Saint Vincent de Paul

The last two weeks of this adventure have fallen into busy weekends.  Figures.  The penultimate stop was Saint Vincent de Paul.  Many of you will know it as the green and white church at the end of 83. I went to Saturday evening mass at 7:15.  They even have a midnight mass (actually midnight fifteen) on Sundays.  How cool is that?

Weekly midnight mass brings up an interesting point.  So let me ask you,  Archdiocese of Baltimore, why are all of your masses at the same time?  All the Sunday evenings are at 5:30.  10 am masses are harder to find than I thought.  Saturday seems to land at 4.  And masses on holy days are all at the same time time too.  Can't you move them around, just  a little?

Saint Vincent's is a smaller church with dark wooden pews and dark wooden creaky floors.  The walls are white and the kneelers don't move.   They don't use a lectionary, but their altar Bible.   7:15 mass is a quiet mass with a small crowd and I see how that time could really work.   There were a few parents and kids, but the crowd was mostly older.   There are statues of Mary and Joseph and Saint Vincent tucked away on the side of the church.

It's also one of the few churches where I have seen a familiar face.  Guess I'm not the only one who doesn't go to church.

And then there was one.

Corpus Christi

Still behind.  So much for blog blast part deux.  September 16's church was Corpus Christi.  The summer scheduled had ended, so it was mass at 10:30.  The church is white with two columns of pews, 52 in total.  (They are numbered;  I didn't even have to count.)  It's often open during Artscape, so if you go, you should look inside and check out the cool mosaics.

We were greeted by an enthusiastic and happy usher.  We were a little early, but the church filled up by the end of the gathering hymn.  I would peg the group sitting behind me as former religious, but I can't be sure.  They spent a long time talking about sitting in the back of the church.  (See, I told you.  Everyone knows good Catholics sit in the back.)  They also used plenty of gender neutral language.

There was good music and I wanted to go outside and see if you can hear it from the street.  I didn't.  In categories of churches, it falls under churches with endless signs of peace.  The priest even made it back to row 52.

And then there were two.  I keep checking the count, but somehow that's right.  The last two come during busy weekends, but I'm hoping for the best.  In case you can't stand a cliffhanger, the penultimate church was Saint Vincent de Paul.

Saint Clare

Blog blast part deux, day two.  In my next of catch up posts, I'll be writing about Saint Clare in Essex.  I'm learning a lot about church geography.   I realized that Mount Carmel and Saint Clare are not very far apart.

This was a sunny Sunday.  Saint Clare's is next to a firehouse, and lucky for me, there were some firefighters playing basketball outside.I made it to the Saint Clare campus and had to look at the signs to figure out where to go.  Remember, church entrances aren't always obvious.

Anyway, you trek around the buildings and follow to some glass doors and walk downstairs.   St. Clare's looks like you took someone's really awesome club basement, dusted off and lined up your very best statues, and put in a whole bunch of church pews.

The mass I went to featured their contemporary choir, which as best I can tell is headed up by a husband and wife team.  There were a bunch of kids around and a lot of them were enjoying sitting on the kneelers.  The crowd was split between Ravens purple and Orioles orange.

The homily started out with a question.  To paraphrase...why do we do this, why do we get up on Sundays, get dressed and come to church?  That got my attention, I mean, what are we doing?  Unfortunately, I didn't get many answers, but that's okay.

Our Lady of Grace

As you can tell, I'm behind on posts again. No need to quote me to me, I know all about slothfulness.  I can't blame the Olympics anymore.  Maybe I just don't want to give up summer.  September 2's stop was Our Lady of Grace, and I believe closes out the northern Baltimore County churches.

I think this is a good time to point out that it is not entirely obvious at all churches where you enter.  The church was closed for earthquake repairs and will be painted some colors like biscuit.  Mass was in the parish hall which overlooks some nice greenery (ignoring the power lines) and has a lot of chandeliers.

There was a pretty good sized crowd, plenty of older couples and families with school aged kids.  I know I'm not a parent, but while watching the little boy in front of me get in trouble, I had to wonder about  church going strategy.  I mean it seems obvious to me that if you have two kids and two parents, you play man to man defense.  But I digress.

There was a good homily about living a life of service.  There was good music and heavy recruitment for the choir.  If CCSFX in Hunt Valley is where you will stay until the last note of the last verse of the closing hymn, Our Lady of Grace is where you are in your car before the the refrain.

In clever sightings, they had bins labeled in the make shift narthex for box tops, soup labels, ink cartridges and grocery receipts that the school collects.  St.  Thomas More did that too, and as someone who tries to tithe 100% of that kind of stuff, it's nice when it's easy.

I hope to go back when the church opens.

Preview of coming attractions.....St. Clare, Corpus Christi.  And then there were two.