St. Peter - St. Charles

Happy Feast of Assumption!  I hope you all made it to Mass.  If you didn't, I expect you'll be in line on Saturday ;)

I attended the 12 pm Mass at St. Peter in St. Charles.  Since Main Street is usually packed because of festivals practically every weekend, I thought a Holy Day of Obligation was the best choice.  I also had to wait until the windows were back.  Apparently the windows were taken out and releaded.  They are sweet!

St. Peter is very beautiful and well decorated on the inside.

Music was accompanied by an organ in the choir loft and a cantor.
Music:

Opening:  Immaculate Mary
Offertory:  Sing of Mary
Communion:  O Sanctissima (First verse in Latin)
Communion Mediation:  Ave Maria. (Sung by the cantor in Latin.  Did a great job!)
Closing:  Hail Holy Queen

Before Mass started we were to stand up and greet our neighbors in Christ.

At the Kyrie Father mentioned sins that weigh us down but did not weigh Mary down.

The Homily was given by the Deacon.
We hope that one day we will be with Mary in Heaven.  We pray we will be prayerful and faithful followers of God's Will like Mary that we are called to be.  Every time we say the prayer Jesus taught us, God's Will be Done.  Our readings describe what happens when we do God's Will.  The First Reading has inspired many works of Art.  Mary is doing God's Will.  It is the first ushering in of God's Will in Jesus.  The Gospel is easy to imagine.  When you are filled with joy you want to share the good news.  Mary had to visit.  She is a model of charity helping Elizabeth during this time.  She had just given her foolhearty yes to God.  It is easy to see God when we magnify His actions.  Mary is the model of giving her heart and soul to God.  We can proclaim the greatness of God.  (I sort of checked out during the homily for some reason....can you tell?)

Father used Eucharistic Prayer II.  There were no bells as there were no altar servers.  In my day (OMG I'm old...if you were a server and at Mass and the assigned server didn't show, you were to volunteer yourself...if Father didn't come out and pick someone...)

There has handholding and hand raising at the Our Father.


Pictures:

View From the Back Pew!

 

Look!  It's the Holy Family!

And Child Jesus isn't making a cross!

 

 

   

 

 

The Chapel:

Links:
Website of St. Peter
Pictures from Rome of the West

Resurrection

xin chào buổi ngày!

This morning I headed to Resurrection of Our Lord in South City.  I remember back in the day when this was a territorial parish with a school.  (We played against them in sports.)  Now it is the home of Vietnamese Catholics.

Resurrection is a modern, pre-Vatican II church.  It is more fan shaped than straight.  The windows are at the top of the walls like at Mary, Mother of the Church.  It is very cleanly designed inside.

The windows are the more traditional flat thin glass in shades of black, yellow, reds and browns.  I have to say the actual art on the windows was uhm scary.  The heads of the Apostles were disembodied and very emaciated.  It was more reminiscent of skulls...

Mass was very full this morning.  Many women were in traditional Vietnamese clothes and most people were nicely dressed.  There were even 10 Sisters, 9 in habits.  The 8 Sisters in front of me were all younger than me.  They also spoke very little English....

The choir was up in the loft.  The music was very nice and seemed to be more Western but with Asian elements, if that makes any sense.  I'd love to tell you what they sang but alas, I don't know any Vietnamese.

Nearly every response and every part that required a response was sung/chanted.  The Confiteor (at least I think it was...) and the Creed were sung.  There were bells at the Consecration.

At the end of Mass, everyone turned to the statue of Mary and said a prayer and sang a song.  I tried to find out what it was but I couldn't figure out who could speak English....  It seemed too long for the Hail Mary.

Pictures:

Resurrection

View From the Back Pew

Mary and Jesus

Staring at me...all through Mass

Creeping me out.

Station VIII

Old Baptistry

Window in Baptistry

Links:
Website of Resurrection
Pictures from Rome of the West
Pictures from Built St. Louis

St. John Imperial

Good Afternoon!

I attended the 10 am Mass at St. John which is in Imperial.  The Church building is slightly over a year old.  I think the windows are from the old church.  (Update:  I have been informed that the windows are from a church that closed in the city.  I was told Holy Infant...but there is no Holy Infant.  Maybe Holy Family?) The building itself is square and sparse.

The choir is in the front on the right as well as the organ.
Music:
Entrance:  Jesus, the Bread of Life
Offertory:  Seek Ye First
Communion:  One Love Released; Seed, Scattered and Sown
Recessional:  Now Thank We All Our God

Father wore a green chasuble trimmed in Kente cloth.  Let's just say that it was unexpected given the demographic makeup of the people in the pews.

Father was a big fan of mini homilies.  There was one before the Penitential Rite about the Readings.  There was one at the petitions, asking God to touch the hearts of those who thought coming to Mass today was a great burden and those that are thinking next week will be a burden.  The Liturgy of Announcements was long.

The Mass featured a Children's Liturgy of the Word, complete with special blessing for the kids.  Then at the end of Mass there was another special blessing for God's littlest workers.

Homily:
Father went on a vacation with his priest friends last week.  Naturally, when priests get together they talk about the food they had in the seminary.  Father remembered one worker who told them that if they didn't eat it for dinner they would have it for breakfast.  The two inch hot dogs.  Those could have been breakfast sausages.  All the grumbling we did reminds me of the First Reading.  The Israelites were grumbling.  They asked God to free them from slavery.  He did that.  The Israelites wanted to go back to slavery because they at least had food.  God was like Why don't you trust Me?  We all have a complaining spirit inside.  We need a spirit of gratitude like Jesus.  Grumbling begets more grumbling.  Stewardship is coming up.  We need your time, talent and treasure.  It is less than God does for us.  People who want things but don't volunteer to make those things happen.  Those who have a grumble with the Church need to look at the beginning of today's Gospel.  Judas distributed the loaves and fishes.  Peter, who suffered from foot in mouth disease, and John and James, who were so full of themselves and the rest of the clowns all distributed food.  The Church hasn't changed since then.  We come up to work.  We are in training.  Manna is a joke.  The joke is on the Israelites. (Refers to his mini homily about manna meaning:  What is this stuff?)  Lord what is Your Food.  What is Your Bread of Life?  What do you want me to gather from life's desert.  You can't give zero.  Doesn't the Bread of Life make you hungry to give more?  Once you do this little work, God will do work in you.  That is the message of this table.  The Lord is showering us with gifts.  Next week the financial reports will be announced.  Please don't skip Mass.  (He went on about this at various points, even going so far as to pray for it.  I'm guessing it is bad news.)

Father used one of these Eucharistic Prayers I think.  There were bells at the Consecration.

Pictures:

 

Link:
Website of St. John Imperial