Sharing sacred vigil
SUDBURY -- There are air mattresses in the confessionals, baked goods in the sacristy, crochet hooks in the pews. There are women at the altar of St. Anselm Church leading women in the sanctuary through the Stations of the Cross.
None of it seems remarkable on a snowy night in March. Six months after this parish refused to comply with the order of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston that it close its doors, the remarkable has become the routine.
The deacon's wife gives piano lessons in a small room off the vestibule. Children do their homework at the church computer. Dinner is served in the parish hall in the basement. Sleeping bags are clustered in family groupings.
On this Friday night, the parish's children make a Lenten sacrifice of their weekly movie to allow their mothers and aunts and grandmothers a few hours of reflection on the road they are traveling together. Some of their husbands will come in the morning to cook and serve them breakfast.
There is a lot to share.
A widow wants the others to know that this vigil has banished the loneliness that claimed her after her husband's death. She calls the experience both ''thrilling and uplifting."
A parishioner of 40 years wants to celebrate her new connection with these women. ''We used to look at each other, said ''Hello," and then off we took," she says. ''It has been a joy for me to meet you, to know we are all working for the same thing."
In their previgil incarnations, the women recall, they might have worked with one another on a Christmas bazaar, a rummage sale, a bingo game, but the emotional and spiritual bond they now share was missing. ''We didn't sleep together, that's for sure," says one, filling the church with laughter.
The sense of community created by the effort of men and women to keep St. Anselm open extends well beyond the parish. There is the rabbi who leads them in prayer, the shop owner who delivers doughnuts, the florist who decorates the altar, the 12 new families who have joined a parish that was officially disbanded last September.
Maybe no one has savored these last six months more than Rose Olivo, who moved to Sudbury three years ago to live with her granddaughter's family. At the Communion service this morning, the parish deacon will ask the congregation to celebrate the vigil's milestone and Rose's, as well. It is her 90th birthday.
''This vigil has added 10 years to my life," she says in an effort to quantify the value of friendships made, kindnesses extended and talents shared. Olivo and her friends do more than occupy the church for three hours each Wednesday afternoon. There is nothing idle about this sit-in. They knit. They needlepoint. They crochet.
The results of their recent labors are stacked on a front pew: a mauve afghan, dozens of crocheted squares to be assembled into a blanket, a handful of brightly colored hats. Earlier handiwork already has found a home on the heads of homeless men at St. Francis House in Boston and on the laps of patients at a local nursing home.
Rose does not know any more than her friends do whether the Archdiocese of Boston will relent, but she believes that St. Anselm's belongs to the people in the pews, not to the archbishop of Boston. ''I'm from Brooklyn," she says, the declaration a kind of shorthand for the street savvy she brings to this standoff.
Told that the only comment from the Chancery on the six-month anniversary of their vigil is an expression of hope that all the church sit-ins end peacefully, the women smile. ''We know how the archbishop can end it peacefully right now," says one, to a round of applause. Failing that, these women are not going anywhere. Last fall, their children planted spring bulbs around the church. They are under a foot of snow, just waiting for the thaw.
Eileen McNamara is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at mcnamara@globe.com.
