ST. THOMAS THE APOSTLE CATHOLIC CHURCH

P.O. Box 1529, LONG BEACH, MS 39560

Street Address: 725 N. Nicolson Avenue

Long Beach, MS 39560

(formally located at 720 East Beach Boulevard)

Pastor: Fr. Louis Lohan, 228 363-1439

Federal Tax ID# 64-040-7563

September 16, 2005

              I wish I could see you personally to say thank you for the tremendous outpouring of love, prayers, and support we have experienced these past weeks.  It is overwhelming to see power company and gas company trucks, tree cutters, church groups of all ages, Salvation Army, Red Cross – all from different areas of the country (New Jersey, Washington State, Ohio, the Carolinas, Florida, Colorado, Canada, Iowa, etc.)  and even the army from Mexico helping our shattered city pull hope from rubble.  They are working 24 hours a day to feed our people.  God blew through our streets and buildings by means of a devastating hurricane; but God again walks our communities in the shoes of all the people who have come to us and have sent so much to us.  We are humbled, encouraged, loved and cared for, empowered again by you and people like you.  Please know you have caused us to shed tears; you give us goose bumps – but most of all you give us hope.

              Let me tell you a little bit about our parish here at St. Thomas in Long Beach.  The area – and especially the parish – was established just over 100 years ago (we has a wonderful celebration of our 100th anniversary this past July 3).  It was established, loved and nurtured through the sacrifices of a little band of mostly Italian and French immigrants.  When they came, they had nothing but the willingness to work and their trust and faith in God.

              Over the years, those families and their children and grandchildren welcomed the newcomers, the strangers.  On the very shore of the Gulf of Mexico, they founded St. Thomas the Apostle Church.  It had grown into a vibrant, enthusiastic, wonderful parish of 1600 families.  We had 274 children registered in our elementary school.  We had approximately 600 children in our School of Religion (CCD).  Over the next 18 months, we had planned to celebrate approximately 35 weddings (I’m not sure – may calendar is out in the Gulf somewhere!).  Last year we has 120 Baptisms and at Easter of 2005, we had 48 people join the church through RCIA.  The answering machine of the church said, “You have reached the best Catholic Church in Long Beach.”  I must admit we are/were the only Catholic Church in this great city of Long Beach, Mississippi.  Maybe we had become too proud – holding our heads a little higher than necessary.  It is so important to remember that God is in charge and that we came naked into this world and that you never see a U-Haul following a casket.

              On Sunday, August 28, Fr. Cleary (who has just last January decided to step aside from the position of pastor in Pascagoula) and I walked out of the rectory as the wind was blowing rain in our faces.  We headed for higher ground two miles north of the rectory on the water’s edge.  He had a small bag of clothes and his medicines; in my plastic bag, I had a change of clothes, my passport, my I-Pod, a bottle of wine (not intended for sacramental purposes but later used for open-air Masses).  We also carried out the sacramental records.  We said a little prayer as we left the parking lot in the church van.  We will be back tomorrow – we thought.

              On Monday evening, a few of us made our way over and through the fallen trees, sheets of metal, and debris on the streets.  We walked across the railroad tracks (about 5 blocks north of our rectory and church).  We met one of our firemen, Scott Dubisson.  I asked him, “tell me, Scott, what is happening down there?”  His answer was, “First Baptist Church is gone.”  I asked him to tell me about our church and school.  He said, “Well, I think the school is gone – and the church, I don’t know.”  I think Scott knew but he didn’t want to say.  Scott and his wife, Melinda, and his family and her family all attend church services every weekend at St. Thomas.  They loved their parish as they do their own house and family.  I walked to the little wooden bridge half way across our parking lot.  I will never forget the utter devastation I witnessed.  It seemed “not a stone was left on a stone.”  The church was wide open like a hay barn.  Debris, sand, limbs, shingles, sheets of steel, cable, and conduit were all over the place.  Every pew has been ripped from the floor – we later found bits and pieces of a few pews ¾ of a mile to the northwest of the church.  Our beautiful Parish Life Center (just 2 ½ years old) was gutted – a few sheets of metal hung through the roof beams gently swinging in the breeze as if mocking all the sacrifices that had previously put them in place.  The rectory and church offices were gone.  There was nothing left on our campus.  And yet from that nothing, we were able to find the tabernacle, a few chalices, some memorial plaques, the stars and stripes (our flag that told us we are still free).

              Since then, the Knights of Columbus bought the town skating rink and it will now be our school, our church, our religious education building – it is the place where the Catholic family of St. Thomas the Apostle in Long Beach, MS, will continue to meet, to worship, to pray and play in the skating rink.  We are finding ways to rise again.  We mix and match, we will do the best we can.  We will continue to Baptize our children, marry our couples, bury our dead, and educate our young people as we have done for a century with God’s help and with the help and support of many, many of God’s people.

              Thanks for all your prayers and love.

                                                                                    God bless,

                                                                                    Fr. Louis Lohan, Pastor