Church #8 - Christ the King, West Warwick

This is the closest church to where I used to live in West Warwick. I only went to it once, though - we usually went to St. Gregory instead, though I don't quite remember why.

When I did go to Mass here, I remember the church being very full, and I also remember the musicians doing a wonderful job - probably the best I've seen in the state so far, besides maybe the choir at St. Pius V.

Unfortunately, one things stands out to me the most about my experience at the Church, which is that the instant the closing song started, the congregation started leaving and talking right over the music. The two friends I was with and I kept singing gamely until the song finished, but we were one of the few that did. I thought this was almost breathtakingly rude to the musicians, and part of me wanted to stand up on the pew and yell at everyone. I guess for whatever reason, that was part of the culture of the parish at the time. This also goes back to my cranky rant about St. Augustine's below - I think it sends a terrible message when so many people are trying to get out of the church as fast as possible.

This probably isn't a very fair impression of the parish, and maybe I'm overreacting. Like I said before, the music was great and there were tons of people at Mass, which of course is far more important. 

Church #7 - St. Jude, Lincoln

 

I've been to Mass here a bunch of times, since it's where my parents go. The church's layout is very different from the typical style - it's basically a semicircle, with the altar area in the middle and the pews surrounding it. While I don't think this is a bad thing or anything, I definitely like the older, pre-Vatican II style of church better.

This church is mostly notable for its music - it has the largest choir I've seen in any parish so far, and a bell choir, which is very cool and which I also haven't seen anywhere else on a consistent basis. There's a guy in the bell choir who plays a huge drum (no idea what it's called), which I desperately want to play at some point because it looks really fun. This church is also where I first discovered the joys of listening to a lector with a Rhode Island accent.

On the right you can see the table the bell choir stands around. Sadly, no huge drum yet.

The ceiling of the church. One of my students calls this "the onion church", since that's kind of what it looks like from the outside. 

On a closing note, a couple of facts about St. Jude: he was an apostle, who also went by the name Thaddeus. He was martyred after going out and preaching in different places after Pentecost. Also, according to his Wikipedia page, he might have been a vegetarian? Who knows if this was true or not, but how many vegetarians were there in the ancient world?

Church #6 - St. Anthony, North Providence

St. Anthony's is on Mineral Spring Ave. in North Providence. I have to admit, I think the interior of this church is kind of ugly - the artwork is strange, and I don't really feel like I'm inside a church. I'm sure there are people who like it, but I guess I'm not one of them.

On a much happier note, this parish runs its own large food pantry, which I think is extremely impressive. It makes you think about every other parish - if the parishioners cared enough, why couldn't they all do something big like that? The parish also seems to have a lot going on besides the food pantry. I like the exterior of the church a lot - there's a nice little compound with a courtyard behind the main church with a parish hall and rectory. 

I'd also heard great things about the priest at this parish, and I wasn't disappointed. The guy manages three parishes, so he must be really good at what he does to get that much responsibility. It was a bit uncomfortable when I went to Mass here, since they were conducting a campaign to increase church revenue, and it's almost impossible to ask for money in a dignified way. I hope the campaign went well - from what I've seen, the parish clearly deserves the support. 

A few facts about St. Anthony: he was not the first monk, but he was possibly the first one to go out and live in the desert. He was hugely influential in the rise of monasticism in the Church. According to the earliest biography of him, he was illiterate. The stories of his life as a hermit and the temptations of the devil that came with it are awesome. Among other things, he is said to have lived in a tomb and an abandoned Roman fort. He tried to go out of his way to become a martyr, which I find somewhat troubling. 

This quote is attributed to him: "The books of God, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, commands us every day, but we do not heed what they tell us, and we turn our backs on them." The more things change, the more they stay the same. Another great story: Saint Anthony had a vision where the whole world was full of snares and traps. He cried to the Lord, "Oh good Lord, who may escape from these snares?" A voice replied, "Humility shall escape them without more." Pride is the root of all other sins, and easily the hardest to escape.

And speaking of monks, I loved this video:

http://www.aleteia.org/en/arts-entertainment/article/video-this-music-by-the-monks-of-nurcia-will-lift-you-to-the-heavens-5778486283206656

 

Church #5 - Our Lady of Good Counsel, West Warwick

I went to Sunday mass here this morning. Overall, I really enjoyed this church. The numbers for the Mass were fairly small, but I got the impression of a great little parish community. It skewed young (which makes sense for an 11am Mass), and the people seemed prayerful and engaged in the Mass. They had a choir featuring guitars and a tambourine, and it could have just been the people around me, but it felt like a lot more people were singing than you usually hear at a Mass.

