I went to a 7:30am Mass here yesterday, the feast of St. Bonaventure. The church is mostly white on the inside, with a green carpet. The parish is over 100 years old; I have no idea how old the actual church building is, though I'd definitely err on the side of older. The congregation sang an opening and closing hymn, unusual for a daily Mass. The priest had by far the greatest beard I've seen on my tour so far.
After Mass some of the congregants stayed with their breviaries for Morning prayer with the priest. I loved the image of the priest praying with his people instead of in solitude. Unfortunately, this really restricted my picture taking since I didn't want to disturb them. In recent years this parish has merged with St. James in a different part of Lincoln, with the one priest sharing both parishes. This parish has morning Mass on Mon/Wed/Fri, while St. James has evening Mass on the other two days. Like all the other evening Masses I'm aware of, I'll be saving St. James for the school year for schedule reasons.
St. Ambrose was a 4th century Bishop, and (in my opinion at least) one of the toughest figures in Church history. He is best known for his staunch opposition to Arianism, which had a significant foothold in the Church during his time. His convictions were so strong that he fearlessly and repeatedly stood up to powerful figures of his day, making a lot of enemies in the process. This included Roman emperors, one of whom he excommunicated. He is also considered an important figure in Roman history for the enormous political influence he wielded, and he drove many of the events of his time period.
A quick programming note - I'm only going to have a couple of new posts over the next week. I'll be at the Steubenville East conference this weekend and on the road visiting friends during the week.
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