Church "World" Tour: Inception & St. Paul's Catholic Church ~ Richardson

Today is Pentecost -- the infusion of the Holy Spirit, the completion of The Trinity.

For the last two summers, I've kicked around and occasionally spoken to my family about stepping outside of our home parish and seeing some of the many other Catholic churches in our area.

Summer is a good time for my family to do this because faith formation is on break which means I'm not teaching and the kids aren't in class.  We don't, in general, have as many commitments, so -- here we go!

In this area, monastic life exists.  For example, at Cistercian in Irving, it's both an Abbey and a school.  The 9 a.m. Sunday Mass includes Gregorian Chant. Who doesn't like Gregorian Chant, right?  *jots in on the list*

The only Latin Rite church, Mater Dei Catholic Church,  is located in Irving.  Mass is celebrated entirely in Latin. We'll be visiting this one for sure!

If you're interested in art, religions of the world, history, spirituality, Catholic life, you'll enjoy branching out to some of the churches in your area. If you're from a specific ethnic background and are a practicing Roman Catholic, chances are, there's a parish in the area that celebrates mass in your native language.  Look into it!

Here are some resources you might find helpful for your neck of the woods, in and out of Dallas:

Latin Rite churches

Mass times for any church around the world

Dallas Diocese

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Altar Stained Glass

With that said, today, we ventured to St. Paul Catholic Church in Richardson.  St. Paul's is the church where Msgr. Don attended as a youth. (For those of you who have not followed my blog or haven't read much into it, Msgr. Don is the priestly vessel who I give a good amount of credit to for my own baptism [other credit given to My Husband who got me to go to church with him])

My Little One was slightly confused about visiting this church. The songs are sung in different tunes, not the same instrumentation and they were sung a little slower tempo. She turned to us during Mass and asked, "is this even a Catholic church?!". It was a giggle. After Mass, we explained how from parish to parish some things will be different, and some things are going to be the same.  It was a good learning experience and definitely reflects something in all of us.  I'll let you discern what that means for you. :)

One thing that impressed me about this parish is that before the Liturgy starts, the priest welcomes new members & visitors then invites the congregation to turn to one another, introduce yourself & bid good morning. We don't do this at my home church -- wish we did.
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I'm going to try to post a little something about each church we attend.  Feel free to join the journey.  Below is a photo I took at St. Paul's, a gorgeous stained glass art piece of St. Paul that adorns the altar.