Assumption Catholic Church

On April 3, my good friend Dan and I visited Assumption Catholic Church, in the Congress Heights neighborhood of Southeast Washington. It’s been a few weeks since that visit, so I’m having a hard time remembering the finer points of the Mass, but I can affirmatively say that Dan and I absolutely loved this church. According to a parish history given to me after Mass, the parish was formed in 1916, and their current church building was finished in 1933. The church building reminded me a lot of the chapel at St. Anselm’s Abbey because of its pentagonal face, brick walls, and slanted wooden roof.

There was a small choir providing the music, made up of six or seven ladies and a man accompanying them on the piano. They seemed to incorporate a gospel style of music, but their hymns were less fiery and energetic than those of, for example, St. Teresa of Avila parish or St. Augustine parish. I enjoyed this calmer form of worship, which seemed appropriate for this small, intimate church.

Undoubtedly, my favorite part of the service was Father Montgomery’s homily. He was incredibly entertaining, charismatic, and delivered some clear, important messages from the day’s Gospel readings. He started off by questioning the validity of televangelists like Oral Roberts and Benny Hinn. If these people really have such a great connection with God, he asked, why do they continually face health and marital problems? He then jokingly suggested that he could bring in as many donations as these televangelists by holding a “healing,” where he would slap his parishioners around and then send them running into the street yelling, “I’m healed!!” He then discussed the day’s Gospel, in which Jesus healed a blind man. In Jesus’ time, many saw blindness as a punishment from God for sinning, but Jesus refused to speculate on the man’s past and relieved him of his blindness anyway. This was evidence, said Father Montgomery, that our God is not a vengeful God, but a God of “compassion and mercy.”

Links:

Assumption Church Website

Pictures:

Churches I've Been To So Far (29!)

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St. Anthony of Padua Church

Last week, I went to visit St. Anthony of Padua Church, a small parish located near the Catholic University of America. I always wondered whether this parish struggled to draw people in for Mass, since I imagine many people close by would go to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception nearby. This church, however, seemed to be quite lively and functioning. My good friend Dan once again decided to accompany me. 

The front of the church was orange-brownish and had a pentagonal shape. Inside the church, a series of large, blue-tipped arches covered the worship area. The walls were mostly white, with carved wood panels surrounding the church. The church had some beautiful stained glass panels along the side of the church. One side depicted the life of St. Anthony of Padua, the other the history of the Catholic Church in Maryland. 

Mass was fairly mellow, with a single cantor accompanied by piano taking the musical duties. In the homily, the priest discussed the dialogue Jesus had with the Samaritan woman at the well, comparing it to the scrutiny given to candidates for Baptism. He also asked us to take up a self-scrutiny, asking ourselves, “Who are we?” and “How did we get here?”

Link:

St. Anthony of Padua Church

Pictures:

Newman Hall/Holy Spirit Parish (Berkeley, CA)

Thank goodness it's Spring Break! I spent the beginning of my vacation in the Bay Area, visiting a friend from high school at UC Berkeley. On Sunday, I figured I'd check out UC Berkeley's Newman Center for Mass.

The Newman community at Berkeley has a huge facility close to campus. Their worship space is like no church I've ever seen, with stark stone walls, as well as a stone altar and podium. There was a large stone cross that appeared to be incorporated into the wall. I thought the stone was a very interesting choice, it reminded me of the biblical verse where Jesus tells Peter to build the church upon a rock.

There was a small student choir giving hymns at the Mass, and instead of hymn books, the lyrics to the hymns were displayed on a sharp-looking projection screen above the choir. I couldn't figure out exactly why they were doing this, but my guess was that not having hymn books was a way to save paper. All in all, a very cool, modern place to worship.

Links:
Cal Newman Center

Pictures:

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Holy Redeemer Church

This has been a very busy semester for me, but I knew I should get back to this blog so as not to worry my regular readers (and by regular readers, I mean my mother, Fr. Blaise, and my loyal Catholic reader Patsy Anne, from Texas!). This week, I visited Holy Redeemer Catholic Church, near the border of Northwest and Northeast Washington, D.C. It was a short walk from the Mt. Vernon Sq./Convention Center Metro stop.

I was actually a little bit late for the 12:00 PM Mass, but it didn’t appear to matter. As I walked in, I found the entire church empty, except for myself, the woman setting up the Mass, and another parishioner who walked in the same time I did. They told me that the 9:15 AM Mass was more well-attended than the 12:00 PM one was (I made a note to come back and see the 9:15 Mass). They ended up starting the Mass around 12:15, and there were about six people present for the Mass, including the priest. The small crowd made for a very intimate service. My favorite moment came when everyone gathered in the aisle of the church building and held hands when praying the Our Father.

The church itself was reasonably sized, with a brick exterior, and a pentagonal shaped façade with a circular window at the center. The inside of the church wasn’t overly decorated, with patterned white walls and a tabernacle of a variety of different types of stone and marble. They had stained glass panels along the sides of the church, but only a few at the front were really carved out. It appeared that they were a work in progress.

Father Bava gave what I thought was a fairly long homily for such a small audience, but he had some interesting things to say nonetheless. In this week’s Gospel reading, Jesus tells his disciples to build their faith upon rock, not upon sand. Father Bava told us, too, that we should base our actions on our faith in God, and not our desire for money or attention.

Links:
Holy Redeemer Church

 Pictures:

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