We will be caroling next Saturday evening. Are you going to join us? We will be singing in homes of homebound people, taking the joy of the advent season to them. We had a lot of fun at the White Elephant exchange. I'm not sure how people were able to get enough wrapping paper for those elephants. Comment here either to explain what you got out of the evening or to share why you weren't able to make it.
We have two events coming up in December. We will have a talk from Father Mark and will have a gift exchange. Will you be there? Later in the month, we are going caroling with some older people. It will be a lot if fun. Come join us!
Have you read yet about ¡YA!'s outing to feed the homeless? If not, check it out on the page. Then come back here soon for a chance to win a prize by answering some questions about the day's events. Prizes will be given to the first that reply by adding as a comment.
Here are the questions:
Tonight is the Gala Dinner. At least 17 of us will be there. It should be a lot of fun. Watch the previous events page for a description and photos.
Come join us on the 2nd of November for a saintly evening (LOL) at a gala dinner. Check out the upcoming events page for details.
We will be heading soon to Dell'Osso corn mazes and more in Lathrop. Should be fun! Watch here for information about how to win a prize by answering questions about it. You can win a prize if you can find the answers to the following questions about our trip to the Dell'Osso Farms Corn Maze and be the first one to post them as a comment here. There are consolation prizes as well, so even if you aren't the winner, post the correct answers to get a prize. You should be able to find all of the answers by reading about the trip and looking at the pictures even if you didn't go on the trip. Some you might have to think or look carefully, but the answers are all there. Ready?
1. How many people went on the trip? 2. What is the name of the clergy member that went with us? 3. How many females went on the trip? 4. One large group went into the maze, but how many different groups came out? 5. In which part of the maze did we get lost? 6. How did the first group find their way out of the maze? 7. What game did we play with other people while inside of the maze? 8. Who kissed the ground when coming out of the maze? 9. Why did Josue almost get arrested? And last but not least . . . . 10. Where did we eat dinner at the end of the night? What a blessed day we spent traveling in pilgrimage to San Francisco on Saturday, the 21st of September! Taking part on the trip were Nayo, Juana, Geoff, Josue, Juan, Danielle, Daniela, Sara, and Yesenia. It was a rainy day, but did clear up in the afternoon to give us beautiful weather. We started the day at St. Dominic's. (Actually, we started at St. Joseph's, a few of us in adoration, but I guess that doesn't count). It was our primary stop, as the parish has a relic of the True Cross, and the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross earlier in the month. We had to leave Modesto early, as the idea was to make it to mass, which started at 8 AM. We just barely made it, as they were singing the processional song as we entered the front door. Mass was presided by Father Emmanuel whose ordination I attended with Tyson about a year or two ago. After the song, Father Emmanuel introduced himself and the other Dominicans and then led us praying the psalms of morning prayer. It was very refreshing to have morning prayer combined with mass, as I had not had an opportunity to do so with the guys in the car with me. We got another nice surprise at the end of when some of the ladies sitting near us, who had asked where we were from, invited us to join them for coffee and different breads. We ended up spending the next hour or so chatting with a small group of people (I think the 10 of us were more numerous than they were), eating toast and marmalade and consuming either coffee or tea. It was very refreshing, especially with Father Emmanuel's challenge at the sending of the mass to "put into practice the lessons of the Gospels." The actions of the small group seemed to do just that. After our time in the basement kitchen, we toured the parish, enjoying the different stained glass windows, statues, and relics. We also took advantage of the national Shrine to St. Jude Thadeus, one of only two in the US. Many of us purchased a container with some St. Jude's oil. Nayo had us all doing a scavenger hunt to find St. Therese and Bl. Pier Giorgio within the the parish. You will have the find the picture that shows that he was the winner with the picture showing proof that he was the only one to find both. We ended our time by following a pilgrimage tradition that I started a few years ago when I started making them, by chanting the divine mercy chaplet. The obvious choice for it was by the relic of the True Cross, the source of "his sorrowful passion", at least the physical portion of it. It sounded very beautiful with the mix of the 10 voices in the otherwise quiet confines of St. Dominic's which has great acoustics. Geoff left us after that, as it was his 30th birthday, and he was celebrating with his family. We sang a quick happy birthday to him with the locals before he left. We would connect again briefly in the early evening but only quickly. One of the things that the ladies from St. Dominic's mentioned was how much they thought that the young adults would enjoy visiting St. Peter and Paul's. Our original plans were to visit only one parish, but we modified our plans based on the suggestion. It ended up being a perfect decision as it lead to visits of others. We ended up attempting to do a traditional 7 parish pilgrimage. St. Peter and Paul's is a Salesian Parish, but is filled with many, many statues of different saints. We had the same treasure hunt, but it wasn't the same the second time. The later rounds of hunting for hidden treasures became more interesting, but more of that later. We left St. Peter and Paul's at almost noon to find the light rain when we entered to be a much more torrential downpour. Those of you that were in the valley felt it later, but we got it coming out of the church. We took refuge under the awning of the bakery down the street until it started to let up, but still had to fight the puddles and small streams as we walked to our next stop: lunch. After a lot of indecision (nothing strange with a group of non-pushy people), we ended up at a nice, but empty