Roamin' Catholics: Body and Soul

Welcome to Week 7: Roamin' Catholics: Body and Soul. We present HERS and HIS perspectives of the weekly Mass and dinner out. HERS: This week's Roamin' Catholics: Body and Soul kept us close to the homefront once again and instead of snow, we were getting rain. We began with the 5:00 Saturday Vigil Mass at St. John Neumann Catholic Church in Gaithersburg, MD. St. John Neumann is relatively new - becoming a parish in 1978 with groundbreaking for the church building beginning in 1982. The church itself is relatively unremarkable except for a wall sculpture to the right of the altar. Some research on their website reveals that this bas relief sculpture was used as the liturgical screen behind the altar at the mass celebrated by Pope John Paul II on the Washington Mall in 1979. It was created by artist Miles Stafford Rolph and called "Christ Among the Nations". To be quite honest, although I like the origins of this piece, I am not a fan of this artwork. ...

This week's Roamin' Catholics: Body & Soul - one night, one morning and two perspectives... HIS: This week had us continuing our Gaithersburg/Germantown swing but reversing our order a bit.  Apparently it isn’t good enough to check a parish’s website for mass times….More on that in a moment.  This week also included two masses.  As everyone probably knows, Wednesday was Ash Wednesday.  The start of the Lenten season.  I rousted Mary from a peaceful slumber at 5:00 am on Wednesday to make it to Mother Seton (our home parish) for a 6:30 am mass to receive our ashes.  For those who don’t know, the ashes symbolize mourning, mortality and penance.  All things to reflect on during the 40 (actually 46) days of Lent.  The priest (or Eucharistic minister) traditionally says, Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return (Genesis 3:19) as they make a cross with their thumb dipped in ashes on your forehead.  Ashes are an ominous sign, a...

One evening, two perspectives... presenting this week's Roamin' Catholics: Body and Soul... HERS: I'd like to begin with two sidenotes regarding Roamin' Catholics: Body and Soul.  First, my dear cousin told us that Roamin' Catholics was a category on Jeopardy a little over a week ago. I asked her if we were mentioned (joking of course). She replied no, but thought that maybe one of the writers of the game show were following our blog! Lol.  Now, wouldn't that be something? Next, a new friend was asking about our blog and when I told her about it and said I felt I was lacking in my religious journey she said something that I really needed to hear. She said that she thought the point IS the journey. She went on to say He has given us the ability to choose our path and to explore and to search and to seek to understand Him... and to bring oneself closer to Him. (If you're reading this... thank you!) On to this week's journey... Earlier ...

Welcome to Roamin' Catholics: Body and Soul ! Since neither of us is very good at giving up control, we again present HIS and HER perspectives of our Body and Soul experience. HIS: This week’s chosen parish presented quite the juxtaposition to last week’s.  Where St. Edward the Confessor in Bowie, MD presented itself as a down home simple parish, this week’s parish Holy Trinity in Georgetown Washington, DC had a much different feel.  While the church itself (overseen by the Jesuits) was simple in its accoutrements, it exuded so much more.    The church was quite beautiful in its simplicity.   According to the history of Holy Trinity, the parish dates back to the 18 th century and the current building is circa mid-19 th century.  HT is most famous as being the place of worship for John Kennedy during his time in Washington, DC.  From his time in the House of Representatives and the Senate through his (short) tenure in the White Ho...