Final Thoughts

This has been a wonderful pilgrimage. Though I can’t entirely wrap my mind around the amount of time I’ve spent on it, it’s great to look back at all the blog posts, and to consider the number of Masses I’ve been to because of them. One of the biggest reasons for my doing this was to get myself to Mass more often, and my love of the Mass and the Eucharist has definitely grown as a result.

On the non-spiritual side, I’ve really grown in knowledge of, and appreciation for, the state of Rhode Island, which I am not a native of. I’ve now driven all over the state extensively, and I’ve seen so much of it that I feel at home in a way I never did before. Every time I hear about or drive by a church, I can now say that I’ve been there, and I can almost always remember what it looks like and roughly when I went there.

My most obvious takeaway from all this is that we have a lot of beautiful churches in this state, and we’re lucky to have them and shouldn’t take them for granted. The biggest thing that spurred me to do this was the desire to spend more time sitting in the peace and quiet with our Lord, something which I don’t spend nearly enough time doing.

It’s also worth pondering that as dysfunctional as the world might seem, we have thousands of people faithfully attending Mass every day in just this one little state. There must be a ton of grace flowing from that, in a way that we’ll never understand in this life. There’s something beautiful and comforting about remembering this as I go about my day.

Lastly, if you’re looking at a post about a church that you know anything about, I would really enjoy hearing more about it in the comments. I’ve often said that I’m one of the last people who should be doing a blog like this, since I know very little about art, architecture, theology, or Rhode Island history. I know that I’m missing a substantial amount of the interesting information about these churches, and the more I learn the better.

Thank you so much to everyone who’s been reading this. God bless!

Greg

Church #150 - Christ the King, South Kingstown

Finished! I'll have a final wrapup post coming later today or early tomorrow. I'm about to leave for World Youth Day, so please say a prayer for me and my fellow pilgrims from the Diocese. Before anyone asks, no, there isn't any particular reason why I picked this particular church to be my final one. Part of it is that it has a noon daily Mass, so I kept saving it as a backup plan in case I showed up somewhere in the morning to find the church closed.

This is a very active parish, which includes hosting the URI Catholic Center. The Mass was said by Fr. Upton, the chaplain of the URI community, and he was an excellent homilist. The interior of the church is fairly simple, with massive windows that give it lots of natural light. I forgot to look for the exact location of the tabernacle, but it's way off to the side of the altar somewhere.

Church #149 - Holy Apostles, Cranston

This is a large, well off parish in a beautiful and rural section of Cranston. The church was built relatively recently, and the parish facilities are extremely nice. The main church has a very high ceiling, and its pews make a big semicircle around the altar area. I visited for daily Mass yesterday, which is held in a little side chapel called the Holy Family Chapel.

Church #148 - Sacred Heart, Woonsocket

I enjoyed this church a lot. It's got lots of statues and icons in both the front and back, with nice windows and huge Stations of the Cross. I visited for an 8am Mass this morning, with fans running all over the place due to the summer heat. The priest is pretty young, and mentioned that he used to be a Capuchin friar.

Church #147 - St. Peter, Warwick

I visited here this morning for 11am Mass, my last Sunday Mass of the pilgrimage. The church has a school which it shares with a couple of other parishes, and is hosting a blood drive for the weekend. The inside of the church is on the small side with a standard rectangular interior, plain white walls, and a few statues. Thankfully, it's air conditioned. The pews go all the way up to the altar area for some reason, so that you can't walk in front of them without taking a step up. This leads to a slightly chaotic and confusing distribution of Communion.

Church #146 - St. James, Lincoln

I came to Mass here on Thursday evening. I was greeted by a large gang of kids camped out for Pokemon Go players - as a public place, the outside of the church seems to be a destination for people playing the game. It's been a long time since I've seen a group of kids hanging out outside unsupervised, the way my neighborhood friends and I did growing up.

Daily Masses during the summer are held in a former sacristy off of the altar area, which has an air conditioner. I was very impressed with the main church, which is a lot larger and grander than I had expected. My favorite feature is the extremely high lectern, which doesn't appear to be used anymore. It also has lots of statues and paintings, including one of the crucifixion behind the tabernacle, and intricate stained glass windows.

Church #145 - St. John, North Smithfield

This is North Smithfield's only Catholic church. There were a lot of people in the congregation for a morning weekday Mass, including some young people and a couple of nuns. I was late and there were no easily accessed seats in the back, so I sat in the cry room. This seemed to slightly freak out a guy in front of me, who kept looking back. The church forms an L-shape, with simple, white walls. At the end of Mass the priest spoke about worldwide persecution of Christians, and our need to read genuinely Catholic news sources to be fully informed about global events such as these.

Church #144 - St. Joseph, Hopkinton

I was totally charmed by the daily Mass community here, as it was easily one of the most close-knit I've seen on this pilgrimage. Almost everyone sat close together in the front right pews, and they participated in the Mass with an unusual enthusiasm. They clearly know each other very well, and their closeness was confirmed by talking to a couple of them afterward.

The church itself is long and thin, with a wooden ceiling, white walls, and a rose window of the Holy Family. The parish's deacon gave the homily, and did an excellent job. Without any prompting from the priest, the congregation sang the "Lord prepare me to be a sanctuary" song before Communion, which was beautiful and set a wonderful tone for the Sacrament.

Church #143 - St. Francis Xavier, East Providence

This is a very busy, vibrant parish, as demonstrated by their getting one of the Diocese's newly ordained priests, Rev. Jorge Rocha. They have weekday Masses in both English and Portuguese, and six Masses per weekend. Fr. Rocha celebrated the 6pm weekday Mass that I went to here, which turned out to be in Portuguese, making it my last non-English Mass of the pilgrimage.

The interior of the church is white, with lots of blue in the decorations. There's a particularly interesting shrine off to one side of the main sanctuary, behind a grill. I'm assuming it's a Portuguese thing, and I'd love to hear more about what its origins are. There's also a great shrine to the Holy Family in the entrance area in the back.