By Dustin Brown
The mood jumped from reverent to festive Sunday at Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament Church in Bayside as parishioners joined to commemorate the 50-year anniversary of the parish school.
The event was part class reunion, part birthday party, and part holy mass, drawing figures from 50 years of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament School history to the spot where they first learned the rudiments of the Catholic faith.
Scents of perfume co-mingled with incense as 750 parishioners crowded into the church, where a broad lattice of wooden rafters lend a sense of provincial grandeur to the 60-year-old sanctuary. The overwhelming turnout transformed the afternoon’s celebratory mass into a standing-room-only affair, forcing some loyal parishioners to watch and listen from the lobby.
Years faded, generations blurred as teachers and students from church past and present shared the pews to celebrate the school that brought them together.
Some like Kathy Foley had been there since the beginning.
“I feel like I knew it all,” Foley said as she left the mass, where the speakers’ anecdotes assembled a living scrapbook of school history. “I’ve been in this parish all my life, since the school opened — before that, even.”
For others like third-grader Amanda Salzano, the half-century history lesson didn’t mean as much as the present-day perks of being a Catholic schoolgirl.
“The teachers are nice,” she said with a shy smile.
“Fifty is a big number to a third grader,” added her mother Victoria.
Parishioners young and old were united in worship by the Rev. Steven Aguggia, a 1975 alumnus who conducted the school anniversary liturgy. Standing at the pulpit in the same church where for years he warmed the pews, Aguggia remarked on an ironic role-reversal with a former teacher sitting in the congregation.
“I realized as I was giving her the holy communion that Mrs. McKeefrey was the one who taught me how to receive holy communion in second grade,” Aguggia told the parishioners.
“I feel like this is where everything kind of began with me,” Aguggia continued. “As much as we get sent around everywhere, it’s always home. I always feel welcome here.”
The celebration allowed the community to examine the role the school had played not only in the life of a church, but also in the lives of thousands of alumni who had passed much of their childhoods within its walls. Between 400 and 500 alumni attended the celebration, said Monsignor Vincent Keane, who has served as the church’s pastor for the past four years.
“The teachers were wonderful. They gave us our faith, our strength, and our education,” said Elvira DiBiase Francischelli, who graduated in 1971. “I would only have our kids to Catholic school. It’s the best thing our parents ever did for us.”
The school opened its doors in February 1951, 20 years after the Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament Church was founded to accommodate Bayside’s rapidly growing population of Catholics.
Since then the marriage between church and school has been absolute, the boundary between the two nearly indistinguishable.
“A school makes the parish what it is,” said Monsignor Charles Boccio, who served as the school’s administrator from 1965 to 1975 and offered the afternoon’s homily. “It gives it life, because you see the little ones and you realize they are the future of everything.”
The muted reverence of mass dissipated into a festive bonanza at the reception in the school auditorium, where alumni finally had a chance to marvel at how little had changed since they had last set foot in the school’s hallowed hallways.
“What’s changed is the curtains — they’re a different color. Everything else is still the same,” Francischelli said. “The spirit and warmth of the people will never change. Your home parish will always be your home.”
Others couldn’t believe the change in perspective that comes with a few extra inches — both in height and girth.
“Everything seems so much smaller, from the pews down to the auditorium,” said Steve Reisig, a 1976 alum who was joined at the celebration by two brothers and a sister, all of whom graduated between 1974 and 1978.
The adult Reisigs swarmed around their old principal, Ellen Mary Bringenberg, to catch her up on the present while recalling their years spent under her tutelage.
“We’re trying to block most of it out,” Steve quipped.
“I can’t believe it, you guys used to be so quiet,” Bringenberg said.
Principal Sister Virginia Ann Hellow summed up what countless parishioners said has made the parish and the school thrive for the past 50 years. “They’ve always had this community spirit, and that’s what makes this place what it is,” she said.
“This is a day of fulfillment,” Keane said. “Day in, day out, teaching can become tedious at times. Then, when you see after 50 years so many people coming back, you see the joy, you see the impact.”
Reach reporter Dustin Brown by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 154.
