Church #80 - Sts. John and Paul, Coventry

I'd been totally that this is one of the biggest and most active parishes in the Diocese, and that absolutely seems to be the case. The parish has a whole compound with a school, office/rectory building and a church, with a vast parking lot in between them all.

I came here for a 5pm daily Mass a few weeks ago. There were a bunch of people in the congregation, not surprising given the time and the size of the parish. The Mass was slightly longer than usual, and the priest was young and very animated. There were also a couple of young altar servers, which I can only remember seeing at St. Augustine's previously. There was a concelebrating older priest with an absolutely wonderful Irish accent.

The daily Mass chapel

 The main church has a low ceiling and white walls. It's warmly lit, thanks mainly to the gold/yellow color that predominates in the stained glass windows. I was here in between Sunday Masses, and they had music playing over the sound system as a couple of people prayed in the peace and quiet. The whole church building is a thoroughly pleasant, modern facility. This is clearly a great parish that's doing very well.

Church #79 - Blessed Sacrament, Providence

This church is very close to where I live - about a 20 minute walk down Academy Ave. The parish has an attached school. I also happen to know that there's cell tower equipment in the church's bell tower, which goes a long way toward helping the parish pay its bills.

A couple of these pictures came out a lot blurrier than I would have wanted - sorry!

As I've mentioned in at least one earlier post, Blessed Sacrament is easily a contender for the most beautiful church in the Diocese, the closest thing we have (at least in my opinion) to what an old European cathedral looks like. It was definitely part of the impetus for my decision to do this pilgrimage, since I was so impressed with it the first time I stopped in. It's a huge, old-school church that was restored pretty recently, and it's packed with great art.

After looking around for a while, I find that my favorite part of the church might actually be its ceiling, which I'm at a loss to describe in words. It also features one of my beloved walk-up lecterns. As mentioned above, there are tons of great paintings and statues around the altar area, most of which you can hopefully make out in the pictures. There's a big Guadalupe image in the back.

I thoroughly enjoyed this sign

The organ in the church is in the front. You can see all of the organ pipes on either side of the altar, including the tiny ones that look sort of adorable sitting next to the more prominent ones. The balcony is more or less empty because of this, save for a bunch of seats and a rose window. This is the first time I can remember the steps up to a balcony being carpeted.

The stairs up to the balcony

The actual Mass I attended here was on a Friday evening at 6:30. The daily Masses here are in a chapel in the basement of the rectory. There was adoration going on as I came in, so I got to see my first Spanish-language benediction. There was certainly a language barrier, but I found it much easier to figure out what the priest was saying than during the other non-English Masses I've been to. I even understood part of the homily. As I've come to expect and enjoy during non-English Masses, the congregation did a lot more singing than you'd normally find at a daily Mass.

The chapel

Church #78 - St. Anthony, West Warwick

This seems like an all-around great parish. The church seems pretty new and they have a brand new and very nice parish center, with a long parking lot separating the two. The parish is extremely Portuguese, which I should have figured from seeing a set of Fatima statues on a hill outside. The parish also has a soup kitchen.

The daily Mass here is held in a small, intimate chapel in the parish center. I was only a few feet away from the priest for the entire Mass. Most of the Mass was in Portuguese, including the first reading and psalm. Like other non-English Masses I've been to, the congregation did a fair amount of singing. They sang in Portuguese right through the first part of the Liturgy of the Eucharist as the priest was saying his different prayers at the altar. The consecration itself was also in Portuguese, with the congregation singing a prayer as the priest held up the host.

The parish center

The chapel

The main church is notable for having tons of original artwork, all in the same white and blue style. This even includes the stations of the cross. It's a very cool looking modern church, and I wish I'd been able to spend more time in it. Parishioners were praying a rosary when I was in there, and I didn't want to be too much of a distraction.

Church #77 - St. Mary, Bristol

This might very well be the most beautiful church I've seen so far. I absolutely love it. The church is spectacularly colorful thanks to the beautiful and detailed stained glass windows that almost totally encircle the inside.

The altar area is also a standout, thanks mainly to the brilliant way it's lit. Both during and after Mass, the lighting draws and focuses your attention on the altar and tabernacle. There's a huge free book and CD area in the back of the church. There's also a board dedicated to military personnel that the parish is praying for, something which I've noticed many times, especially in this part of the state.

Even the bathroom and stairs up to the balcony have stained glass, indicating (presumably, and unsuprisingly) that some renovations have happened in the church's past. The passage up to the balcony was also unusally clean, and smelled very pleasantly of wood. The view from the balcony is breathtaking, thanks partly to its height, but mostly because it puts you close to eye level with all of the large stained glass windows. I hope I got good enough pictures of all of them. I wish I could live up here.

I've now been to all three Bristol churches, and thoroughly enjoyed all of them. Between that and the scenery, Bristol might now be my favorite town to visit in Rhode Island.