This past week was the first time I’ve been on the road for an extended period, venturing across the south over the course of nine days. I’m just now playing catch up.
My visit started in Alabama, in the river town of Tallassee. The parish there is St. Vincent de Paul, though that’s not where I spent the Vigil Mass.
Each Saturday in the summer, SVdP moves its Vigil Mass to the Church in the Pines, a nondenominational outdoor structure located just a few feet from Lake Martin. Vacationers, boaters and other summer sorts take a break from their leisurely activities to worship.
My experience featured virtually all of the elements of the outdoor Mass setting, beginning in the sweltering heat of an August day in Alabama, watching the darkening clouds behind Father Mateusz Rudzik while thunder rumbled in the distance, feeling the spray of the blowing rain when it finally broke through, then watching the skies clear again for a beautiful sunset.
You can see where the Church in the Pines gets its name.
Tomorrow morning, Thursday, Aug. 19, I’ll be featured for about 10-12 minutes on a radio station in Kansas City. I had a nice conversation with host Ken Billinger yesterday, to be broadcast between 7:35 and 7:50 a.m. Thursday on his program.
He’s also welcomed me to come back periodically to update him on the trip.
Here’s the link below if you’d like to listen live. And many thanks to Ken for reaching out to me to set this up.
The first day of August took me to Dexter, Michigan, eventually to the right location.
I headed up early in the morning, plugging St. Joseph into my phone. I arrived at about 20 after 8, giving me enough time to patrol the grounds and snap some photos before Mass. By 8:30, it dawned on me there was no way Mass was taking place there at 9 a.m., given the complete absence of any other human beings. I was at the Village Church, which is still home to daily Masses but gives way to the Country Church on Sundays.
I hightailed it a few miles east (I think) to the new facility. As you’ll see from the photos, each church is beautiful in its own way. I guess that’s always the case.
I had a nice morning at St. Joseph, meeting a host of parishioners after the 9 and 11 a.m. Masses, while enjoying lunch with a handful of folks from the parish’s music ministry. All in all, a satisfying trip.
I’m be back on the road at the end of the month, hitting up three parishes in the South. I pray the COVID surge there, and everywhere, is on the wane by then.
It’s been a long three weeks, but I’m finally getting back on the road this weekend. I’m heading to Cabot, Arkansas, to worship at St. John the Baptist.
St. John the Baptist serves as the Latin Mass parish for the Diocese of Little Rock, with all services being performed in the form. I’ll be writing about the appeal of the form to those Catholics who prefer it.
This won’t be my first Latin Mass. When my oldest son, Ian, graduated from Johns Hopkins, I woke up early on graduation day to take in a daily Mass at National Shrine of St. Alphonsus Liguori, which just happened to be sitting across the street from our hotel. Here are a few photos of that beautiful church, once home to St. John Neumann.
OK, as our most recent trip had to be postponed for a few weeks, I’m going back to before the beginning for this entry.
On June 5, while on my way to St. Patrick in Nashua, N.H., I realized I was going to arrive much earlier than I anticipated. So early, in fact, the church wouldn’t be open by the time I arrived.
Given an extra half-hour to play with, I thought it would be neat to visit a different church beforehand, one with a pretty meaningful connection. Just across the state line from Nashua sits Lowell, Massachusetts, where my father was born and raised before moving to New York.
I’d only made one previous trip to Lowell, when I was a child and my dad drove us past his boyhood home. This time, I made a pit stop at his childhood parish, St. Margaret of Scotland.
It seemed kind of a nice way of informally kicking things off, and something I know my late grandparents, Edward and Marie Markham, would have been most delighted with. Truth be told, I’m pretty sure those daily Mass attendees would have been extraordinarily pleased with this entire endeavor.
Interestingly enough, since my visit, St. Margaret has combined with two other local parishes, St. John the Evangelist of North Chelmsford and St. Mary of Chelmsford, to form the Holy Rood Collaborative. The Holy Rood refers to any image of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and John, standing together at the foot of The Cross.
The name of the new collaborative is quite fitting, as each has a connection to the Holy Rood. St. Mary and St. John the Evangelist’s connections are obvious. As for St. Margaret, I’ll let the collaborative’s website take it from here…
“It is said that when 21-year-old Margaret had to flee to Scotland following the conquest of England in 1066, she brought her most valuable treasure with her… a true relic of the specific wooden cross upon which Christ was crucified and died. In 1070, her husband, Malcom III, founded the Abbey of Dunfermline, where she kept this relic enshrined in an ebony colored crucifix—this is how the term Black Rood came into being, which it is often referred to. In 1093, as she lay dying, it was this relic to which she clung.
“Her great love and devotion of this relic inspired her son, King David I, the youngest of St. Margaret’s children to erect the Holy Rood Abbey in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1128. It was here that the relic continued to be safeguarded until it was regained by the English in 1346,” the website notes.
The Saturday vigil Mass was about an hour away when I visited St. Margaret.St. Margaret is now part of the Holy Rood Collaborative, along with St. John the Evangelist of North Chelmsford and St. Mary of Chelmsford. During my brief visit, I had a nice conversation with whom I guess is Father Brian, the current pastor of the parish.
52 Masses 