At the end of Part One of the saga of the earthquake and its aftermath, we learned about all the events leading up to that fateful hot October day and the community's orderly transition from the church to the Parish Hall, a mostly beloved building which had hosted parish events, ICF dinners and religious education classes for many years. It was a safe and welcome refuge from the horrifying scenes of downtown Santa Cruz just a few blocks away.
....AND THEN? Well, then, the hall burned down! We had been celebrating Masses there since the first weekend following the earthquake, eight months of parish liturgies including Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, and baptisms. There was even going to be a wedding there on July 22nd. But in the very early morning hours of June 30th, the parents of the bride-to-be received a somewhat agitated phone call from Sr. Barbara: "You can tell Kristin that she doesn't have to worry about getting married in the hall. It just burned down!"
Shocked, but undaunted, the parish staff explored options. Downtown businesses had begun to move into other accommodations, leaving their tents behind. Sr. Barbara remembers that Holy Cross acquired the tent which had been occupied by a clothing store called "Cat 'n' Canary." (Anyone who remembers that can be considered "an old-timer.") It took a few weeks to accomplish, and, in the meantime, the wedding, with Fr. Joe Occhiuto officiating, took place in the courtyard of Holy Cross School, the first and only wedding ever celebrated there. The bride was delighted.
The parish moved into the tent, now designated "the pavilion" (a much more elegant term), in August of 1990. And it was there that the parish stayed, in the parking lot, for more than three years. Again, there were Confirmations, baptisms, weddings and funerals. Because we felt like pilgrim people, our celebrations often reflected our immigrant history and who we were as a parish....people whose parents had traveled to Santa Cruz from Italy, Portugal, Spain, Germany, Lithuania, Mexico, Southeast Asia .... And to this day we recognize these long ago immigrants as well as the original indigenous people who still call Santa Cruz their home. It was as if, in finding ourselves on the move, God was connecting us to our ancestors and letting us know that they survived, and so would we.
PENTECOST, May 19, 1991! And now we were literally on the move! It was decided that we would be Pentecost People as well as pilgrims, and there was a grand procession down the hill to the Civic Auditorium which had been transformed into a magnificent space for the occasion. Fr. Mike Marini, our pastor, Sr. Barbara and numerous craftspeople and artists contributed to the metamorphosis. Rita Mockus, seamstress extraordinaire who passed away in 2015, sewed the amazing banners and Patricia Kay Shubeck created the inspired centerpiece depicting the descent of the Holy Spirit. The auditorium was filled with parishioners and visitors replicating the Pentecost we were celebrating. An event to remember indeed.
And then, just four months later on September 15th, we headed down the hill again, this time with Mariachis leading the way, to celebrate "the bicentennial of that day when the cross of Jesus was first planted on the soil of the place [on September 14, 1791, the Feast of the Exultation of the Cross] which would from then on be known as Santa Cruz, the city of the Holy Cross." (from a History of Holy Cross Parish by Fr. Mike Marini.)
As we can see, the parish was not sitting idle during those years of waiting to return to the church. It was a time of creativity, enthusiasm, hope and joy, the culmination of which will be told in Part Three of "When Holy Cross was closed......"
As always, readers are invited to share their memories of this time in our history in the Comments section. Just scroll down.