Happy New Year! I was feeling lazy today and went with something easy. I feel badly that I didn't round up my usual company for a local mass. I'll work on blog related resolutions later this week.
The New Year started with St. Joseph's for noon mass. As someone who grew up going to the other parish in town, I suffered a lot of trash talking from St. Joe's parishoners. St. Joe's was where the real Catholics went becuase they had a school and CCD classes during the week and kneelers. I had never actually been before. I didn't know what to expect, but what I found was pretty ordinary.
St. Joe's is another t-shaped church. It has white walls and plenty of light wood paneling, stained glass here and there. It was a little more 1960s than I imagined from the stone outside. It was more crowded than I would have expected for mass at noon. It took two hymns to get through communion. There was a cantor with a band and an excellent clarinetest. The crowd was generally older and most everyone fled during the second verse of Angels we have Heard on High.
The homily was about coming back to church at Christmas like you send cards, as a gesture to keep in touch. The priest went on to talk about how fitting it was to start the new year with mass. Seems fitting for me, at least for this year.
Did you know those t-shaped churches are actually cross-shaped? The alter and tabernacle are situated at the 'head' of the cross. Just something I managed to retain from a fine arts gen ed in undergrad.
ReplyDeletet shaped, cross shaped. tomato, to-mat-o. Learn something new every day. Thanks for sharing and keeping me in line.
ReplyDelete