Author: D. A. Hosek

I have a sentimental attachment to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary as my baptismal parish and the church which established my expectations of the norms of Catholicism was Our Lady of the Assumption in Claremont, California. I would guess that these days, three decades after I left Claremont, there’s nobody that I know there…

Most of the time when I go to a weekday Mass, it’s no more than a dozen people present, St Rita being the main exception thusfar, but today’s trip to Marytown, home of the National Shrine of St Maximilian Kolbe was the most packed Mass I’ve seen, including Sundays. I arrived just as the Mass…

At one point in the Renew My Church process, Saint Jane de Chantal and Saint Camillus were united as a single parish taking the combined name of Saint Faustina Kowalska. Then Saint Camillus was closed. The archdiocesan directory still lists Saint Jane de Chantal as the name of the church, but none of the signage…

Thanks to the Renew My Church initiative, we have parishes which have one or more churches by a different name than the parish itself as parishes are merged and the combined parishes choose to take on a new name even as the individual churches keep their original names. The parish of Saint Clare of Assisi…

The parish of Saint John Vianney is located in the nearish suburb of Northlake, which is not so named because it’s near a lake but because it is located at the intersection of Lake Street and North Avenue. For some reason, I had it in my head that the Mass began at 8a even though…