Category: Faith Quest

Faith Quest in Charles County, Maryland

7/29/2014

On Saturday we piled the whole family in the car and headed over the Wilson Bridge and into Charles County, Maryland. Our Faith Quest adventures continued. We began with a visit to St. Peter Parish in Waldorf. Here Meg amazed us with her knowledge of all things St. Peter. She knew the rooster referred to the cock crowing after Peter denied Jesus three times.

She knew the keys referred to the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven.

Clare and I were quite taken with this strange looking fellow crawling on one of the pedestals.

After thoroughly touring this lovely parish we headed to Saint Joseph in Pomfret. Unfortunately the church was locked up tight and we were unable to complete the activity guide. We had better luck at Saint Mary Parish in Bryantown. Perhaps the name of this church will sound familiar to any Civil War history buffs out there. Dr. Mudd (who treated John Wilkes Booth after the Lincoln assassination) is buried at this parish and apparently the two met at this parish prior to the assassination.

After a lunch stop we moved on to Carmel of Port Tobacco. This was the first Carmelite Monastery in the United States. It was built in 1790. The historic building is amazing--a mixture of a colonial farm and a chapel.

Meg and Clare knew, from our reading of the Little House books, that the tool below was a broom. They decided we should try to make one ourselves soon.

From the Carmelite Monastery we went to our last destination of the day--Saint Ignatius, Chapel Point. Here we were lucky enough to run into the pastor who just happens to be a former history teacher at Jesuit schools. He was happy to fill us in on the history of the parish and of Catholocism in Maryland. For example, the Colonial era churches are all attached to Manor houses. Why? Because you could only practice Catholicism in chapels connected to homes. The ability to practice Catholicism was not grounded in religious freedom, but in property rights. So the Jesuits bought up huge chunks of land and built manor houses with attached chapels. St. Ignatius dates back to 1641. It no longer sits in its original location (which was right by the water), but it has been at its current location since 1798 and the view from this location is breathtaking. (On a side note, the cemetery was moved up the hill after the Civil War because the Union troops shot up the original cemetery as the Civil War was ending.)

Our Saturday adventures ended there, but we had a full day on Sunday as well. Those adventures must wait until tomorrow.

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Faith Quest Continues

7/28/2014

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A couple of weeks ago I wrote about our family beginning Faith Quest--a scavenger hunt of sorts put together by the Archdiocese of Washington. We began with the DC sites (the National Shrine, the Franciscan Monastery, etc), but have since worked our way into Southern Maryland and have seen some amazing places we did not even know existed.

Last Sunday, before heading into Maryland, we made a quick stop by our last DC location. We visited Holy Rosary, which is an Italian-American church. I realize there are quite a few parishes that have Italian-American roots, but this parish offers Mass in Italian and has a center dedicated to Italian language and heritage. Holy Rosary is a beautiful church and we enjoyed learning more about it. In front of Casa Italiana Hall (the cultural center), there are several statues of famous Italians. Prior to leaving I had the girls pose in front of the statue most relevant to them. For our artist Clare, I put her in front of Michelangelo.

For Meg, who loves to hit high notes and looks forward to Saturday opera on the radio, we chose Verdi.

From Holy Rosary, we drove into Maryland to Sacred Heart in Bowie. The parish, which has been around since 1728, sits back in the woods and has a fantastic old cemetery.

We weren't able to get into the chapel, but that was okay because the Quest items were outside. Among the Quest items were these gnarled old trees.

We decided Sacred Heart would be a great place for Jesuit Halloween.

Unfortunately we did not have as much luck at Saint Mary, Piscataway or Saint Mary of the Assumption in Upper Marlboro. Both churches were locked up tight. Still it was great to get a sense of Colonial-era Catholicism, which was not as freely practiced in Maryland as one might be led to think. But more about that tomorrow.

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Faith Quest in Charles County, Maryland

Faith Quest Continues

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