Holy Thursday 7 Churches Visitation 2016

Last year, we visited 7 churches on Holy Thursday after reading a post from Kendra over at CatholicAllYear.com about the tradition of pilgrims visiting 7 churches to venerate the altars of repose on the evening of Holy Thursday.  With kids, that's a tall order, so she suggested modifying and just visiting 7 churches throughout the day.  

This year we got an early start, and visited all 7 churches before naps.  We changed up our pilgrimage route this year too and our only repeat church from last year is St. Kilian's.  Four of those six non-Holy Thursday-pilgrimage-repeats were also churches that we have never visited before EVER, so we got to see some new sights!

Our First Stop was St. Kilian's.  

As was the case with the majority of churches we visited today, it was closed, but we found a lovely bench by the new 'Jesus and children' statue to pray for our first two stations of the Cross.  Kayla wanted to kneel.  Elise wanted to kneel momentarily (see the first picture).

Our Second Stop was Holy Trinity Church

This church didn't look much like a church.  It seems like perhaps they are in some kind of building stages, and again it was closed so we found a little grotto with a statue of Our Lady and said Stations # 3 and 4 there.  

 

 

The sun was in Kayla's face.  She didn't like it.   haha.



Our Third Stop was San Francisco Solano

 

This church was open, but appeared to be having some kind of morning service, practice, something--going on in the church, so we sat outside on a bench in the courtyard for Stations #5 and 6.  More sunshine in our eyes.  :)


The Fourth Stop was St. Michael's Norbertine Abbey

Again, we found the church technically open, but there was a retreat for the staff of a local high school, so we found a quiet spot outside to pray the 7th and 8th Stations.  By the this time the girls were getting a bit restless AND tired AND hungry, so it was no surprise that Elise fell down and something that would normally be a brief "ouch" was a bit more drama.  

The Fifth Stop of our pilgrimage was St. John Neumann

This church was OPEN!  And the chapel, too, was open, so we actually got to visit and pray the 9th and 10th Stations with Jesus truly present in the Blessed Sacrament, right there.  You can't see in the picture below, but just to the right of Jesus in the chapel there was scaffolding set up and there were workers doing some kind of repairs and making lots of noise.  Not the most peaceful visit with Jesus, but grateful for it all the same.  

The original plan was that we'd repeat 2 churches (the two nearest us in proximity), but on our way to the next church, we passed right by a Greek Orthodox Church, so we decided to stop and pray there, making our Sixth Stop, St. Paul's Greek Orthodox Church

Unfortunately it was not open (boo! because as you can see just from this beautiful and enormous mosaic on the outside of the church, I'm sure the inside would have been gorgeous!!!

This is definitely one of my favorite pictures of the day. bahahaha!

We prayed our 11th and 12th Stations outside by a lovely icon of St. Irene (I had never heard of her) before heading to meet Chris for a quick lunch/park date at a park in between here and our final visitation church.  

Park and lunch break!

And then we headed to our Seventh and Last Stop, which was St. Thomas More 

This is my other favorite--personalities captured. 

a bit more personality....

This church was open, but the Blessed Sacrament must be reserved in a chapel space instead.  We prayed our 13th and 14th Stations in the sanctuary before piling back into the car to head home for naps.  

I wasn't sure how this would all turn out, but I was pleasantly surprised by the kids' great behavior considering we were in and out of the car a lot, it got warmer and warmer as the morning went on, and this isn't the kind of activity that kiddos at this age have much attention span for.  I was proud of them for completing all 7 church visitations as well as all 14 Stations by the end of our pilgrimage.  Additionally since there was a bit of driving over the course of the morning, we alternately prayed the 5 decades of the the Luminous Mysteries and listened to 101 Dalmations (our current book on tape).  It was really a very lovely morning with my girls and I'm so grateful that they were such great sports about it.  God's grace!!!!

Chris took Kayla and Elise to the Holy Thursday Mass this evening while I stayed back with the smaller ones who would need to be in bed before Mass ended.  Ava, Sophie and I carried on the family washing of the feet tradition before bed, and Chris, Kayla, and Elise will wash each other's when they return from Mass before we get them to bed too.  

A blessed Holy Thursday to you all, and may you have a prayerful and holy Good Friday tomorrow.  

Mission Basilica Door of Mercy!

You may have heard of "Holy Doors", and if you are like me you guess that they are some beautiful Church tradition and that there's a bit of research that must be done to educate yourself more on the subject. 

With the ease of the internet, I found a wonderful explanation on the Mission Basilica website in about 5 seconds.  

