The Gift of Coming Home! We Finally Have a Chapel That Looks Like a Church! Happy New Year!

This was our chapel in May of 2021 as we celebrated Mary and prepared to crown her.

Since 2020, my husband and I have been wanderers in Traditional Latin Mass Land. It all started with the COVID lockdowns and the craven behavior of bishops who preferred to deny the Mass to their flocks rather than find creative ways to manage government mandates. So, while our local ordinary cancelled all the Masses in the diocese, the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) answered the call from grieving Catholics and offered the Mass at the fairgrounds in Front Royal, VA. The governor allowed it and the bishop could have done it in every region of the diocese. He chose not to.

In the beginning, Mass attendees sat in our cars while the priest prayed at an altar set up under a tent. We tuned in via our cell phones. Ushers invited us out car by car to receive Holy Communion at the makeshift altar rail. Penitents lined up (socially distant) to go to confession kneeling in the grassy field confessing to a priest sitting on a folding chair. We got a chance to experience what it must have been like for the chosen people in the Old Testament making their way to the Promised Land. They set up the worship tent whenever they stopped; our community set it up every Sunday for the several Masses offered to accommodate the crowds.

Holy Thursday saw us, still in our cars, while poor Father shivered, only partially protected by the park pavilion on a windy, rainy night. We sat with the heater on; he suffered the inclement weather for our benefit. Sacrifice and suffering, our priests imitated Christ.

The mandates relaxed somewhat and we moved out of our cars into the fairground pavilion. Every Sunday, the priests, accompanied by some of the seminarians, continued to travel from the seminary in Dillwyn, VA near Charlottesville to set up our temporary church with the help of a generous flock of laity. What a labor of love! And to see the young altar boys and hear them responding to the priest was a joy. So many families, so many young children.

Our next move was to a handball court at a facility owned by a Catholic family. We were indoors out of the hot summer sun. It was small and some families, mostly with small children, were in an entrance room watching on TV. 

Finally, we moved to our current location in Linden converting a long room into a chapel. It was a strange arrangement with three small rooms behind the main room with large openings, a rather bizarre arrangement, but people continued to come. Our little congregation grew to the point we needed two Masses: a low Mass at 8:00 a.m. and a high Mass at 10:30. We sat on chairs with little garden mats for kneelers. Those of us who are past our prime and have difficulty getting up and down off the floor without a forklift had to give up kneeling.

Meanwhile, we acquired property and are fundraising to build a permanent home. For a time it looked like we would rent a building adjacent to our property, but permit issues kept delaying that. And so we recently rented the entire building at our current location which had a much larger room that could be converted and configured with the altar facing east. A chapel in Indiana was renovating and we got real pews with kneelers. The larger room will accommodate the larger numbers of worshipers wanting to come, some from several hours away.

The hope was to renovate the room and have it ready for midnight Mass. The painting was done and some building modifications finished when I went to help the Friday before Christmas. I arrived at 9:00 a.m. and my first thought was that it was impossible! The chapel room was filled with machinery, paint cans, spackle buckets, tools, extension cords, etc. The pews were in the other room and needed to be wiped down to remove the refinishing residue. Downstairs the sewing crew was working on the hangings and altarpiece. The heavy lifters had yet to arrive. 

Yikes! Could it really happen? St. Joseph, we need your help.

By the time I left at 4:00 p.m. the chapel had risen from the chaos. Only the Christmas decorating remained to be done. What a miracle -- accomplished by an army of volunteers with the help of St. Joseph and our guardian angels. And so, we celebrated Christmas in a little church worthy to welcome the New Born King.

What a happy new year for our little congregation. As I prayed yesterday morning, I rejoiced at our beautiful new chapel, a real home. And so, when I knelt at the crib, I thanked God for his many gifts to us. 

Returning to the Traditional Latin Mass is a joy to me, because it so truly honors God. Whether we celebrate in a field, in a gym, or now in a real church we join with all the saints and martyrs of a millennia who prayed this "Mass of the ages." My husband and I rejoice in God's goodness and His care for His people. May we all grow in wisdom and grace and holiness during 2023. 

Dear readers, you are all in my prayers at every Mass and in every rosary. I ask my guardian angel to pray with yours that God's will be done in every moment and circumstance of your life. And I beg for your prayers as well.

May Jesus Christ be praised! Now and forever!