I’m going to start with my home parish, St. Pius V. I started going to the parish because of its Young Adult group, but it’s been really cool getting involved with the community as a whole. It’s a Dominican parish, with great music during mass and a reverent atmosphere. You can barely walk around without tripping over a Providence College professor, or one of their burgeoning broods of well-behaved (at least during Mass) children. The Dominicans do not mess around; the mass regularly takes an hour, and the sermons are long, but excellent if you pay close attention.
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| Balcony View |
At a special mass a few weeks ago, we accidentally set off the fire alarm with too much incense. Of course, within two minutes of restarting the mass, our priest added a large new batch of incense for the Alleluia, because Jesus is more important than what the fire department thinks. This incident also taught me that it's fun to walk around outside wearing an alb, and that I wish I did it more often. I also learned that my friends' new baby is already a tougher person than I am, because he sat through several minutes of a blisteringly loud fire alarm without once getting visibly upset. Lastly, I hope that our pastor wasn't on the premises for the alarm, since our boiler just broke in the dead of winter and the idea of the church on fire might have sent him over the edge. Speaking of which, if anyone has a few (or many) thousand dollars lying around, make your checks out to St. Pius V parish.
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| The view from the lectors' seats |
The church’s interior is very bright. It’s not a conventional church setup, but I’ve come to like it a lot. I've learned so much about my faith there, and met so many wonderful Catholics, that it would still be home even if it were ugly. Like any other church, it's at its best when it's dimly lit, especially during the Young Adults' quiet adoration time, or when chanting in Latin is involved. I tend to stare at the ceiling above the altar a lot when I'm supposed to be paying attention. The ceiling features a large picture of a pelican; google "holy pelican" if you want to know why. Someone once pointed out to me that part of the wall looks exactly like a long strip of bacon, which has since ruined that part of the church for me whenever I look at it.
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| The Pelican (on the left), also the bacon |
I have been to mass at the parish at least a hundred times, and I look forward to many more.
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| Awesome mural in the entrance |
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| You might not be able to tell, but there's a secret door to the right of Mary |
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| See if you can find the pastor |
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