One advantage to going to a Catholic Church is that you not only have the five school days to be with your classmates, you also have Sunday, where the odds were pretty good that you would meet up with some of your classmates again while attending Church.

Mass times would change from year to year, on any given Sunday there were four or five Mass times to choose from. 6a.m.(sometimes) & 8a.m. were the earliest and usually meant you had to be somewhere early on Sunday, followed by the 10a.m. Mass, 11:30a.m. Mass, and finally the 1p.m. Mass.

The most popular time on Sunday for the little friends was the 11:30a.m. Mass. If you were not sitting with your family you would move to the far left short pews upon entering the Church. There would usually be two and sometimes three short pews with little friends in them, mostly the boys, all lined up back to back. To the left of the little friends sitting in these pews was a clear glass window that separated the Church from what was known as the “crying room” where small babies and toddlers would go with their families for Church. The little friends felt comfortable in these pews near the crying room for several reasons. While there was never a threat of a little friend having a tantrum or crying during Church, it was not impossible for a chuckle or giggle to come out of the little friends area and should someone look over at them it was a simple matter for the little friends to turn their heads toward the crying room, subtly giving the impression the giggle was coming from that room and disturbing the little friends as well. The other reason was that if things should get slow during Mass, there was usually something funny happening in the crying room with the pesky toddlers trying to be controlled by their parents.

If you were sitting with your family you would be in the main two sections of the Church. This is where the bulk of the congregation would be and it was a good bet that within two or three pews of your family would be another family from the Class of ’75. As the Priest would enter the Church in a procession, he would have two server altar boys and three other altar boys walking in the procession with him. If you were in the 7th or 8th grades there was a good chance that these altar boys were also members of your class.

As the Mass progressed in the traditional Catholic manner, you would be surrounded not only by your family but by your classmates and their families as well. All the while the St. Albert families singing, along with your prayers, left little doubt that God was in the audience with the little friends today.

After the Mass was over, little friends would congregate either in front or behind the Church depending on where you were sitting and where you were parked. Parents would be speaking with the clergy and students with each other for about 10 minutes or so, then it would be time to head home (if it was your goal to have Sunday lunch, it was best to get to the restaurant before the Baptist Church down the street let out to avoid the rush). That was the beauty of the 11:30am Mass; it was usually all finished at 12:30pm and was a great start for the rest of the day no matter what your plans were.

The Knights of Columbus (above) would add additional pageantry to the St. Albert Mass on special occasions shown here behind the Church.

Also accessible from behind the Church was the statue of St. Albert the Great (below) which made for
great photo ops for the parishioners as they left the Church.

And of course, the one of the most beautiful altar’s in the world just happened to reside at St. Alberts.