Mary A. O'Field

Written by Mary Agnes O’Field

On October 25, 1918, in Dublin Ireland, was born a little girl, to an Irish couple who shortly afterwards moved to the United States. They stopped at Ellis Island where at that time, was mandatory to be checked out for communicable disease of any kind; a law, which obviously is no longer enforced.

Somehow the house we lived in when I was three years old, suddenly burned down and my parents were both lost. The State Authorities then took over and I was brought up to Portland from whichever city I had been living.

Being first placed in an Orphaned Children’s home, then later put on a Children’s Farm Home run by a lady named Mrs. M. The children were kept on this farm until they finished the Primary Grades, or were lucky enough to have been adopted out first.

After many years working for private families after finishing school, I went to Chicago where I took a course in Practical Nurse’s training. After completing the course I went to Washington, D.C. and did volunteer work for the Little Sisters of the Poor. Coming back to Oregon in 1966, I met a woman who had, it seems, been at the same orphanage as I, and the farm home, too. She spoke to me concerning my first days at the Orphanage and was a great help in filling in my diary of knowledge regarding those lost years.

As I grew from childhood to maturity I had forgotten most of what little I managed to remember up to that time. From what Genevieve told me, my parents were lost in a fire when the house burned down. The Authorities endeavored to locate any living relatives I might have both in this country and in Ireland to no avail. I was made a ward of the State.

Genevieve told me that Mrs. M. read us the Bible a few times each week but could not teach us her existing religion, since it was against Oregon Law to do so. She was Catholic and her children had been baptized as such. When she took us to church she just dropped us off at the first Protestant Church she passed; not always the same each Sunday.

Genevieve told me of one particular Sunday when I was four or five years old. She stated: “You seemed to like the singing and tried joining in several times. After they had sung the first verse, you were all ready to join in. All went fine until the Minister started his sermon. He spoke for a few minutes on something from the Old Testament on a subject with which you were very familiar. He spoke of King David and the Psalms however, the Minister did not stay in that part of Scripture and before we knew it, there was a lot of laughter going on and chatter. Too much, in fact! The adults seemed to be sharing some jokes and we young people did not know what they were talking about except, whatever it was seemed funny to them.

There was a lull in the conversation for a few moments, and before any of us knew what was happening you, a tiny mite of a thing, stood up and with appropriate wave of the hand said, “Awe, this ain’t Church!!!!” and proceeded to walk out of the Church. We only found you a long time after sitting very calmly and peacefully in the front pew of a Church.”

I told her I remember only about leaving a Church and walking a great distance down the highway until I came to this big building. What attracted me were the lights I could see from the sidewalk. The big double doors were open wide. I was intrigued by those lights and just had to stop and see what was in this building. When I entered, I was met by a heavenly scent. (Later I learned it was incense) As I walked up the aisle I noted the funny looking seats, saw the pictures on the wall, nine on one side and five on the other. Of course, I did not understand what they were about. I was also interested in the big table in the front and the candles and flowers on it. In the center of this table was a box-like object and on top of it stood a beautiful golden object. I noted there were all kinds of stones surrounding a disk shaped object. I noted its beauty. It was very beautiful!

To this day I cannot tell you how, I touched that golden object and traced it with my fingers, the circle of white within it. I was intrigued by all of this and I felt, at the moment of touching it, a peace I had never known before. Somehow, I felt there was someone else in the room with me, but looking around saw no one. I was not afraid, there was such peace; an overwhelming sense of peace; a feeling there was after all, someone who did care about me in spite of having recently been told: “No one wants you because you are too old!” And my reply, “But I’m only five!”

So in this place sitting in the front seat I experienced complete peace and a feeling I belonged there.

It was here the people from the Farm Home found me much later. The woman, Mrs. M. had been told what had happened in the church and why I had left.

Only many, many years later did I learn that it was a Catholic Church in which I found refuge for my soul.

The feeling of peace I experienced then at a time when I needed it, I experience now when I enter a Catholic Church today and see the Blessed Sacrament in the Tabernacle or especially in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass when Christ is raised high.

This is the peace I experienced long ago “When I First Met Christ”!