More than 50 children - most of them bundled up, some dressed like angels - were working the room boisterously as I walked down the basement stairs and entered the cafeteria last Wednesday evening.

They had gathered with their parents, and more families arrived by the minute.

The cafeteria was the staging ground for La Posada - a ritual of Spanish origin that literally means "the inn." The faithful walk door-to-door in the cold after dark, reenacting with prayer and song Mary and Joseph's effort to find a sheltered place for Jesus to be born.

La Posada has become an annual tradition at the school. This year's was my first.

Earlier in the week, parents had received word that the school probably would close at the end of school year. Blessed Teresa has about 170 students; tuition and other fundraising falls about $400,000 short of what it takes to run the school each year. In November, the church's pastor, the Rev. Robert Rosebrough, told parish leaders that there seemed to be little alternative to closing the school.

He gave parishioners a month to come up with a plan. A group of about 100 set a lofty fundraising goal of $1 million, enough to carry the school for at least another two years.

That sealed it for me. I was sure the school was doomed. Last-ditch efforts that call for miracles usually signal the end.

My intent was to observe and write about the final school Christmas celebration at a group of North St. Louis County parishes that date back to 1882. I had hoped to frame a proper elegy, one that would record the children's poignant celebration at the end of an era that had witnessed a steady migration of Catholic families to more distant suburbs, along with the consolidation and closing of many other schools - and now this one.

Wednesday morning brought news that the parish had pulled it off. Commitments of nearly $350,000 had been gathered. This will enable Blessed Teresa of Calcutta school, with the blessing of the parish council and the St. Louis Archdiocese, to remain open for at least another year. Extending the reprieve will mean a lot more work and more than a little luck. Maybe even another miracle.

Amid the hubbub in the cafeteria, I asked Principal Jennifer Stutsman what she thought fueled such a heroic effort. She looked around the room, and then at me, and said, "They wanted their school."

The parents, children and other parishioners, now more than 200 strong, headed into the night. They knocked on the doors of the rectory, the convent, and two magnificently maintained century homes on the block, where, of course, they were turned away.

They found sanctuary in the red granite chapel that's become a local landmark. They sang some more and held a short prayer service. It focused entirely on the impending holy day. The happy news of school remaining open did not come up. From the vantage of a back pew, it seemed plain that the parishioners' faith during this season did not depend on the fate of a single school.

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("Homecoming" first appeared as an "editorial notebook" by Eddie Roth in the December 21, 2009 edition of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.)