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 9/11 attacks.
The parish itself is a mid-century building, and when I arrived, at first I thought, wow, a lot of people here for the feast of their patron (although not as many as St Rita had). Then I realized that the reason their daily mass on Fridays was at 8.15 instead of 8 was this was the school Mass. And the students were arranged with six foot gaps between students in the pews, which felt kind of weird and untrusting of the children to behave properly during Mass.
The parish is apparently a trilingual parish.
My hearing continues to be ineffective at being able to understand a single word spoken at Mass, which is still partially a matter of acoustics but also something that I should probably address with my audiologist at my next appointment.
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