To give a brief explanation here, I have pasted a part of the explanation below (I have added some underlining for emphasis):

       "A holy door or porta sancta has been used since the fifteenth century as a ritual expression of            conversion. Pilgrims and penitents pass through it as a gesture of leaving the past behind and              crossing the threshold from sin to grace, from slavery to freedom, and from darkness to light.              Often these rituals are associated with prayer, pilgrimage, sacrifice, confession, and indulgences.

       But the door finds meaning only when the believer associates the door with Christ.

       Jesus is the Door!"

We are blessed to live quite near to the Mission Basilica, one of two locations in Orange County where a holy door can be found during the Year of Mercy.  Our dear friends, Jacinta and Scott organized an 'pilgrimage' (gave us a meeting date and time) to visit the holy door and complete the 11 Stations of Mercy at the Mission Basilica.  And it did end up being more of a pilgrimage than we thought it might be because the annual Swallows Day parade was taking place the same day, so we ended up having to park several miles away, hop onto a shuttle (a school bus) and walk about 1/2 a mile to the Basilica from there.  It was a nice little additional time and effort to make it feel like we had to "try" since ordinarily a trip to the Basilica is a quick easy hop for all of us from where we live and there is a parking lot right next to it.  

There ended up being three families who met to do our little pilgrimage together. 

 Here are some of us entering the door.  (Jacinta took these next two pictures)

I love Ava looking up at the picture here.  So sweet. 

Chris and Scott and Gregory heading through from darkness to light.  :)

Inside the Basilica (and outside too, since a few of the stations were outside) they designated certain pictures and shrines to be markers for the 11 Stations of Mercy:

Station 1: Welcome the Stranger

Station 2: Admonish the Sinner

Station 3: Counsel the Doubtful

Station 4: Forgive Offenses

Station 5: Comfort the Sick

Station 6: Visit the Imprisoned

Station 7: Bear Wrongs Patiently

Station 8: Feed the Hungry, Clothe the Naked, Give Drink to the Thirsty

Station 9: Instruct the Ignorant

Station 10: Comfort the Afflicted

Station 11: Bury the Dead, Pray for the Living and the Dead

You can find the stations to pray on your own wherever you are during this Year of Mercy here on the Basilica's website.  It has reflections on each station and a beautiful prayer to say for each as well.  

Jacinta took these next two sweet pictures as well. 

It was a beautiful little pilgrimage and a wonderful blessing for each of us and for our families during this Year of Mercy.  

As Pope Francis said, "There is only one way that opens wide the entrance into the life of communion with God: this is Jesus"  

Especially in this Year of Mercy, may God continually remind us to show others mercy just as He has shown us such incredible mercy.  

Jesus, I trust in You.  Be Merciful to me, a sinner.

And here are just a few pictures of a bit of the Swallows Day parade that we caught after our pilgrimage.  

 

Here's sweet Gregory, "feeding the hungry".  hahaha

It's hard to see the 'swallows' they are swinging around in the wind....

Holy Thursday 7 Churches Visitation 2015

Earlier in the week on Catholicallyear.com, I was reading a post about ways to celebrate Holy Thursday.  There was a link which you can find right HERE! about "the Seven Churches of Maundy Thursday" and the idea that pilgrims go visit and venerate 7 altars of repose on this day in Rome.  Kendra over at CatholicAllYear suggested doing a modification and simply visiting 7 different churches in the morning.  

With 4 kids, 5 and under around here, I had to modify further.  I took the girls to 4 churches in the morning, then 2 after naps, and then half of us (the adults and my 5 year old) did the 7th one later (we split up of course).  

This pilgrimage of sorts was incredible, and I confess I am already rather looking forward to next Holy Week, when we can officially make it tradition by doing it once again, and perhaps throw some different churches into the line-up.  

Our First Stop was St. Timothy church.  

It was one we had never been to before.  From the outside, it wasn't an extremely impressive piece of architecture, but it I just love to see that cross lifted high to show for all to see that we believe in the power of Christ's love and sacrifice here!  

We went into the chapel, but the tabernacle was empty (??). They did have this beautiful little corner where the girls wanted to pray for our family. 

So we made our way into the church sanctuary, but Jesus was no where to be found.  I'm still not really sure what was going on with that.  Maybe they accidentally jumped forward a day at Daylight Savings time at this parish and thought it was already Good Friday.  At any rate we said a few prayers together and the girls asked me to tell them who all the icons on one of the walls were.  St. Kateri was among them, which made my 5 year old light up with excitement.  

