This is the parish where we were from when I was ten to when I married at twenty (and moved away). It is, if anything, more beautiful than I remembered, but smaller!
I didn't take pictures, but the inside is very lovely: beautiful stained glass, frescoes of the life of Christ, carved marble altar and lovely sculpted stations of the cross.
It made me think how much poorer our churches are. When I was growing up, when my mind wandered at Mass, there was always something beautiful and good to look at. Our current parish has never had the money for such a lavish spread of beauty, but I have been in many well off parishes where the walls are intentionally bare and the glass clear.
We also visited the parish cemetery. I had wanted to visit the graves of two people very dear to me in my childhood, but was delighted to be able to visit many more old friends and neighbors. Probably "delighted" sounds strange in this context! But it really was a delight. We're all traveling in the same direction, and it was so nice to see an elderly couple that I had loved for their devotion and care for each other had passed on within a month of each other.
I prayed at the graves of Fr. Mike, a merry Irish priest who always had time to joke with a kid, and Fr. John, whose voice I still hear singing. And Mrs. Gardinier, whose elegant chignon I copied, and whose kindness and loving refinement are still with me.
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