Today is the feast of St Columbanus (albeit superseded by the feast of Christ the King). A number of options today, including an actual Christ the King parish, but I went with St Moses the Black (whose building was originally St Columbanus) because I really needed some Black church in my life. And while the Mass was “only” an hour and a half, it met my goals for that peak experience that doesn’t seem to come from white people Church.
St Columbanus was originally an Irish parish on the south side of Chicago and the saint himself is perhaps the #2 Irish saint after St Patrick making it an especially apropos name for an Irish parish. The new name of St Moses the Black came with the consolidation of four Black parishes on the south side into a single worship site and given the otherwise complete erasure of the old name from the building and properties I was perhaps cheating a little, but really, I’m willing to ignore that for the sake of going to Mass at a Black parish.
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