O
odile53
Guest
Well, I got to Mass each day this week including last evening. The parish is a Jesuit run parish, and all seven of the Fathers were celebrating the liturgy. No foot washing. The procession to the tabernacle of repose was beautiful, with the Pange Lingua chanted in Latin. Even though the Mass of the Lord’s Supper was celebrated in the Ordinary Form, before Mass the pastor came to the pulpit, and informed the congregation of exactly what was going to happen in the procession, had us sing a verse of the Pange Lingua for practice, and urged those of us of a certain age to rack our brains for the correct Latin pronunciations. And they must use a better grade of incense, I wasn’t sneezing my head off!
This parish generally has daily Eucharistic Adoration all afternoon, and I get there several days during the week normally after work. I have to admit, it was a bit of a shock (even though I knew ahead of time) not to see the Blessed Sacrament in the monstrance on the altar when I went into the church.
After Mass I tried to get to six more churches for brief periods of prayer and meditation. I have an approximately thirty five mile route from that church to home.
One church near the Jesuit church is the oldest church in my diocese. Believe it or not, I’d never been there before. They had also had a five o clock Mass of the Lord’s Supper, the altar had already been stripped, and the choir was practicing. This parish has a lot of parishioners that are very involved in their parish, and they had greeters passing out small printed meditation aids. The church is Gothic in style. I truly don’t know what was more breathtaking–the architecture or the sound of the choir, and I intend to get there for Mass some day this summer.
Next stop was a church where some of my mother’s relatives were parishioners early in the twentieth century. Volunteers were setting up for a later evening Mass. I said a decade of the rosary there and left, off in search of church # 4.
Because it’s near several exits of the freeway and in an area with several one-way streets, I couldn’t figure out how to get into the parking lot of the cathedral. I wasn’t about to park illegally either, because police headquarters is next to the cathedral! I thought Jesus would prefer that I make a financial offering to the Church rather than pay a parking ticket fine! So I added a church a block away from the college I recently graduated from, which took me a few miles off route. I’ll have to study Google maps before Saturday evening; I plan to go to Easter vigil there.
The churches I had identified as numbers 5 and 6 all had Mass in progress. I didn’t want to disrupt Mass by a ten minute visit, so I went to my home parish, where Mass had already ended, and then backtracked to those churches.
This was the first time I’d done a “road trip” style seven church visit on Holy Thursday. When I was living in New York City, the seven church visitation could be accomplished on foot!
If you’ve never done so, I urge you to consider next year doing the seven church visit devotion. It’s meditative, and additionally, it’s a great way to see some churches that are real gems of your diocese!
This parish generally has daily Eucharistic Adoration all afternoon, and I get there several days during the week normally after work. I have to admit, it was a bit of a shock (even though I knew ahead of time) not to see the Blessed Sacrament in the monstrance on the altar when I went into the church.
After Mass I tried to get to six more churches for brief periods of prayer and meditation. I have an approximately thirty five mile route from that church to home.
One church near the Jesuit church is the oldest church in my diocese. Believe it or not, I’d never been there before. They had also had a five o clock Mass of the Lord’s Supper, the altar had already been stripped, and the choir was practicing. This parish has a lot of parishioners that are very involved in their parish, and they had greeters passing out small printed meditation aids. The church is Gothic in style. I truly don’t know what was more breathtaking–the architecture or the sound of the choir, and I intend to get there for Mass some day this summer.
Next stop was a church where some of my mother’s relatives were parishioners early in the twentieth century. Volunteers were setting up for a later evening Mass. I said a decade of the rosary there and left, off in search of church # 4.
Because it’s near several exits of the freeway and in an area with several one-way streets, I couldn’t figure out how to get into the parking lot of the cathedral. I wasn’t about to park illegally either, because police headquarters is next to the cathedral! I thought Jesus would prefer that I make a financial offering to the Church rather than pay a parking ticket fine! So I added a church a block away from the college I recently graduated from, which took me a few miles off route. I’ll have to study Google maps before Saturday evening; I plan to go to Easter vigil there.
The churches I had identified as numbers 5 and 6 all had Mass in progress. I didn’t want to disrupt Mass by a ten minute visit, so I went to my home parish, where Mass had already ended, and then backtracked to those churches.
This was the first time I’d done a “road trip” style seven church visit on Holy Thursday. When I was living in New York City, the seven church visitation could be accomplished on foot!
If you’ve never done so, I urge you to consider next year doing the seven church visit devotion. It’s meditative, and additionally, it’s a great way to see some churches that are real gems of your diocese!
