The Stained Glass Buffalo: 7 Churches...

25 February 2008

7 Churches...

It sounds like Saturday's Save Our Churches event was a big success (more on that tomorrow), and is turning put to be the perfect lead-in to the upcoming One Night and Seven Churches event. This is your opportunity to visit seven of the city's most beautiful and historic East Side churches. This is the second year in a row that the Broadway Fillmore Alive organization has presented this tour. It's an attempt to show members of the community just how important these structures are in the grand scheme of urban revitalization efforts. According to the presenters, "The tradition of visiting seven churches on Holy Thursday is an ancient practice, originating in Rome and is a custom of Polish and Italian Catholics. Buffalo's Historic Polonia District comes alive on this night as many make a pilgrimage to various churches on the East Side. It is equally a religious and cultural experience as people get to view the churches in a unique setting commemorating the Last Supper of Jesus during Holy Week." (more)

2 comments:

The Crescat said...: I heard about this a few years back... the 7 church on Thursday thing. I bet this would be wonderful to do if I lived in a city where there was a church on every corner. I've never tried it around here, where each parish is 15-45 minutes apart. I bet I could do it if I put mapquest to it.; 28 February, 2008 11:36
The Buffalo said...: It's regaining its popularity up here, especially since we're restrusturing and a lot of folks want to see their 'ancestoral' church one last time before it merges/closes. There is no funnier/better site than to see busses full of senior citizens crossing in the night, especially going to some of the worse areas of the cities. Some even need police escort!

It's a great devotion - reflecting on one of the last seven words of Chirst at each place... I have some literature on it if you want...

The key to doing it is the time churches lock up for the night.... getting 7 in is tough - even with one on every corner - since it doesn't begin until the Mass of the Lord's Supper is done and most places close at 11 or midnight...; 28 February, 2008 12:31

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It is Jesus

“It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; he is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; he is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is he who provokes you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is he who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is He who reads in your heart your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle.

It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be ground down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.”
--Pope John Paul II

Carlo Carretto:

How much I must criticize you, my church, and yet how much I love you! You have made me suffer more than anyone and yet I owe more to you than to anyone. I should like to see you destroyed and yet I need your presence. You have given me much scandal and yet you alone have made me understand holiness. Never in this world have I seen anything more compromised, more false, yet never have I touched anything more pure, more generous or more beautiful. Countless times I have felt like slamming the door of my soul in your face - and yet, every night, I have prayed that I might die in your sure arms! No, I cannot be free of you, for I am one with you, even if not completely you. Then too - where would I go? To build another church? But I could not build one without the same defects, for they are my defects. And again, if I were to build another church, it would be my church, not Christ's church. No, I am old enough, I know better.