The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles. Photo by David Leigh Ellis
By John Murphy
Have experienced some unique Easters in my time, but quarantine Easter on Sunday broke the mold.
St. Adelaide’s in Highland, right up the street, was out of play because of the whole social distancing thing. So CalTrans Girl and I found ourselves searching Sunday morning for a televised Mass and found one on channel 13, live from the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown Los Angeles.
Been there. Nice place.
While searching for the Mass, my better half was robo-texting her elderly mom in Torrance who also wanted to tune in. .
“She’s got it on, but she says there’re no people there,” CalTrans Girl said.
“Does she expect there to be?” I said.
Well, this deal IS unprecedented – churches shuttered, priests and ministers sidelined, services being telecast and livestreamed from grand cathedrals. But I have to say, I wasn’t hating it.
There’s something to be said for taking in Mass from the comfort of your own home. I even nibbled on an empanada as the service began.
Mostly it was a beautiful Mass, presided over by Archbishop Jose H. Gomez. There were only about 5-6 others in the cathedral – three priests, an organ player, a singer and maybe one other. No altar boys … or altar girls. No sense in putting them at risk.
Watching the service, my mind drifted back to many mornings spent at St. Robert’s Church in San Bruno where I was once an altar boy.
As a first grader, we attended Mass every day. That was rough. By second grade they made it once a week. Still, there’d be 400 kids jammed into the church and the windows were always shut tight. Inevitably, a kid or three would stagger out, gasping for breath. But some, I’m sure, were just faking it.
And if you found yourself in a certain pew, you’d see “November 22, 1963” carved into the wood by a kid with a pocket knife. That was the day JFK was killed and it was a very big deal at St. Robert’s. The nuns, ya know, they loved Kennedy. Most everyone did.
But I digress.
I think the televised Mass works in a pinch. In fact, another one came on later in the day from a place called “Our Lady of the Rosary” and I watched it for maybe 10 minutes.
Then I remembered how my late mom used to say, “Too much of anything is bad.” So I changed channels to “Pretty Woman, Behind Closed Doors” as our Easter like no other continued.
Main Street Dog 