Growing up in St. Anne, Illinois, attending the Catholic Grade School, and taking piano lessons from Sister Leo Marie just about guaranteed your ascension to the coveted role of church organist, with or without your talent or consent. Apparently, in this town of 1300 souls, there was always a dearth of musicians (beyond the obliging Dominican nuns) that were prepared to take on the unpaid responsibility of leading the congregation in song each day. While the nuns were away during the summer,  some youth or group needed to be persuaded to take on the task of getting up and out in proper church attire every morning to play the organ for the eight o’clock mass. Who better to fill the need of involuntary labor than the young girls of the parish? If these females could never grow up to be priests, they might as well make themselves useful to the Church in other ways. That was the rationale given, at least as I remember it.

The transitory nuns took to recruiting their young musicians as often as necessary to guarantee a continuous supply of compliant souls to fill their pious summering shoes. The community hit the trifecta when I entered the third grade behind budding junior organists Kathy and Shirley of the Fourth Grade. We were such responsible and well-behaved little girls. In due course, it was explained to us that the added benefit of being one of the chosen few meant that we were allowed to assume the important role of church sacristans as well. Ostensibly, since we were already going to be there and had absolutely nothing better to do with our summer days off, we would enjoy the opportunity to lay out the priest’s vestments, clean wax off the candlesticks, and very carefully fill the chalices with the unblessed communion hosts. Yes, loads of summer fun, but their encouragement of our perseverance in the preservation of our souls (from eternal damnation, no less) was a pretty strong motivator back then.

Although the Catholic Church is infamous for instilling a lifetime propensity to feel guilty about everything in its followers, our little church had its own unique claim to fame.  We were one of the few parishes in the entire United States blessed to have a relic of St. Anne, grandmother of Jesus of Nazareth. The relic itself is a bone from the ring finger of one of the Saint’s blessed hands. In our day, the case and the relic had been prominently displayed in a custom made metal kneeler in front of her imposing statue.  Because the relic went missing for a period of time in the 90’s, its semi-precious round crystal and gold case are kept mostly hidden away. The exception is its prominent return to the sanctuary in honor of the Feast Day to St. Anne. The relic is credited with several miraculous healings over the years. Due to this mystery and its rarity in the US, with very little advertising the relic guarantees busloads of the faithful in attendance at her feast day celebration on July 26^th each year.

It was no secret, that this event was the annual money-maker for the parish. There were the expected folding tables covered in plastic cloths, piled with scapulas, medals of all sizes, statues and rosaries of all colors and price-points, little plastic bottles for holy water, plus many religious pamphlets and postcards to be sold to the faithful. Serving the mid-day meal were the Ladies of the Sodality, with their wonderful home baked desserts to round out the spaghetti luncheon served always with tepid lemonade and iced tea.

By the end of the day, any remaining liquids were served against all best wishes, completely watered down to the wilting pilgrims.  Melted ice pieces tenaciously blocked the spigots of the huge Thermos jugs, on loan from the various families’ garages. The sweltering heat and humidity were compounded by a lack of air-conditioning in the church. Hundreds of souvenir cardboard fans on sticks imprinted with the face of St. Anne were sold on the feast day – it was imperative to have enough on hand. Without a fan and plenty of wet drinks for each, the faithful became more than a little noticeably frustrated by the heat. No amount of innate religious fervor can help quench thirsts both spiritual and physical in the heat of a Midwestern summer.

After many years tending to the annual event, the other two organists moved on. One left with her family to move to Oswego, Illinois; the other joined the serving line, begging off that her music skills were not up to the challenge. From age eleven to age sixteen, one lone organist lived and breathed to lead the congregation in song in honor of St. Anne. Although this should not have been a burden, the musical performances themselves were fraught with tension, mistakes and embarrassment. On the feast day itself, the sole organist with no choir played three full masses as well as the duration of an hour long procession around the ten block town perimeter. That is a lot of time at the keyboard in the upper stories of a Church in such extreme heat. The ivories became slippery, making fingerings less precise and palms all the more sweaty with fear.

Pure repetition should have helped allay some of the fearfulness of the day. Although her more famous daughter, Mary the Mother of Jesus, had hundreds of hymns to honor her, the less famous mother had only one. Even more unfortunate, she shared the melody with her daughter, as the hymn to St. Anne was sung to the age-old Catholic tune “Immaculate Mary”. Three times a day, and for one solid hour, seven verses of “To Kneel at Thine Altar” were required performance for the summertime organist.

One year flowed into the next, with little change to the format. Of the most memorable episodes, the resident priest led the procession while he sang off-tune, at the top of his lungs. He had no sense of the pace of the hymn, and would yell out mid-verse toward the gallery, “Speed it up!” My pubescent face burned red with embarrassment as well as with teenage anger, because speeding up for Father Anson meant rushing the rest of the congregation.  Heads swung around revealing unpleasant expressions of dismay straight through to extreme disdain. Not too much later a descent down the stairs was mandatory, at which time I would bear the burden of their continued anger at my inability to lead the congregation properly in song. After all, I was the only organist – how dare I fail them? They all knew as well as I did, that a Good Organist was meant to keep playing, “To Kneel at Thine Altar” over and over and over, again making no mistakes, perfect every time.

On this particular day, even though the music was well out of hearing range, the nano-second the head of the procession picked up the melody, this esteemed father was shout-singing off tune and out of pace with the music. I knew what would come hours later; the not too subtle judgment that I had not put in an acceptable performance. In the end, this day proved to be dismally scarring for the reluctant twelve-year-old organist. The Feast Day of St. Anne became a yearly terror for a shy teenage girl, reluctant to face a critical crowd on the feast day.

As sometimes happens, a forgotten fragment of a past drama becomes more than a bit of a nightmare in the adult psyche.  Often I wake up in a cold sweat after dreaming of losing the only copy of the well-worn hymnal containing the music and verses of, “To Kneel at Thine Altar”. Desperately looking for any songbook that contained the mother tune, “Immaculate Mary”, I scramble through the organ bench, determined not to fail. Of course, the music can not be found, so with no practice time, I attempt to play the song from memory, with wet fingers sliding everywhere but to the right keys. Who knew back then, that it was possible to suffer trauma at the hands of a tone-deaf priest and a few hundred marching pilgrims?

Today, I still fear performing in public more than anything else. Unfortunately, recoiling at public criticism is another flaw to overcome. On the positive side, I still love spaghetti now known as Bolognese; the chocolate sheet cake made with buttermilk and baking soda remains my favorite indulgence. I collect crystal and gold cases of all kinds; the various colors of the vestments are still all at the top of my favored list. Summer still makes me sweat and my hometown will always be my only home. Sometimes it is good to remind oneself, that being a recovering Catholic is not really all that bad, not really.

“Oh good, St. Anne, we call on thine name. Thy praises loud thy children proclaim.”  verse from "To Kneel at Thine Altar"