By Nancy Schertzing | Photography by Jim Luning
“There’s this song that I love to sing. It’s called Alleluia Anyhow. It says,
‘Alleluia anyhow.
Don’t let life’s problems
get you down.
When dark clouds
get in your way,
lift your hands to God
and say,
Alleluia ... anyhow.’
“Like old Negro spirituals, you repeat it over and over again until it just gets into you.
“When we were little, we used to sit under our back porch during storms, watching the wind bend these tall, thin trees almost to the ground. They always came back upright. I think about those trees when life sends those storms to me. Why didn’t they break? All I can say is that God never puts more on our shoulders than we can handle. If you give up on the Alleluia Anyhows, you’re just gonna topple.
“Music sustains and comforts in a way I don’t think I can articulate. I don’t think they make words like that.” She sighs, “This feeling you get inside from singing. What is it? I don’t know. Whatever it is I LOVE it!” She reaches her hands up and out in a gesture of thanks and joy.
Helen Wilson grew up in Flint with six sisters and three brothers. Her mother walked all 10 children to Mass every Sunday under the watchful eye of Father Norman A. DuKette. Helen grew up a “DuKette Catholic” and has participated in her parish’s life for more than 30 years as choir director at Christ the King.
Helen remembers the extraordinary priest who introduced her to her faith. “Father DuKette kept track of us all. He would look out over the congregation every Sunday, and if anyone was missing he called their house after Mass to check up on them. He made sure no one went without food or heat. Yet he kept the heat off all week to save fuel so the church could be warm on Sunday morning.
“He watched over us kids. One day, when I was 7 or 8, he was giving his sermon and I was whispering something to my sister in the pew. He said from the altar, ‘And Paul said, Helen, stop talking.’ Then he went on with his homily. I was so embarrassed!
“After Mass, I knelt in the aisle as everyone filed out of church. They patted my shoulder or gave me sympathetic looks as they went by. Pretty soon, the church was empty. I stayed there kneeling in the aisle, but Father didn’t come.
“Eventually, I called out, ‘Father DuKette, I’m here kneeling in the aisle.’ He was back in the vestibule taking off his vestments. ‘I know,’ he said, and kept changing.
“Another few minutes went by and I called out, ‘Father DuKette, my mother’s gonna wonder where I am if I don’t get home pretty soon.’ From the vestibule he replied. ‘Your mother knows where you are, Helen.’
“By this time, my knees were getting pretty sore! Finally, he walked over to me, and told me to follow him to a seat. ‘Helen,’ he said, ‘these are wonderful stories in the Bible and you are missing them because you can’t stop talking!’
“I was young and I couldn’t be quiet, so I interrupted him. ‘But Father, that’s what you told me last week!’
“He kind of shook his head and said, ‘I know, Helen. I know.’
“‘Let me tell you a story,’ he said, ‘about a carpenter who was driving a nail into a piece of wood. Now this wood was hard, so the first time the carpenter pounded the nail, it barely went in. But he was determined. That carpenter kept pounding and pounding that nail until, finally, it was all the way in!’
“Father DuKette leaned toward me and said, ‘Helen, the board is your head. I am the hammer. And I am going to keep telling you until you see the beauty in the stories and the word of God! One day I will get through to you.’” Helen pauses, caught in her memories of that moment with her mentor and friend.
“It didn’t happen the next week or the week after that,” she continues. “Gradually, though, I started hearing stories and readings that sparked my interest. I wondered, ‘What does that mean?’ Or ‘What does this have to do with me?’ And not just the readings, but the prayers of our Catholic faith! Don’t they just take your breath away? They are so beautiful!
"I am so glad and thankful, Lord, that you shared in our humanity so that we could share in your divinity! Thank you for allowing us to share in the Eucharist! He’s saying ‘I’m doing this for you, Helen, because I love you. I don’t know how to express that amazing love, except through how I treat others and through music!
“I taught and directed the choir at DuKette Catholic School here in Flint for a lot of years. The majority of our students were Protestant or unchurched, but I wouldn’t teach a song without telling a story about what it means. I love those little rapt faces, looking up and listening to the words of the songs!
“You can’t sing a song just because you’ve got a good voice. It’s got to come from the inside. Like the old Negro spiritual, Were You There When They Crucified My Lord? Were you there when they nailed him to the tree? Were you there?” Helen’s face shines with intensity from deep within.
“Feel the story! Were you there when people were being spat upon or beaten or lynched? Were you there?” Her eyes shine fiercely now. “If you were there, what were you doing? Were you just standing by and watching while this was happening around you? Do you stand by and let this happen today?” She shakes her head and lowers her eyes, “It causes me to tremble.
“Jesus is identifiable in that song, in that experience! He had done nothing wrong, but he freely accepted death on a cross. For me? You did that for me, Lord?! Our God loves us so much!
“I am just so filled, filled, filled! Sometimes I’ll be in church singing, and then all of a sudden I’m crying and crying! I don’t have the words for it, but I just soar!
"Is God something, or what?! And this is forever! God’s not going anywhere. Every day we love more, live more and grow more. Everything changes, but God doesn’t change. He’s always the same. He’s always there.
“So when life sends storm clouds and I ask God, ‘Why did you do that?’ He tells me, ‘I know what I’m doing. You’ll be okay, because you’ve got the right stuff. You are clothed in me.’
“And then comes the music – the songs that lift me up. I know all these years he has been preparing me for whatever is going to happen. Alleluia anyhow.”
A month before the stock market crash in 1929, Father Norman DuKette was sent to Flint to begin a parish for black Catholics. The first Mass offered by Father DuKette was at St. Joseph Hungarian Church on the Feast of Christ the King. Because of that, the congregation chose Christ the King as its patron, and eventually raised enough money to buy a house and lots for $4,500 in 1937.
In 1969, the parish faced destruction as I-75 was slated to come through their neighborhood. The community rallied and built a new rectory on Seymour Street – the first Mass was offered in it on the Feast of Christ the King. The following year, Father DuKette retired.
– Msgr. George Michalek
|
