Parish takes good with the bad – always hope

BY BILL DOYLE | CFP CORRESPONDENT

WORCESTER – In a little more than a week, Our Lady of Providence Parish experienced unfortunate lows and hopeful highs.
In early July a bullet was shot through a window of the gymnasium at the parish’s St. Bernard Church and came out a window on the other side. Other bullets chipped the outside brick wall.
About the same time, a young homeless man spent a few nights in one of St. Bernard’s stairwells and appeared to be injecting drugs into his arm.
Fortunately, parishioners didn’t have to wait long to feel a renewed sense of pride in their church. Less than a week later, the church reopened for Mass for the first time since May. It had been closed so a new vinyl tile floor, and pews from a closed church in Northampton, could be installed.
Weekend Masses were held in the gym and weekday Masses were canceled while the pews were installed and the tile was laid. The parish used its Legacy of Hope funds to pay for the project, said Father Jonathan J. Slavinskas, pastor.,
“It’s great to see the reaction of the parishioners, those parishioners who have been here for 50 years and those who are new to the area and who have been here for a year,” said Father Slavinskas, as he stood in the church. “For them to see the changes, it gives them hope that this is going to be a church that lasts a long time. It’s a vibrant community. It’s a great, prayerful space.”
The parish’s security camera keeps a watch on the property and neighborhood.
At 8:24 p.m. on July 2, five bullets were fired at an individual who was getting out of his car on Paine Street behind the church. The shots came from the parking lot of the former Harlow Street School.
“He saw the gun pointed at him and immediately ran back into the car as the bullets were shooting,” said Father Slavinskas, who watched the video captured by the security camera. “It’s an unfortunate situation. We have young kids in the neighborhood who were out there at that time. Eight-twenty-four is not late.”
Father Slavinskas said he was grateful that no one was playing basketball in the gym at that time.
“Unfortunately,” he said, “there are younger individuals who feel that this is the way they’re called to live.”
Father Slavinskas said he was grateful that District 2 City Councilor Candy Mero-Carlson had worked with the Worcester Police Department and the city administration to expand the use of ShotSpotter to the St. Bernard’s area. The technology can identify when a gunshot is fired, in order to dispatch law enforcement. That night police arrived at St. Bernard’s within two minutes. Worcester Police Chief Steven M. Sargent is a parishioner there.
“It’s not just because he’s a parishioner here that we have his support,” Father Slavinskas said. “No one in any of these homes around here wants to hear gunshots. No one wants to panic and hear the scream of a child. People deserve safety and we’re trying to provide a positive image for that safety in the community.”
When Father Slavinskas talked with The Catholic Free Press, he said that, as far as he knew, no arrests had yet been made.
That same weekend, the parish’s video camera captured a young man with a sleeping bag, in a church stairwell along Harlow Street, injecting himself. He has since moved on.
“He probably was in his 20s,” Father Slavinskas said. “Unfortunately, drug addiction is just a painful thing that we see. So I guess he found his little home there for a few days.
“I have great compassion and will help out in any way we can.” The parish holds daily Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, he said, and monthly recovery Masses for any type of struggle.
“So we try to be very accommodating and helpful,” Father Slavinskas said, “but one thing I can’t tolerate is active drug use where needles are involved, on the property.”
The parish celebrated its 100th anniversary last November and still had the original pews, but they were cracked and broken and needed to be replaced, Father Slavinskas said. Last fall, he learned that St. John Cantius Church in Northampton had closed and was about to be torn down and replaced by townhomes. The developer donated the 46 pews, the same number that St. Bernard’s Church had.
Neighborhood youth, many of whom play basketball in the gym, accompanied Father Slavinskas, his father, Daniel, parishioner Michael Carbonneau, and a few others on three trips to Northampton to disassemble the pews, transport them on a tractor trailer donated for the job by Direnzo Towing & Recovery, and reassemble them at St. Bernard’s. Fourteen pews were shortened to fit inside columns. Father Slavinskas said the volunteers saved the church $18,000.
James Marr helped transport the pews and screw them in place just two nights before he married his fiancée, Kristina Sullivan, on July 9, at the first Mass after St. Bernard’s reopened.
“We had a deadline that we had to hit and it got hit very well,” Father Slavinskas said.
He said he was happy to see a neighborhood woman return to St. Bernard’s early one morning after the church reopened. The woman is from the Middle East, isn’t Catholic and doesn’t speak English, he said, but she had prayed at St. Bernard’s nearly every day before the church was closed for repairs.
“It was a great joy for me to open the church for her so she could get the quiet prayer space that she needed,” he said. “That’s what this church is all about, welcoming all, so I love it.”
“There’s always going to be bad in the world at times,” Father Slavinskas said. “The goal is to have the good outweigh the bad. And we’re not going to let a few negative incidents ruin all the good that’s taken place in our community and the neighborhood and the parish.”