Some other random things I enjoyed: first of all, the priest was probably the loudest I have ever seen, whether it was speaking or singing, to the point that I thought it was kind of hilarious. Now I know how my students feel. At one point (and this is absolutely nothing against the priest) one of the altar servers actually twiddled his thumbs, which I'm not sure I've seen someone actually do in real life before. I felt bad for the altar servers and priest, because it was kind of warm and humid - I felt a little bad about wearing shorts to Mass, but it was definitely a good decision.

Hope none of these people mind being in this picture.

The mass also featured one of my favorite things, which is people with strong Rhode Island accents speaking in public. Another thing I really enjoyed about the mass was the psalm, which had a musical chorus but spoken verses. I found that I payed much better attention to the words of the verses when they were spoken vs. sung.

The church's walls and ceiling are relatively bare of artwork, but there are a few decorations around and various tables devoted to different ministries in the back. The priest mentioned something about adoration at the end of Mass, which is a great sign for any parish. After Mass, everyone seemed to know each other, and there was a palpable sense of warmth in the way everyone greeted each other.

I would really enjoy kneeling at the edge of a balcony during Mass and being able to look straight down.

Church #4 - St. Gregory the Great, Warwick

I lived in West Warwick a couple of years ago, and this is the parish that I'd usually go to. I remember Mass always being full, and getting the overall impression of a very active, vibrant parish community. The church is modern, but in a very nice way.

More importantly, this church is special because it's where the funeral Mass for my friend Mike was said a few years ago. 

Sadly, the balcony door was locked. First time that's happened.

These pictures were taken just after a wedding got out, and there was still a mob of people in the foyer. Luckily, nobody seemed to notice some random guy wearing shorts walking around taking pictures.

Not sure what happened here. Seems like an accident waiting to happen.

Of course, it doesn't hurt that the church happens to share my name. Pope Gregory I (aka Gregory the Great) was the first pope to come from a monastic background, and he's a doctor of the church. He's also the patron saint of teachers.

I'll finish with this great quote that I read today:

"When individuals are close to God, love and desire to serve the Lord, the usual strategy of the devil is to cause them to lose their peace of heart, whereas God, on the contrary, comes to their aid to give them peace. But this rule is reversed for those whose hearts are far from God, who live in indifference and evil. The devil seeks to tranquilize such individuals, to keep them in a false sense of quietude."

- Fr. Jacques Philippe

Church #3 - St. Augustine's, Providence

I have gone to St. Augustine's quite a few times, mostly for daily mass, because I live about two blocks away. 

Balcony view

First, the positives. Its 5:30pm daily mass is great. It's quiet and peaceful. They also have a couple of kids as altar servers for the daily masses, which I've never seen anywhere else. The servers are very well trained, but more importantly, they are usually hilarious to watch as they fidget and squirm while trying to look solemn. The inside of the church is also very nice – dark and clean, with good artwork. It's the biggest parish in the Diocese, and a lot wealthier than many of the others because of that.

Unfortunately, I have to be honest about the negatives, and about the reason why I go to St. Pius instead of this church, despite its being closer. St. Augustine's approach to Sunday mass is to go through it as fast as humanly possible, which drives me absolutely crazy. If I ever go to mass there, for time or schedule reasons, I feel a little ashamed inside, like I didn't worship God in the way I should. Why should anyone want to be Catholic and go to Mass, if what they see is a bunch of people trying to get through it as fast as they can? What kind of message does that send? If you are visiting with a friend or loved one, and you are just trying to get it over with, what does that say about your relationship with that person? St. Augustine's is the first parish I've been to where I look around during mass, and a fair number of people aren't even bothering to say the responses. Almost nobody sings, because the songs are over so quickly it isn't worth trying to find them in the missal.

I'll get off my high horse in a minute, but I think that this is important. If we want to evangelize and reverse the decline of the church in America, we need to be openly, visibly excited about our faith. We need to devote ourselves to it, and be willing to sacrifice our time for it. People need to see that we genuinely believe this stuff, and that we take it very seriously. Otherwise, why should anyone else?

