BLACK CHURCH LIFE IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA : Gospel of St. Brigid’s : The South-Central L.A. parish provides its members a spiritual home filled with a sense of self and a sense of joy.

This is a place where Baptist hymns, African music--and sometimes dancers--commingle with traditional ceremony.

Where people clap to the music if they wish, applaud the choir, and feel free to say “Amen.” Where red, black and green African-American freedom flags hang over the altar on either side of a crucified Christ, and the flag colors are repeated on the altar cloth. Where a portrait of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., painted by associate pastor Rev. Fernando Arizti, hangs under stained glass windows.

This is a Catholic church?

“The Mass is the Mass,” says the pastor, Rev. Paul Banet, of the ancient ritual re-enactment of Christ’s Last Supper with his apostles. “We do not mess with the structure. This is just as Catholic as Rome, but we’re allowed to use the culture of the people.”

Use it they do.

Of the estimated 1,400 to 1,500 active families in St. Brigid’s parish in South-Central Los Angeles, about 85% are black. Most others are Latino, with a sprinkling of about a half-dozen whites. The congregation’s average age is 35.

The former Irish-Catholic parish was a moribund place with a dwindling congregation of several hundred in 1979. The Josephites, an order of priests and brothers founded after the Civil War to work exclusively with blacks, arrived at St. Brigid’s in 1979 and the transformation began.

The priests now wear vestments of fabrics from Africa; the choir dresses in black with African kufi hats, and drapes Ghanaian kente cloths over their shoulders. Many in the congregation wear African garb. St. Brigid’s encourages it.

The kiss of peace--often a perfunctory greeting or handshake during the communion section of the Mass in many churches--comes early, just after the congregation asks forgiveness.

“We’re trying to make the Mass flow,” Banet explains. “(Coming when it does) you’ve been reconciled, or forgiven. This gives you the opportunity to feel peace.”

At St. Brigid’s, it is a distinctly warm and long affair. People take their time, leave their pews, walk around, hugging and kissing friends while saying, “The peace of Christ be with you.” They welcome strangers and sometimes embrace them.

At early morning Mass on weekdays, deacon Gilbert Lanoix, a layman, frequently reads the Gospel and delivers the homily.

Women ascend the pulpit and read from Scripture. And girls serve as acolytes or “altar boys” at St. Brigid’s.

At the consecration, it is not unusual for people to leave their seats and stand around the altar.

“It’s an invitation to be around the community table like in the old days,” Banet says, harking back to the ceremony’s roots.

On Sundays, a call to the altar after Mass brings forward the orientation class of newcomers--about 25 each month.

“We pray over them,” says Banet, “like they do in Protestant churches.”

Just now they’re working on a Saturday evening jazz Mass.

A teen Mass is already well underway. The first Sunday of the month is theirs--their 50-member Gospel choir, teen ushers and teen speakers.

Many black Catholics have felt so isolated, Banet says, that they attended various Protestant churches for years.

But, he says, when they visit St. Brigid’s, they say, “This is us.”

The parish, says Banet, is fun: “If the hairs on your head don’t tingle, there’s something wrong. St. Brigid’s is giving the sense of joy to all the Catholic churches. The African-American churches are imitating us, but (in addition) a lot of churches are loosening up.”

He is talking about more than the liturgy. The rituals manifest the life of the community and St. Brigid’s is an active and powerful force. Early on, back in the ‘50s, Banet says, he sensed the potential of black influence on the Church: “We should be the leadership to turn the Church around.”

Banet, 70, says “we” frequently, although he is white. His predecessor was black, and he voices the regret that, due to a shortage of black priests, there is not now a black pastor. He has a different perspective on its significance:

” . . . Who says the Mass isn’t that important if the leadership is with the laity.”

And, says lay member Millard Lowe, “The lay people are very much involved in evangelizing the community. We’re doers of the word. That’s our motto. We must become the good news.”

By evangelizing, Lowe was not describing seeking converts. St. Brigid’s has more than 40 lay ministries where parishioners volunteer their services for education, youth, elderly care, AIDS patients, high school dropouts, gang members, housing, drug addiction, alcoholism and overeating--a complete range of social problems.

Lowe, 50, who is dean of faculty and head of the science department at Bel Air Prep School, has been a member of St. Brigid’s since he came here from Jamaica in 1985. He is a parish lecturer, member of the education committee--”which covers everything from catechesis to African-American history classes”--and is active in the “Godfather Club,” a group of black men “dedicated to getting young boys off the streets and spending quality time with them.”

While Banet believes his parish is on target, he realizes it may not be for everyone.

“You can come in here and say, ‘This is the most God-awful profanation of the Catholic Church I’ve ever seen,’ or, ‘This is the way the Church ought to be.’ ”