What a beautiful church!! It was so peaceful. Lisa and I went kind of on the spur of the moment and it was so worth it. After Mass, the new pastor approached us as we were leaving. He had only been there two weeks. I believe his name is Fr. Lynch. He was genuinely excited when I told him of my New Year’s Resolution and invited me and Lisa the story of St. Ann that was embedded in the stained glass windows! He told us that the story of St. Ann does not appear in the Bible. St. Ann and her husband could not bear children, they went through many trials and sad times, then God gave them one daughter…….Mary Mother of Jesus! Honestly I had not really thought about Mary’s family. She has always just been “Mary and Joseph” or the “Blessed Virgin Mother”. I never thought of her as a young girl who had parents and who were those parents! Not sure how I would handle being told by my only daughter, a teenager at that, that she was pregnant….AND it was going to be the Son of God! Weird to think about. The last panel of glass on the right side of the church is St. Ann, Mary, and Jesus…….three generations! Very special image.
Anyhow, the stained glass in that church is worth the visit! Spectacular. The thing that makes the glass so cool is each panel is an image of the life of St. Ann, Mary or Jesus, with a Bible verse printed into the glass below each image……so cool! After Mass I told Lisa that maybe I felt so peaceful there because I love being surrounded by words…papers, books, libraries, book stores…and there in this place, I was completely surrounded by words, literally! There was so much to look at and take in.
During Fr. Lynch’s sermon, he asked us to think about two questions at the end of the day:
- How was I Christ-like today?
- Did I invite God into my everyday interactions today?
Great questions to think about!
I know I can sometimes come up with the examples for the first one on most days, but not so sure I can answer YES to the second one on most days. Good thoughts to think about.
I left that church thinking about how excited Fr. Lynch was to share St. Ann’s story with us. It was a blessing to go there this evening. And…really nice to have Lisa with me to experience it.
I will definitely be going back to St. Ann’s….and I really wish Fr. Lynch well as the new pastor there!
debiboc 