Celebrating 100 years of worship at St. Patrick’s

While just about everyone would be excited to learn they have a cause for celebration, not everyone is overjoyed to realize they have only a few short weeks to plan the party.

But Deacon Bill Behm, who found out just seven days ago that the 100th anniversary of the first Mass at St. Patrick’s Church on Parrish Street in Wilkes-Barre (now known as St. Andrew’s Parish) is coming up June 4, doesn’t mind the short notice.

“I’m very glad. This gives us an opportunity to put our best foot forward, to relive the glory days of the parish and revel in what we still have,” he said, noting the parish will host an Anniversary Mass at 4 p.m. on Saturday, June 4 followed by a coffee-and-dessert reception.

“I actually thought we had until 2030 before the hundred-year anniversary would come up,” he said, noting that’s when the church was dedicated.

But thanks to the never-ending research of Times Leader history columnist Tom Mooney, Behm has learned that, even though the large church had not been completed, the foundation had been dug by 1922, and people were celebrating Mass in the basement.

“By accident I read in an old almanac that the very first Mass was celebrated at St. Patrick’s Church on June 4, 1922,” said Mooney, 79, who recalled that his mother, the former Regina “Jean” Kirk, lived in a rowhouse on Parrish Street, right next to the plot of land where the church was built.

The Kirks were among the original 400 families that started the parish, and young Jean — who on one occasion posed by the church foundation in a “flapper” dress of the 1920s — would have attended Masses in that lower level.

Even before parishioners gathered in the basement for liturgies, the first pastor the Rev. John Lynott celebrated Mass from August 1921 until June 1922 in the Sterling Theater at the corner of Hazle Avenue and Parrish Street.

The church basement was the worship site from June 4, 1922 until July 6, 1930, when the superstructure of the church was complete.

“Why was there such a long gap in construction?” Mooney said. “That, I don’t know, unfortunately.”

Perhaps it simply took that long to build a large church in the Byzantine style of architecture, with colored banding across the facade, images of saints sculpted into stone, a large dome on the roof and sheets of polished marble inside.

Information available at the church office explains building materials incorporated into the structure were imported from Ireland, reportedly from an area near the grave of St. Patrick, as well as from Italy.

“The architecture was so grand that merely in approaching St. Patrick’s up the grand stairway you couldn’t help but be inspired by feelings of something larger than yourself,” Mooney, noting he received First Communion and Confirmation and attended Sunday School at St. Patrick’s when it was once again his family’s parish, during the 1940s and 1950s.

“Though the interior was not huge, it still had an air of tradition and magnificense about it. The pillars, the marble, the dome all suggested the most awe-inspiring joy and reverence. The people of that parish are so lucky to have this wonderful church.”

The people of the parish also are lucky to have each other, said Jean Behm, wife of the deacon.

“We came here in 2017, and it’s the kind of place where everybody knows everybody else, and they care about each other, and they’re very welcoming to new people.”

“I introduced the idea that, before Mass starts, everyone would turn and wave to each other,” Deacon Behm said. “Even if the cantor forgets to tell them, now everyone turns and waves.”

The deacon had other reasons to feel welcome when he arrived. He had grown up in the neighborhood so, while he had been a member of the nearby St. Boniface Church, he knew lots of people from St. Patrick’s.

And then there was the almost otherworldly coincidence.

His mother, who passed away years before he became a deacon, had belonged to St. Boniface but, during a period when the two parishes were linked, frequently attended St. Patrick’s weekday Masses.

Those Masses took place not in the large church but in a smaller space in the rectory. Mrs. Behm thought the room could use a statue of the Blessed Mother, so she donated one from her home.

Her son knew nothing about that until he arrived at St. Patrick’s (which by then was St. Andrew’s) years later and then-secretary Dolores Bradigan led him to a statue. “My mother had something just like that,” he said.

No, Bradigan told him. It was his mother’s statue.

If that wasn’t enough to make him feel at home, there was another incident when retiring pastor the Rev. James McGahagan showed him a chalice and said “this came from St. Boniface.”

The deacon hadn’t seen that distinctive chalice since the late 1980s, when his mother had donated it to St. Boniface in memory of his late father. By then, he really felt at home.

“I told Bishop Bambera about it,” Behm said. “The bishop said it must be the hand of the Holy Spirit.”

Noting he’s the 15th leader of the parish, Behm said he was preceded by Father John Lynott, who was pastor from 1921 to 1938; followed by Father Charles Murray, Father Francis Toslan, Father Maurice Hughes, Farther Arthur McAndrews, Father William Burke, Monsignor Aloysius McElwee, Father Edward Gallagher, Father James Jacobs, Father Patrick Healey, Father J. Duane Gavitt, Father Jack Kilpatrick, Father Andrew Sinnott and, most recently, Father James McGahagan.

“My own parents were married here,” the deacon said. “I still continue to live in hope I’m not gonna be the guy who’s going to lock it up.”

“We are structurally sound; we are financially solvent; we owe less than what we have in savings,” he said. “The parish is very generous. We had to borrow $200,000 a few years ago when the facade came tumbling down and, were it not for the pandemic, that all would have been paid back by next year at this time. But because of the pandemic, it’s going to take another couple of years.”

Meanwhile, Behm and other church members are spreading the word about the upcoming celebration. Everyone is welcome; the parish is especially inviting past pastors, and people who have moved away but still claim membership. The bishop will attend a graduation that day, so he will send a representative.