When I saw how cool the weather was going to be yesterday morning, I knew that I had to walk somewhere to take advantage. I chose this church, which is about an hour away on foot from where I live. To get there I walked through a lovely area directly on the border of Providence and Pawtucket that I never would've seen otherwise, a huge hill that gives some awesome views of Providence.
I had heard of Bishop Keough high school, but I had no idea that this is where it is, and I also didn't know it was an all girls' school. According to Wikipedia their sports team name is the koalas, which is awesome. The school must be pretty small based on the size of its building. Anyways, the Mass at Maria Goretti is in an air-conditioned side chapel within the normal church sanctuary area.
I thought the Mass was kind of out there, in a sixties sort of way. The congregation said a couple of the prayers together that the priest normally says by himself during the Liturgy of the Eucharist. They did "self-serve" communion, where the priest leaves the ciborium on the altar and people walk up and take the Eucharist from it by hand. I went along with it at the time because I want to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, but after talking to a few people, I've come to learn that they definitely should not be doing this. Well intentioned as this congregation might think they're being, this is an abuse of the liturgy, and I'm very disappointed that I was part of it. They also played a song on a boom box during communion that I found almost unbearably cheesy, and which I don't think mentioned God or Jesus in any way.
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| The parish appears to have a truly epic Mass band. I'd love to see it in action one day. |
I don't want to go through the whole story of St. Maria Goretti here, but if you don't know it, definitely look it up as soon as you can. It's an amazing story of forgiveness and redemption.
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