It’s been a while since I posted a church visit post. There’s a simple reason for that: I missed a week due to a slight case of the wine flu and I decided to post four churches in one post for Holy Week. So hang on for a long one. I don’t want to over clutter the blog with too much piety and devotion, so this will serve as a mega post in the project, befitting the holiest week in the Christian calendar. I visited five churches in the course of the week (I didn’t enter one due to the cancellation of the service because of the weather, so it will not count but I did drive three hours to find that out!). They were:
- St. Peter’s Episcopal, Osterville, Mass.: Palm Sunday
- St. Mary’s of the Assumption, Catholic, Fall River, Mass: Chrism Mass (cancelled)
- St. Barnabas Episcopal, Falmouth, Mass.: Maundy Thursday
- St. Michael the Archangel, Antiochean Orthodox, Cotuit, Mass: Good Friday
- St. George, Greek Orthodox, Centerville, Mass.: Holy Saturday Easter Vigil
Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras, Lent, Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday. Good Friday or Holy Saturday. I had no idea. Seriously. I’ve never “given up” anything for Lent. I have never had ashes smeared on my forehead and until this past Palm Sunday, have never come home with a palm frond. My Easter knowledge is pretty much defined by Sunday School, Charlton Heston, Mel Gibson and the usual highlights of crucified, died, entombed, risen. Then there are the eggs, chocolates rabbits, peeps, hunts, and plastic green grass. Holy Week is a pretty intense round of church, and given that the Orthodox and Catholic/Protestant Easter calenders coincide this year, I decided to make the most of it and mix it up between different churches and different denominations. I did not get to a Catholic church — I tried on Tuesday to attend the Fall River Diocese cathedral at St. Mary’s, but alas, it was rained out.
After the jump – five churches in one post, but only four count.
Continue reading “Holy Week – 52 Churches”
