Category: Catholic nerd pilgrimage

Back to a domestic church visit, today I went to the Saint William parish in the Mont Clare neighborhood of Chicago. The church building is a 1959 building with a very mid-century modern aesthetic to it. the tinterior, meanwhile, reflects the final days of pre-Vatican II architecture with side chapels and a sanctuary surrounded by…

Looking at Catholic churches in London, there were two churches named “Holy Trinity” (or something close to that). I picked the one that was more accessible by public transport and dragged my kids to the 6p Mass, which, it turned out, was the shortest Sunday Mass I’ve ever attended at 37 minutes long, thanks, largely,…

Another Parisian parish for my project, it is, of course, on the opposite side of Paris from my hotel, but a relatively quick trip by Metro (my hot tip for travelers—don’t bother with surface transport in Paris. Metro is always faster, often by disconcerting amounts). In the morning, they had a lauds service before the…

I stumbled on the fact that Le Sanctuarie de Notre Dame de Fatima—Marie Médiatrice was having a procession to commemorate the second apparition of Mary at Fatima (which was actually on June 13th, but oh well), and figured it would make for a good pilgrimage for the day (although I skipped the procession for the…

Chicago has two parishes named after Our Lady Mother of the Church, but only one had Mass today, so I headed to Willow Springs in the morning for Mass in Polish. I don’t know Polish although I can pick out a few words that are cognate with Czech (which I also don’t know). It’s a…

Today I had a choice of two churches to visit, I could have gone to the Church of the Holy Spirit (today being Pentecost) or Mary, Seat of Wisdom. Since the latter was closer and had an evening Mass (I had planned on showing up for music ministry this morning, but instead gave in to…

Today being the feast of Saint Norbert, I headed up to Northbrook for their 8.15 Mass. It was moderately attended, sans music and there seemed to be no mention of the fact that it was the parish’s patron’s feast. I suspect, given the fact that the parish’s full name is Saint Norbert–Our Lady of the…

Today is the feast of the visitation, commemorating when the newly pregnant Virgin Mary visited her cousin Elizabeth who was pregnant with John the Baptist at that time. As a result I visited St Basil/Visitation church on the south side of Chicago. The church is located in a poor neighborhood as evidenced by the fact…

Today’s saint is Saint Ferdinand, who, reading his biography, is kind of politically incorrect as saints go, being notable for “christianizing” Spain which largely consisted of military conquests on the Iberian peninsula. This is the guy who pissed off Osama Bin Laden so much, he felt obliged to mention him in his justification of the…