Week Eighty-Eight - Saint Louis (Part Two)
10:00 Easter Sunday morning mass, St. Louis. I'm a big fan of Christmas, but, in the holiday smackdown, Easter is, by far, my favorite of the two. It's so much more sincere. The commercialism is minimal, the gifts are downsized, the colors are brighter, the days are longer, and (well, usually) the weather is nicer. And the religion? That's what Easter is all about, Charlie Brown. Also, as the chief - and only - holiday coordinator in the house, I can't deny the appeal of a holiday that's so much . . . easier. And just between you and me, I'll take a giant bunny rabbit with a basket of colored eggs over an unshaven fat guy who runs an elf sweatshop anyday. Easter is just a win-win all around. Now to the business at hand . . .
The planets must have been properly aligned this week or maybe it was just a fluke or maybe hell actually did freeze over, but whatever the reason, the family agreed to venture outside of its parish boundaries for Easter mass this year. The possibilities were endless as I pored over Holy Week schedules, but I finally settled on wrapping up the "Saint Louis" series. When visiting St. Louis's no-nonsense Saturday afternoon mass well over a year ago, I had only gotten to see their undercroft. I was anxious to see the actual church, and going downtown for Easter Sunday mass seemed like the perfect thing to do this weekend.
The planets must have been properly aligned this week or maybe it was just a fluke or maybe hell actually did freeze over, but whatever the reason, the family agreed to venture outside of its parish boundaries for Easter mass this year. The possibilities were endless as I pored over Holy Week schedules, but I finally settled on wrapping up the "Saint Louis" series. When visiting St. Louis's no-nonsense Saturday afternoon mass well over a year ago, I had only gotten to see their undercroft. I was anxious to see the actual church, and going downtown for Easter Sunday mass seemed like the perfect thing to do this weekend.
We arrived early, anticipating a crowd possibly similar to that of St. Louis's Saturday vigil mass. Doing so made parking easy, but the early arrival wasn't entirely necessary. It wasn't until the last minute that the church reached SRO status. It was a classy crowd, all dressed up and looking good and apparently arriving from a wide variety of locales. Incredibly, we ran into someone we knew . . . from Cold Spring, Kentucky. What are the odds?
It was a visually interesting crowd. I loved the family with four young boys who, along with dad, all wore identical navy blazers and khaki pants. You really can't go wrong with a navy blazer and khaki pants. Another future heart-breaker of no more than seven or eight sat in front of us, taunting his equally-cute younger brother with candy mooched off mom, and no, he wasn't sharing. Anderson Cooper may have been there. Miss Havisham sat behind us.
I'm not including a photo of St. Louis Church with this entry because nothing on the exterior has changed since October of '09. Enjoy the bunny. The interior of the church wasn't at all what I expected. I was immediately surprised by the size of the church which is fairly small, roughly the same size as its undercroft, which makes sense, I guess. A square church, St. Louis is primarily concrete block with touches of marble. There's really nothing fancy here - gotta love those practical Germans - although the intricately carved scrollwork and lettering in the stone is pretty amazing. Mosaic stations of the cross looked to hold some promise. The right side of the church is a wall of confessionals, while the left side has four sets of small, innocuous stained glass windows. Although it was particularly dreary on the morning we were there, I'm not sure a sunny day would have added any significant illumination to much-needed lighting. In spite of prominent lighting fixtures throughout the church, most of which oddly resembled upside-down flashlights of all things, St. Louis remained too dim for my personal preferences. There was a large statue of Mary to the right side of the altar but only a mosaic of Joseph to the left, a noticeable incongruity that threw off the whole symmetry of the church. A prominently displayed statue of my girl, Saint Therese, made it all better though.
It was a nice mass. Music was provided by single woman who both sang and played the harp. She did both beautifully, although considering this was a celebratory liturgy (which she herself made reference to), she could have picked up the tempo a bit. In retrospect, it probably should have been disappointing to have attended Easter mass in such a somber gray church on such a gloomy gray day, but it wasn't. The extracurricular chaos that had engulfed our lives for the past few weeks has (finally) come to a successful close, allowing our lives to return to some semblance of normal. Plus, after a barrage of runny noses, sore throats, and lingering coughs, we're all healthy. Oh, and did I mention a little thing called summer is just around the corner? Alleluia!
ATTENDANCE: Full
DURATION: 50 minutes
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