Italian restaurant. Geoff had suggested a nice deli, but being that we were in the North Beach area, known to be an Italian area, we opted for Italian food. It ended up being costly, at least for the males, as by the time we made it back to our vehicle, we found a ticket that was given about 5 minutes before we arrived and about 2 minutes after the meter had expired. :-( The food was tasty. The company was fabulous. The service was joyful. So, I guess it was all worth it. As we searched for first the deli and then the restaurant, I noticed that we were only two doors down from the National Shrine of Saint Francis of Assisi. Since I feel a VERY strong attraction to the Franciscan, I couldn't help but suggest that our next stop be the Shrine. Everyone readily agreed since it was so close. The Shrine is actually divided into two parts. The first was a sort of museum with an exact replica of the Porziuncola (the original "church" that St. Francis had rebuilt after his vision to "rebuild His church") and the parish itself. We visited the museum with an explanation from one of the Knights of St. Francis, who explained the details of the Porziuncola and the rest of the Shrine. It is the only shrine to St. Francis in the US, which makes sense because of the name of the city. Visiting it actually includes a plenary indulgence if the other steps (confession, communion and prayers for the Pope's intention) are completed within 8 days before or after the visit. The replica of the Porziuncola was built with the same dimensions, with rocks from the same area, and by artisans from the Assisi area. Near the altar in the front is an actual rock from the original, making at least part of the replica 800 years old. We took some time exploring it and the other gifts donated by different countries to the collection. I had to spend at least some time praying by the life-size San Damiano cross. The tour of the parish included viewing and praying by relics of St. Francis, St. Clare and St. Anthony of Padua. The scavenger hunt was to find the statue of Our Lady of Modesto. I was the first to snap the picture. Let's see if you can figure out which one it is. After St. Francis, we headed to Old St. Mary's Cathedral. It was the original Cathedral of the Diocese of St. Francisco, but was later turned over the the Paulist. It is an older church, but that gives it more character. The parish has a nice historical explanation of the history of the church, including photos from before and after the quake of 1906. Nayo's scavenger hunt (he had visited before with the Spanish Youth Group) sent us this time in search of statues of the Holy Family with Asian features. That photo should be easy to identify. We took a detour to the Catholic store down the street and part of Chinatown before heading to the next parish. We found some interesting items, one of which will be a treasure hunt for you. Which of the pictures below, taken at the store, resembles one of the leadership of St. Joe's ¡YA!? We made our way through Chinatown towards our next stop. Some of the females ended up being tempted by the many stores, but we left shopping or at least perusing until later. We headed for Notre Dame de Victoires, an actual French parish in San Francisco. The treasure hunt was to find a French saint. I wonder which one we concentrated on finding. Actually, the one statue that we found at Notre Dame and all of the parishes was St. Jude. Of all of the saints and all of the parishes, that is one of the last that I would have expected to find at all of them. I don't have any pictures right now of Notre Dame or the rest of the day, as my battery ran out (from finding directions online while driving) while at the store. I will post as soon as the other pilgrims send to me. We took a little break in Chinatown by stopping at one antique shop quickly and then to drink Bobas, an Asian tea drink that some had consumed at an earlier trip to the area. It had fruit flavor, tapioca, and ice. Pretty tasty, but not something I would have tried on my own. Our next stop was finally back on our original list of stops: to the piers and Fisheman's Wharf. We weren't there for long, but it did allow us to meet up for a brief time with Geoff, who had watched Notre Dame football (his alma mater) with his family. They were meeting for dinner, so he had only a short time to visit with us again. We met a Boudins to watch the unique sourdough creations. Nayo and Josue sneaked out to try and find some pastry to celebrate the birthday in style, but there weren't many options in the area. By the time they found some chocolate covered Twinkies and made it back, Geoff had already left to take a taxi back with his family for dinner. I made up for the lack of cake, by using my loud voice to have all of the people in the eating area sing him HAPPY BIRTHDAY. Geoff turned at least 5 shades of red! Our last stop, before the long drive home, was a quick trip to the Golden Gate Bridge. Juan needed to hurry back as he worked still in the evening, but assured me that we had enough time. The view was spectacular of the bay, the bridge and the city as the sun had just set as we were parking. We took some rather nice pictures, but again, I will have to wait until the others send me, since there was no way to charge my phone with no car charger. There were at least a couple of nervous people (afraid of heights) as we walked as a group 1/4 of the way across the bridge. I think that the most amazing part for the majority was the display that showed the cables and how they are formed of over 27,500 small wires. It made those nervous people even more nervous, even though we weren't on the bridge any longer. Our drive home passed by quick with the events of the day passing through our heads. We stopped at In-and-Out, as Juan's hunger wouldn't allow him to go straight to work. He ended up being a little late, but everything worked out well. What a great group of young adults! What a fun and moving day! Nayo and I ended it as we started, with another visit to the chapel to adore our Lord. So, your challenge, dear reader, is to identify the pictures from our scavenger hunt and to name the 7 parishes that we visited during our pilgrimage. If you can post the correct answers on the Facebook page, you will win a prize. And, yes, it will be real prize! Someone else already posted and got the main prize, but there are real consolation prizes to be won. Check out all of the photos in the slideshow below. |