Our Second Stop was the Mission Basilica in San Juan Capistrano.  

This lovely church is right next to the San Juan Capistrano Mission where Father Serra's chapel is located.  Unfortunately unless you want to visit at 6am for Mass, the Serra chapel is closed unless you pay the admission fee to visit the Mission, so we couldn't add the Serra chapel to our list for churches to visit for Holy Thursday.  But the Basilica is lovely and the art work is made to reflect the art work found at Mission's throughout the state of California.  

We easily found Jesus at this church, and spent a few minutes talking with him and saying an Our Father and Hail Mary together.  

We have been to this church twice, so the beautiful statues and little shrines around the church were not unfamiliar to us.  Nevertheless, the girls were still very excited to bounce around and see their favorites, which include the Our Lady of Guadalupe shrine with Juan Diego and the statue of St. Kateri behind the altar on the wall.  

The Third Stop we made was to our parish, St. Edward's.   

We love our parish.  They put a huge emphasis on stewardship and serving others, which I think is so very important in "walking the walk".  If we simply come each Sunday and worship or attend events and groups, we aren't really giving of our time, treasure, or talent to further the Gospel.  

Other aspects of our parish that we love are the incredible and holy Pastor and the uplifting and exceptional music.  And the beautiful view of God's creation (the ocean) out the window behind the crucifix and Tabernacle is gratifying.  Just behind the crucifix is the Tabernacle which you can see there.   There is also a tiny chapel there with just a few little chairs.  It was our first time in that little chapel and I was struck that as I turned to pray to Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, it was as if not only I was praising Him, but also the entire ocean behind me.  

"The heavens are telling the glory of God, and all creation is shouting for joy!"

-from the Canticle of the Sun

(this was taken just outside the church the following day when we went for an evening Good Friday service close to sunset)

Fourth Stop: San Felipe de Jesus chapel 

This little church is actually part of St. Edward's parish.  My understanding is that is was the original Catholic church in the area, but the parish outgrew the small church, so they built a bigger church up on the hill, which eventually became the parish hall when it, too, became too small, and another church (St. Edward's) was built next to it on the property.  

At any rate, we had to pray outside because they don't keep it open unless Mass or baptisms or other special services are in progress.  We have been inside though, because when they did renovations at St. Edward's several months ago, the parish was doing their baptisms here, so it is in this little chapel that our 4th daughter was baptized.  It is a beautiful little gem of a church just tucked away two minutes from the beach.  

(see I told you it's a sweet little church inside and that our daughter was baptized there...)

At this point, we took a lunch/nap break, because the kids do better when I don't throw them out of routine and when they are well rested. 

 After lunch and naps, we headed to our Fifth Stop: St. Nicholas' church

This church ended up being my least favorite, and it was probably for the sole reason that we encountered a rather sour lady there. At any rate, we found Jesus in a little side chapel and popped in for a quick hello.  

Honestly, the thing that struck me the most in a positive way about this church was the priest who smiled at us when we were unloading from the car and the beautiful little patch of flowers out front.  Such a colorful and bright welcome to the Church.  

The Sixth Stop was the church of Santiago de Compostela 

It was fitting that this parish was on our list of stops to visit on this Holy Thursday pilgrimage of sorts, because the Camino de Santiago (the Way of St. James), a famous and popular pilgrimage which stretches across portions of Europe, ends at St. James' tomb (Santiago de Compostela) in Spain.  How I would love to make that pilgrimage in Europe someday.  Perhaps I should visit this church more often and ask the Lord to provide a way for that to become a reality someday...

The girls were fascinated with the beautiful fountain out front.  There is also a lovely rose garden surrounding a statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe which was just lovely.  We would have stayed here longer to bask in the loveliness, but their Holy Thursday service was beginning in about half and hour, so the church was already half full and more people were arriving to claim their seats.  

We headed home for a quick dinner before my husband took our eldest to the Seventh and Final Stop for the Holy Thursday Mass: St. Kilian's

I stayed home with the 3 younger girls and got the bedtime process started, and was able to go over to church and pray at the altar of repose for nearly an hour.  It was wonderful.  Of course, it would have been nice to be able to get to Mass as a family, but we know that when it comes to kids and Holy Week, it's best for all involved not to be over-achievers when it comes to church services.  Instead we tend to spend more time teaching and recreating aspects of the church services at home, so that when they get a little older, they will be able to more fully enter into worship at those services in the future.  Though I miss the freedom I once had to go to any and all the services I chose to before having kids, I know that this time of my kids being so very young will not last forever.  I am cherishing the gift and responsibility God has given me to teach my children about Him, knowing that someday they will be in the pew next to us soaking up all the grace and love Christ has to offer at all these beautiful Triduum services.  