Candle Room

This might be an outdated opinion about the parish, since it has a new pastor, and I haven't been to Sunday mass there since he took over. One of my friends says that he's really good, and gives great sermons, so that's a great sign. 

I usually go to confession here

Church #2: Our Lady of Fatima, Cumberland

(Fyi: this post is significantly longer than these will normally be, but there's a lot to share about this church.)

Last Friday, my friend Tom and I made my first "official" mass trip of this project, to Our Lady of Fatima in Cumberland. Why Cumberland? Because it was a Friday, and because there's very few churches with evening mass on Friday. The plan was to see the church, go to 6pm mass, go grocery shopping, and be home by 7:30 or so. 

All seemed well. We got to the church with plenty of time until Mass. It was a beautiful day outside, and we went and prayed at a little outdoor shrine area to Our Lady of Fatima on a hill behind the church. There were already a bunch of people around for mass, cleaning and straightening the church – you can clearly see how well taken care of the place is, both inside and outside, which speaks volumes about the devotion of the parishioners.  

Come to find out, the mass was at 7, not 6 – the time had been moved after Easter, and the parish website hadn't been updated. There was a rosary before Mass at 6:30, which meant we had about 45 minutes or so to wait until things started happening. Luckily, Tom didn't seem to mind this change in schedule, though his free evening had just been wiped out. I did evening prayer on a bench outside, as well as morning prayer for the next day, and still had plenty of time to wander around the church.

I'm obsessed with church balconies. I'm not really sure why. I love looking around them, sitting in them, and looking out at the church below. I wish it were socially acceptable to hear every Mass from the balcony. Part of me wants to do it anyway one of these days, just to see if the priest notices or if anyone says anything, but I'm sure I'll never work up the courage. They'll probably assume I'm up to no good. If I'm in a church and I get the chance, I will always go up to the balcony and look around, and hope that I don't get caught.

Anyways, I saw my chance to go up to the balcony and I took it, even though there were people around. Nobody noticed. There was a big stained glass window up there to look at, which would have been my cover story if I'd been caught. I didn't get the chance to thoroughly explore the front and altar areas, because there were already a bunch of people sitting in the pews and I felt self-conscious.

As mentioned above, a running subplot to this blog will be me going and exploring places where I probably shouldn't be. It's probably just a matter of time before someone catches me and thinks I'm trying to steal things (especially because I'm young), and hopefully the Holy Spirit will give me the right words to explain myself. Anyways, I made a thorough survey of the church basement, which features a huge kitchen with an unusually large number of appliances. There was an old man painting or fixing something on the wall in the church, who never turned around or appeared to hear me as I went through. The church hall also featured a well-stocked wet bar (thoroughly locked up, of course), which I've never seen inside a church before, and may never see again. Was that a normal thing in the old days?

6:30 finally came around, and after drawing a number of stares from the old Portugese people, I settled down for the rosary. This is when Tom and I learned that not only had we been way too early for Mass, but that the Rosary and Mass were both in Portugese. I was pretty excited about this, and the rosary did not disappoint. They did way more than a typical rosary: the priest appeared to share reflections between the decades, and there were also songs. I was struck by the fact that Americans are a lot more self-conscious about singing than Europeans, something that I also noticed on a trip to Lourdes in college; Americans only want to sing loudly in church if their voices sound good, but these people clearly don't care, and I find it thoroughly charming. 

My favorite part of the Rosary was that apparently, the Portuguese word for fruit is "fruit." I know this because during every Hail Mary, that word stuck out like a sore thumb through the gibberish of the Portuguese, and it made me smile every time.

Between the Rosary and Mass, Tom left for a minute, and the priest asked the congregation if there was anyone who didn't speak Portuguese, a question clearly directed at me. I didn't say anything, but the man who was altar serving scurried forward and pointed me out. I insisted (keep in mind that I'm standing at least 100 feet from the priest, so I'm basically yelling) that it was OK, and that he didn't need to do anything in English, but he insisted. He said some of the Mass prayers in English, and he did both the Gospel and homily (!) in both languages. Hopefully no one minded that the Mass took longer just because we were there. After the Mass, I went up and thanked the priest for his kindness, and he welcomed me warmly. His name is Fr. Cabral, and he is from Lisbon, Portugal. He seems like an absolutely wonderful priest, and Our Lady of Fatima is lucky to have him.

It was a great evening. Not planned for or expected, but a Mass that I'll certainly remember, and a great way to start this pilgrimage.