"Mass times" -- Helps for travellers, people moving, and the curious

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Hello, friends.
It's nice to be back in touch with you, after having been away for three weeks -- fifteen days on a trip (partly a pilgrimage) and one week trying to catch up on things and get a "normal life" going again.

Over the next few days, I hope to have time to read the latest questions and answers posted here (and perhaps to make a contribution or two). But today, one of you has contacted me by private e-mail, and that led to my having the idea to offer the following information, which may be of service to some of you (as it has been to me).

For a couple of years, I have known of a great service called "1-800-MASS-TIMES." By calling this phone number and keying in a zip code or area code (in response to a prompt), you can obtain the names and addresses of the nearest Catholic parishes and their weekend (and perhaps weekday) Mass and confession times.

Now this information (and much more, such as devotions, Eucharistic adoration, etc.,) has been placed on a great Internet site (http://www.masstimes.org/). I encourage you to visit and explore this. It can help you plan to attend Mass during your next trip. It can even help you uncover unknown information about your own diocese's parishes. If you are planning to move to another city, this can even help you decide where to look for a house or apartment. Links are given to many parishes' individual Internet sites.

God bless you.
John

-- J. F. Gecik (jgecik@desc.dla.mil), July 16, 2000

Answers

Danke.

-- G. Paul Hausen (gerhard@worldnet.att.net), July 17, 2000.

John: as always you have been very helpful in giving useful information. I visited the site you suggested and I found it really informative, especially in summer when so many people are moving around. Six years ago my family and I visited the city of Boston. We attended Mass in Our Lady of Victories Church. We got the information from the desk in the hotel. We didn't have a computer with Internet in those days, otherwise we could have gone to Boston knowing exactly what churches were available with the corresponding Mass and other services schedule. Thanks, again, John.

Enrique

-- Enrique Ortiz (eaortiz@yahoo.com), July 18, 2000.


You're welcome, Enrique.
By private e-mail, a couple of people have asked me where I went on my trip. I won't bore you with lots of details, but will mention several things, including some recommendations to people looking for some very special "spiritual" destinations in North America. (I'm sure, though, that they cannot compare with your Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico, Enrique!)

In 15 days (June 24 - July 8), I was able to drive a bit more than 4,000 miles through nine U.S. states and three Canadian provinces (Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, Michigan, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick).

I was able to travel part of the route (in Quebec province) that my parents traveled on their honeymoon 51 years earlier. They were married on July 4, 1949, and are now in the 70s. I was able to take numerous color photos to share with them. They have only a few old black-and-white photos from 51 years ago. For them, those days in 1949 were a pilgrimage, not just a honeymoon, as they were able to visit various beautiful shrines and churches. Now very secularized, Quebec province must have been one of the most "Catholic" places in the world at the turn of the century. You would be amazed to look at a map and notice that at least 2/3 of the names of cities and towns have to do with our faith (saints' names, etc.).

The single most moving experience of the trip was my visit to St. Joseph's Oratory (founded by Blessed Andre) in the middle of the gigantic Montreal metropolitan area. Also beautiful (and recommended) in Quebec province were:
>>> The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Trois Rivieres (Three Rivers), where there are dozens of exquisite old stained-glass windows, in which all of Our Lady's titles in the Litany of Loreto are depicted.
>>> The Shrine of Our Lady of the Cape in Cap-de-la-Madeleine (see http://www.sanctuaire-ndc.ca/Pages/ang_menu01.html).
>>> The Shrine of St. Anne in Ste.-Anne-de-Beaupre.

Besides making the trip in honor of my parents, I made it as a pilgrimage in honor of some very holy people upon whom I have been calling for help for many years -- the North American Martyrs (five French Jesuit priests like St. Isaac Jogues, St. John de Brefeuf, and two laymen) and Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, all of whom lived and died in New York and/or Canada in the 1600s. It was a great blessing to visit the following, which I recommend to you:
>>> The Shrine of North American Martyrs in Auriesville, New York (west of Albany), where some of the Frenchmen were tortured and/or killed, and where Bl. Kateri (half Mohawk, half Algonquin) was born. You must see this place to believe it. There is so much, I cannot begin to describe it.
>>> The Shrine of Bl. Kateri in Fonda, New York (across the Mohawk River from Auriesville), where she was baptized as a girl.
>>> St. Francis Xavier Mission in the Indian village of Kahnawake, Quebec, just south of Montreal, where Bl. Kateri died at age 24 and is buried. [Her New York village moved far to the north of the Mohawk River to escape belligerent Iroquois.]
>>> The Shrine of the Canadian (i.e., North American) Martyrs in rural Midland, Ontario, perhaps 100 miles north of Toronto. You can touch the glass-walled reliquary containing the skull of St. John de Brebeuf in the beautiful church. The hilly grounds are wonderful too, including a big field where many thousands gathered when the pope visited and gave a talk in 1984.
>>> "Saint Marie Among the Hurons," across the highway from the Midland Shrine. Here, in the 1960s, many learned people joined to rebuild a French Jesuit mission to the Huron Indians that had existed in the 1630s and 1640s, before it was destroyed. Some of the North American Martyrs made retreats or resided here, and two of them (killed a few miles away) are partially buried here. The pope came here two. You may have seen a film of him visiting one of the longhouses (Huron multi-family residences).
>>> The Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette in Enfield, New Hampshire. This is a simple and peaceful spot across from a lake.

I hope that some of you will be able to visit one or more of these places. If you want me to provide more information, I would be happy to try to do so.
God bless you.
John

-- J. F. Gecik (jgecik@desc.dla.mil), July 19, 2000.

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