We thoroughly enjoyed our prayerful little pilgrimage visiting 7 churches in our general area.  It is definitely my hope that we are able to make another pilgrimage next year to visit these (or other) beautiful buildings that house our Lord and Savior in the Blessed Sacrament. 

Sacrifice: He did it better ..

As I reflected over the past few days on what the word Sacrifice means in my life, my mind was filled with an array of things.  

As a wife, I sacrifice for my husband.  I get up early to make his lunch.  I take packages to the post office for him with 4 kids in tow.  I get up with the girls on weekends so he can sleep in.  I send him off for beer night with the guys at a local Catholic brewery and stay home with our kids.  I change most of the diapers....

You get the idea. 

As a mom, I sacrifice for my kids.  I give each of them my body to live in (read: possibly ruin forever) for 9 months.  I give them my time and energy.  I answer endless questions.  I clean up countless spills.  I give up time with friends, family, and dates with my hubby.  I haven't really slept a full night in years....

You get the idea....

I know I sound like I'm blaring a trumpet for myself, but my next thoughts were about my heart and my attitude when offering these sacrifices day in and day out. How often do I feel sorry for myself or keep a list of all the sacrifices I've made so that I can throw it back to the person when they hurt me or I feel tired?  Sadly, my answer is often.  

I get discouraged, too, that all the sacrifices I make seem to be so small.  So ordinary.  I want to be a Saint. How will I ever get there if my life is so filled with ordinary house-wifey sacrifices?  

All too often, I look at the sacrifices I make as mere tasks that need to be done each day.   

Matthew 20:28

Yesterday this verse was the end of the gospel.  He came to serve.  Jesus ransomed his life for us.  He sacrificed everything.  

It hit me that, for Jesus, healing the afflicted wasn't a task.  

Preaching the good news of the Father's love for us wasn't a task.  

Spending time in prayer in the desert wasn't a task.  

Feeding the 5,000 wasn't a task. 

Washing his disciples feet wasn't a task.

Dying on the cross wasn't a task.  

Sacrifices? Yes. 

Mere tasks? No. 

Because there was purpose.  

There was LOVE. 

Isaiah 53:5

He died for me.  He died for me, so that I could live.  

And yet, so many days, I can't even die to myself and offer myself in service to my family. 

Why?

1 Corinthians 13:1

Because sometimes my purpose is to be noticed, to receive praise or affirmation.  Because sometimes I don't have love.  Sometimes I'm just going through the motions and my heart isn't in it.  Sometimes I forget why I am even sacrificing in the first place.  

We love because he first loved us (1 John 4:19).  

We serve because he first served us  (Matthew 20:28) 

Ephesians 5:2

When I find that my sacrifices have become tasks, it's a wake-up call to make more time for prayer.  To make more time to bask in His love for me.  To take more time to reflect on HIS sacrifice.  

And I can do it while I am doing my daily tasks.  

When I'm tempted to be angry that my husband can more easily go out for an evening with friends than I can, I can remember Christ hanging on the cross for me.  When I'm cleaning up a diaper explosion, I can remember Christ reaching out to heal the leper.  When I'm washing the dishes, I can remember Christ washing the feet of his disciples.  

Because the truth of it is, there is nothing I will ever do on this earth that can ever top what He has done for me.  

But I can praise Him for His sacrifice and love for me. 

Hebrews 13:15

And I can offer my daily sacrifices up to Him, even the things that seem menial.  

Yesterday at my mom's group, we read this prayer by Brother Lawrence and it was perfect. 

 Just what I needed. 

"Lord of all pots and pans and things, since I've no time to be a great saint by doing lovely things, or watching late with thee, or dreaming in the daylight, or storming heaven's gates, make me a saint by getting meals, and washing up the plates.  Warm all the kitchen with thy Love, and light it with thy peace; forgive me all my worrying, and make my grumbling cease.  Thou who didst love to give men food, in room, or by the sea, accept the service that I do, I do it unto thee. Amen."

It's easy to thank God for obvious blessings, but it's harder to praise him for the little things and even the sufferings.  

Today my hope is that I can view my daily sacrifices as love offerings to the One who did it better, and perhaps quench His thirst for love of us just a drop at a time. 

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