Attending Mass While on Vacation
by Lori Callaway

I know that there are going to be some mixed emotions. Some of you will be thinking ‘Why wouldn’t I go to Mass while on vacation? It’s part of our lives, no matter where we are.”

Others will think to themselves, ‘I am on vacation! I want to get away from it all, and I mean ALL.’

This week’s column is not to instill guilt or push anyone into going to church while on vacation. As I am going on a vacation soon, I wanted to write about visiting my ancestors church while in Sweden last year and attending Mass during this year’s vacation at another sept of my ancestors.

I’ll start with this year and work backward, saving the best for last.

This year, I will be returning to the Midwest where I grew up. Instead of my hometown, I will be staying in a town that a larger group of my family lives. They were as raised Cradle Catholics. I have memories of attending weddings, funerals and First Communions in what seemed to be a giant old church. I found out recently the church had been built in 1832. Of course it seemed old; it was ancient by my 12 year old standards! The artwork was old, the pews had that certain creak that only time can give them. Mostly, I remember the smell of the church. It smelled of incense, old wood, antiquity and reverence. How do you put a smell to reverence? Even now, it’s hard to explain. Some women still wear veils to cover their hair. Everyone genuflects, it is not optional. Everyone rises together, kneels, bows and even if they don’t sing, they open the missal to the proper page. No one leaves before the organist is finished with the recessional. It’s just not done that way there. For that, I am thankful.

For me, it is all part of ‘going home’. I get sit there and remember those that have passed on and how much I miss them. Lighting a candle for them before I leave is part of it too. In my own odd way, it is a trip down memory lane.

Going to visit my ancestors’ church in Sweden was an entirely different affair. At one time, they were Catholic and to be forced to change to Lutheranism. I have 2 ancestral village churches in my Swedish family. There are more, but I only had the time to visit two. I went to the church and abbey in Varnhem Sweden and the village church in Kil, Orebro Sweden. I was the first American descendant to visit Sweden in over 121 years. Through the years, both the Swedes and the Swedish Americans lost touch with each other for whatever reason.

One side of my family attended the Varnhem church and had attended it since about the years 1200. There is an archeological dig going on near by on the lands as ruins were found to date back to before 700 AD. I got to visit both the dig and spend time in the church. In this church, the bodies of former earlier Swedish Kings and Queens are laid to rest, with brief histories of their lives and even some of their deaths…and a few listed how they were murdered. I could not imagine my ancestors attending church where kings and queens were buried not 100 ft away! The Varnhem church had crypts and tombs with the likeness of the inhabitants buried within. It was amazing and overwhelming all at the same time to me.

The other group of my Swedes lived in a place called Kil in Orebro Sweden. I had been given a photograph of this church that belonged to my 3x great grandfather on a very hard cardboard showing the church and village. The back simply read ‘Home in Old Sweden Per Jansson’. I found out the photograph had been taken in the late 1880’s before he left for America with his bride and young daughter. As my Swedish family drove up to the church, I asked them to stop at the same place the photo had been taken all those years ago. Nothing had changed in all those years, except the dairyman’s barn was no longer there. The rest was the same.

God was with me again and I got to tour this church as well. As I walked up the same stone steps my ancestors had walked, I could not speak. My eyes were filled with unshed tears and my lips quivered as I tried to hold back the tears. I was walking in my ancestors footsteps, literally. I walked slowly, taking in the view straight ahead of me as I approached the tall spired church. My ‘Swedes’ patted my arm and asked if I was alright ? The only words I could say through my thickened voice was ‘Bara bra’, which translates roughly to ‘I am good’. I entered the church and from the days when the church was Catholic, the old holy water fonts holders were there. I smiled. My family said, “We don’t know what those are for, they have always been there.’ I told them, it’s from when this church was Catholic and small bowls of holy water were there to bless yourself with.’ With this, one of them ran to get the church historian for me to talk to as I wandered around wide eyed looking at the family crests and shields on the walls.

Since I was not Lutheran, I did bow to the altar cross but was going to sit in one of the back pews. One of my elder relatives grabbed my arm and stopped me, shaking his head. He motioned for his wife to come translate to me as they pulled me to the other side of the church and to a different pew closer to the front. I stared at him then her, thinking I had done something wrong. Gun and Ron smiled at me as Gun told me in Swedish, I was not in OUR family pew. They guided me to a pew closer to the front and pointed at a fierce looking knight’s face armor and told me that shield and armor were the crest and shield of my ancestors and this was the pew our family was assigned from the times of when there were wars frequently. I had to sit down with that information. I had never known about this in my family history, nor had it been passed down orally. They smiled at me as silent tears ran down my face. Somewhere a tissue was found and I fell apart completely. The church historian came to sit beside me, but gave me room when she saw I was crying. I waved her to talk, I would be alright. She asked in English if I was alright. “Bara bra, bara bra.” I told her. I explained I never knew anything about this part of the family. Then she told me that my family had been baptized, confirmed, married, and buried in this very church since the 1400’s and then later she took me to the books to show me each and every one. On our way to the records, she stopped me at the holy water fonts and asked in English again what they were for. So I explained in a mixture of English and Swedish those little brass circles were for holding holy water. This made her very excited and she grabbed a book of a study that had just been done on this church in the last year in which it was claimed that this church was much older than thought, but the archeologist had not noticed the holy water holders. She was going to call him and tell him about their new knowledge from a Catholic visitor. I was treated as if I were royalty and allowed to see the ledger books of all my family entries. They showed me the paintings of the pastors with dates showing who baptized which members of my ancestors, which pastors married who of my family as I took photographs and scribbled notes furiously. I was then taken to the vestment room and shown the old vestments that are still used today and some that are just there because they belong there and had always been there, they said with a shrug. I toured the sanctuary again and sat reflecting on my ancestors. I was sitting exactly where they sat and wondered if they had thought the same things; that they were sitting where their ancestors had sat 100 or 200 years before them. I was left alone with my thoughts.

It was apparent I was struggling with the past and the present sense of my being there. I kept looking at old hand carved wooden statutes that I knew were older than the current day church and asked about them.

The historian told me that much of the statuary in the church was from the 1100 AD to 1200 AD times and asked why I was so curious. I told her I was drawn by the beauty of it and its age. She chuckled and said ‘That was probably when this church was Catholic since and you can see the Catholic-ness in it. But we like you fine anyway.” as she laughed. She then showed me more recent Lutheran statuary and the difference between the two styles.

I toured the cemetery and said hello to my ancestors buried there and that I would be back from time to time. Though I know it was only their bodies buried there, I would like to think their souls were watching from above and happy that I had come to see them.

I had a beautiful vacation time of quiet reflection and learning of myself and my living family and ancestors while in Sweden.

I learned about my ancestors and saw where they worshipped, sat where they sat, and visited their graves. But more importantly, I got to walk their footsteps. I even got to visit my 3x and 4x great grandfathers farms. I got to see where a part of me came from.

While it may not be for everyone, it gave me peace and comfort that a trip to anywhere else just wouldn’t have done the same. If ever you wonder about your past and where you came from, go and see. Especially the churches your ancestors attended. Chances are, you will be welcomed warmly and will come back feeling refreshed and recharged.

Pax,
Lori Callaway

Lori Callaway is married to her best friend Scott and mother of 3 children, all of whom are her inspiration and fodder for her freelance writing. Her hobbies are knitting (as a lefty), rosary making, sewing, cross stitching, crafts and ¾ to full time genealogist and history nut. She currently lives in one of the giant metro areas the Pacific Northwest of the US after having grown up in American’s idea of a perfect mid-western small town. Lori is also an RCIC teacher.