Author: Daniel

The first stop on my trip to the Pacific Northwest was in Portland and St. Peter. I was there to experience the Mass in American Sign Language and learn of the experiences of the deaf community.

I can’t link video here, but there’s a shot of Father Raul signing on my Facebook page, which you can find by searching for 52 Masses (I hope). As you can imagine, this is highly appreciated by the members of the deaf community there.

Portland kicked off a whirlwind trek around the top left corner of the country, a beautiful area I had never visited before. Now, the only state remaining on my lifetime U.S. checklist is Alaska, which I’ll hit in a few months’ time.

I’m down to just 16 Mass visits remaining. Thanks for following along.

On Nov. 1, 1963, President John F. Kennedy and wife Jackie attended Mass at Holy Trinity. It was the last Mass the nation’s first Catholic president would ever attend.

Throughout its 225-year history, Holy Trinity has been the Catholic home for Washington elite, with many Beltway Catholics worshipping there. Abe Lincoln once attended a funeral at Holy Trinity, and was reportedly chastised for wearing his hat indoors. In 2008, while they competed to become the country’s 44th president, Barack Obama and John McCain sat side-by-side at Holy Trinity for journalist Tim Russert’s funeral.

But while this Jesuit church remains the parish for many prominent Catholics in the nation’s capital, it has never relented in its mission to serve the poor, the marginalized and others in most need of Christian love. And as a member of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul back home in the Chicago suburbs, I like that in a parish community.

A recent update put me in Gesu Church, the oldest in Miami. But that wasn’t my formal stop in Florida. Rather, in the Sunshine State, I went to Mass in the oldest church in the United States.

St. Augustine, Fla., is home to America’s First Parish, now the Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine. As you can see below, it’s a beautiful church building, one that attracts scads of tourists, not just me.

The cathedral is located not far from the site where Spanish explorers landed in the New World and immediately conducted Mass. That ground was dubbed America’s Most Sacred Acre by former President John F. Kennedy, four days before he was assassinated.

The parish also includes the mission church St. Benedict the Moor, which was once the Catholic Church for the African American community in St. Augustine but today is just a diverse neighborhood parish. St. Benedict the Moor has its own slice of history, as Dr. Martin Luther King visited there in 1964.

There was not much need to travel to my most recent visit. I spent Sunday at St. Christina on the south side of Chicago, not far from our home in the southwest suburbs.

I chose this past weekend due to its placement on the calendar. Sunday was the date of the South Side Irish Parade, and St. Christina is a traditional Irish parish. My mom, dad and the entire Markham and Hogan clans going back as far as we can figure would have been delighted by my choice.

It was my first parade, and the first one in the city in three years, since the last two events were COVID casualties. And, if you follow the photos below, you’ll see this year’s parade included a special guest.

I’m heading out to the nation’s capital this weekend, then off to the Pacific Northwest the following weekend. “May the road rise up to meet me and the price of gas drop down to please me.” I believe that’s the modern update on the old Irish blessing, or at least the one I’ll be reciting.

The final stop on my wintry western swing took me to Colorado Springs, home to another Sacred Heart parish.

I was there to attend Mass and meet the subject of my Colorado profile, Cathy Kusman, now the faith formation director for the parish. Cathy also runs a recovery program for divorced Catholics in the Diocese of Colorado Springs, providing a much-needed resource for those looking to rebuild after the pain of divorce.

My Sunday visit included the opportunity to sit in on Father Randy leading adult faith formation classes, which was a nice bonus. Father Randy is a heckuva teacher.

Though no photographic evidence exists to back up this claim, I also spent the previous night at St. Michael the Archangel in Aurora for the parish’s annual spaghetti dinner to benefit the Workcamp program. Workcamp is just as it sounds – a week-long effort by teens from the parish doing service work in some other location, building that spirit of service that all of us benefit from.