Around midnight, cars began to file into the parking lot of Our Lady of the Eucharist Parish in Pittston.
The faithful got out walking sticks, others put on yellow reflective vests. The moon waned from full, you could see the stars.
They met up with old friends to begin the nine-mile walk to St. Ann's Monastery and Basilica in West Scranton.
“I owe that to her," Patty Kilyanek, of Hughestown, said of her devotion to St. Ann. She has taken the pilgrimage many times over the last 20 years.
The saint is important to her family.
"It's a nice time to commune with people, but you're also praying, you're thanking St. Ann for whatever she's given you, you're praying to her for maybe some divine intervention or something," she said in the parking lot.
Through wars, the Great Depression, recessions and political turmoil Catholics have turned to Good St. Ann to hear their prayers. Every July for the past century, the faithful have attended daily Mass over nine days at the church. The devoted sit in cars outside and pews inside the grand cathedral.
On the last day of the Novena, St. Ann’s Feast Day, some have walked miles in the very early morning hours to attend church as far back as 1926.
Jordan Cook is from Lehighton. Friday was his first walk.
"I got my headlamp. I got my crucifix. I got my rosary. We're ready," he said. “There should always be a reason why you're doing something. And I think that each one of us, of course, we all have, you know, our, our people to pray for, our intention to pray for. And that's what we're gonna be doing as we walk ... up to St. Ann's ... is to be both praying for them and to asking St. Ann for her intercession."
Devotion to St. Ann is generational.
Cook’s family is from Old Forge. His grandmother was a nurse in Scranton. During the Novena, she would go to Mass with her husband every morning after her night shift.
"That's part of our family heritage," he said. "It's beautiful to have that coming full circle.”
The road to St. Ann’s is dimly lit in sections. There are only some sidewalks. It’s not flat. Towards the end, they climb about a mile up Taylor Hill. The road levels. Then there’s one more climb about three blocks up St. Ann’s Street to the church.
Carol Trzcinski has been walking for close to 20 years. The 80-year-old Avoca resident dodged credit for keeping it going.
"We used to go to Mount Carmel and start with the big crowd. But it dwindled," she said.
She celebrated the crowd of around 50 taking the pilgrimage early Friday.
Trzcinski’s middle name is Ann, after the saint.
"People experience such beautiful miracles ... you pray to St. Ann and, and miracles happen," she said.
The 100th Solemn Novena began on Wednesday, July 17. It wraps up today, July 26, on the saint’s Feast Day. She is Jesus’s grandmother. The summer tradition is important to the greater Scranton community.
"It's kind of like a family … pretty much at least half of the people here, they came here with their grandmothers and their mothers, and then they came with their children, and now they're here with their children and their grandchildren," said Rev. Richard Burke, rector of St. Ann’s Monastery and Basilica Shrine director.
He was in between services on Tuesday —the anointing of the sick and the Byzantine Mass.
Burke is a Passionist. The religious congregation founded St. Ann’s. After the church was named, Burke said they discovered that in Germany, Ann was the patron saint of coal miners.
"That was like a hand in the glove for the people of this area ... underneath us right now are three levels of mines," he said. "Coal miners came right into St. Ann and looked to her for protection and guidance and help provide hope for them.”
As the story goes, a mine subsidence threatened to close the church. The priests prayed for St. Ann’s intervention. Then boulders rolled into place and stabilized the building. Thus the Novena began.
"Everybody feels that there's an air of positivity about the city when the Novena is going on. And it's a really nice thing to have," he said.
Burke called the Novena a time for socialized prayer. The faithful pray for their families and also those down the aisles.
"They're very conscious of one another. It's all part of that bonding that takes place," he said.
The path forward
By 3:30 a.m. most of the walkers had made their way up to the basilica on the hill. They rested on granite benches on the church’s grounds and on plastic chairs underneath the tent reserved for outdoor Mass. Headlamps and flashlights turned off.
The crowds may have dwindled from the Novena’s heyday — a newspaper article from 1951 says 10,000 people filled the grounds and 78 charter buses came from New York, New Jersey and other parts of Pa. — but the walk remains.
They don’t know when or how it started. But they keep coming back year after year. The walkers are guided by their faith and their family’s faith in St. Ann.
The faithful used to walk in bare feet and crawl on their knees up Main Street and Main Avenue to the church. This year, mostly everyone wore sneakers and relaxed clothing.
Kathy Onzik and Ann Marie Lawrence are sisters from Exeter. Their first pilgrimage was over 40 years ago with their mother and grandfather.
“It was just so nice to see so many people," said Onzik. "It's wonderful. It's such a uplifting thing. And there's young. Which is so good.”
Farther up the hill, Trzcinski rested. Sometimes only three people make the sacrificial walk. Last year, they had 12.
This year they had a pilgrimage of 50.
"We just can't believe we had so many people,” she said.
The 100th Solemn Novena to St. Ann wraps up today. The Pontifical Solemn Closing Mass with the Most Rev. Joseph C. Bambera, Bishop of Scranton, will be held at 7:30 p.m.
