother and I attended Mass together. We were with my eldest brother who passed away in 2006. I thought about her and prayed for her there on this evening in 2005. All who labor and all who suffer come to Him and He will give you rest.
Snow was falling outside in December's early darkness. It was on the night before I planned to leave Fall River for the last time. In another four years this high ceiling would be the last one to shelter my Mother's mortal remains. And that is what came to pass.
Peace unto her. I am confident she is with Jesus in Eternity.













In the numinous darkness of the Crucifix photograph is a Christmas tree, almost invisible.

The doors were unlocked for a Mass later that night. I was there for nearly an hour and saw no other person. There was a vast quiet as I prayed, reflected, and lit a candle. To get a light for the candle, I had to carry a flame across a large oriental rug in front of the altar from one candle rack to the other. In the semi-darkness, it would conceivably have appeared rather dramatic to a sudden observer. I felt like I was in a film by the great Catholic film-maker, Luis Bunuel













Ecole Ste Anne AD 1923

This school was new when my Mother studied there in French and in English. It was where she first met my Father. Snowflakes fall another Winter over its striking frieze of Jesus, the Teacher.

South Main and Middle Street,
Fall River