As Easter approaches, parishioners at Altadena’s two Catholic churches are praying for a modest kind of miracle: a return to normalcy.
“I think that’s what people really want,” said Father Gilbert Guzmán, pastor at Sacred Heart Church, about upcoming Easter celebrations. “They want familiarity.”
“I think if we can just kind of do the basics, it’ll be an accomplishment,” said Deacon Doug Cremer of St. Elizabeth of Hungary Church, also in Altadena. “There’s something powerful about the ritual of the liturgy and the Eucharist, that sometimes its predictability and maybe even if it’s boring, common elements are actually a relief in an era of constant chaos and turmoil and change.”
Even though both parishes have returned to having Mass inside the church, daily parish life is far from normal in a city devastated by the Eaton Fire in January.
Both Guzmán and Cremer estimate that each parish has lost nearly half of its parishioners since the fire. The water was only recently declared safe to use again. The air quality is hazardous enough that Sacred Heart bought air purifiers and St. Elizabeth’s school is not expected to reopen until the fall.
While much of each parish’s insides have been scrubbed and cleaned, there is still extensive damage that needs to be repaired.
Families continue to trickle in to receive assistance, including from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles’ fire relief fund, as well as donated goods.
That’s what makes the return of in-person gatherings so important.
“The one thing that everyone says is what we lost was just stuff, at least we have each other,” Guzmán said. “It’s very beautiful, really a resounding test of testimony to the value of relationship versus anything material.”
Sacred Heart was able to return for Mass on Feb. 2, only about a month after the Eaton Fire first ignited. The efforts of Deacon José Luis Díaz and others have been credited with saving the church as the fire tore through its neighborhood.
During that first Mass, a single candle was brought in during the procession.
“It was a beautiful, symbolic thing to have our own little fire be a positive thing versus the negative that we had just suffered,” Guzmán said.
At St. Elizabeth, the return to Mass inside has felt more uncomfortable. After first doing outdoor Masses at the parish’s Lourdes grotto, parishioners finally got to go inside the church a few weeks ago.
But it hasn’t quite felt the same, Cremer said.
“It’s great to be back and kind of doing what we do, and being with people, and seeing each other, hearing their stories about loss and survival and rebuilding,” he said. “And yet it’s still this sense of being not quite complete. There’s a thing in the back of your mind where you know it’s never going to actually go back to the way it was.”
Source: Angelus News
