We’re almost at the finish line, but we’ll skip ahead to Stop 51, Yellowstone National Park.
I visited Yellowstone in July, just a few months after devastating flooding wiped out some of the roads and did other damage at perhaps the most famous of America’s many spectacular National Parks. But the parts of the park where weekend Masses were held were spared, thank God, and thus my first trip to this gem was not a casualty of nature’s wrath.
Mass is held at four separate locations in the park, and I attended three of the services – one near Old Faithful and two others near Yellowstone Lake. A vigil Mass is also held in the canyon area, but I missed out on that one.
The Masses at the park are made possible by St. Anthony of Padua, the closest parish to the entrance at a mere 90 minutes away. Each Mass I attended was presided over by Father Rick Malloy, a Jesuit from Philadelphia who spends every summer overseeing the Yellowstone mission. His fondness for fly fishing is a complete coincidence, of course.
Given the setting, we’ll largely eschew man’s most beautiful creations for God’s handiwork.
52 Masses 