So yesterday was an unexpected adventure!After my spiritual direction with Father John, my friend Andy and I jetted south.
The plan was to drive to the Greenbelt Park & Ride. There we'd hop the Metro and take the Green and Red Lines to the Basilica of the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. After that, we'd take the Metro further south to Alexandria, Virginia where we'd then catch a cab to a crowded Irish pub called Pat Troy's.
My Irish friend Breier would meet us there. Every Monday night for 6 consecutive weeks, the bar hosts "Theology on Tap," a delightful mix of young adult Catholics, theological musings, humor, and endless beverages.
The journey getting there, however, was quite unique. The car ride was only about 2 hours, but once we got to the basilica, we lost track of time!
Maybe it was because I did so much counting. Well, I was praying also, but I counted 83 distinct and unique chapels or pray areas within this giant basilica. And by "chapel," I do mean a complete church with an altar and pews!!
When I found a brochure, I discovered that I had missed a few and there were actually 95! Incredible. To be inside the basilica is to be in a giant playpen of heavenly fun! When there's 95 little churches or pray areas to explore that are all neighboring one another, it's no wonder 2 more hours slipped away from us! My favorite chapels (listed in no particular order) are:
- Blessed Sacrament (Chapel #53)
- Our Mother of Good Counsel (Chapel #5)
- Immaculate Heart of Mary Chapel (Chapel #40)
- Our Lady of Lourdes Chapel (Chapel #36)
- Our Lady of Hope Chapel (Chapel #31)
- The Miraculous Medal Chapel (Chapel #45)
- Our Lady of Guadalupe (Chapel #47)
- Our Lady of Czestochowa (Chapel #48)
- Our Lady of Mount Carmel (Chapel #52)
- Mother of Sorrows (Chapel #86)
- Our Lady of the Rosary (Chapel #88)
When we finally became aware of the time, we left the basilica, dashed to the Metro, boarded the Red Line and then transferred to the Blue Line.But a broken train ahead of us caused us to sit and wait for a long time. As tracks were shared and trains were swapped, throngs of people were suddenly going to use our train also, and I found myself talking and laughing with strangers as I attempted to navigate through all the confusion! Even Andy and I got separated by many other people's bodies who squeezed between us.
A guy my age gently but firmly insisted I was on the wrong train. And, as we worked it out on the map and entertained the opinions of the people around us, we found that it was he who was on the wrong one, and we had a good laugh about that! But, of course, the train had moved from the platform by the time we made this realization, and so now we were stuck in a tubular dungeon!
Concerned about the time and worried about the fact that our train wasn't going anywhere again, I didn't realize that I was nervously playing with the Miraculous Medal around my neck as I continued speaking with Mr. WrongWay from Toronto. And because of this, I managed to lose the necklace entirely. :-(
Soon I was on my hands and knees, crawling on the floor, kindly asking people to please lift up their feet as I explored the dirty floor beneath them. Many people helped me in the search, but already I had become the entertainment on the train because what else was there to look at when you're in a dark, tubular dungeon? It was kind of embarrassing.
When the train started moving again, my emotional yet ineffective search for the necklace caused Andy and I to completely miss the subsequent station, which was the one we were supposed to get off at. Argh! We had 1.5 hours of riding that train to anticipate our station's arrival, and yet we still missed it!Everyone saw my surprised and sad reaction as the doors closed before me and the train teased me by stopping again but not bothering to open its doors.
We would have to get off at the next station, transfer to the other side, and then wait for a subsequent train. This we managed to do successfully, and catching a cab came easily also, and and I even had the foresight to ask the cabbie to pick us back up around 9:30 so that we could make it back to the Metro and get back to our car before things shut down at 11 PM.
As we stepped into the pub, we caught the conclusion to what seemed to be an evening of hilarious Catholic entertainment. I entered just as the entire bar turned their faces from the stage to the doorway (talk about the feeling of all eyes on me!) to watch a man (the one standing beside me) affix his name to the wall, perhaps because he had accomplished something significant just moments ago.After the laughter and applause subsided, Pat Troy suggested that we all pray for OURSELVES (instead of others), and all of us prayed a "Hail Mary" and an "Our Father" together with strong voices. With a final command to drink and be merry, he came down from the stage and everyone began to socialize and enjoy. Oh, how I wished a scene like this was in Lancaster!
I got to chat with Breier only 30 minutes or so before the cab arrived and it was time to leave.By the time we made it back to the Greenbelt Station, we had a mere 10 minutes to spare before the rail system shut down for the evening. Whew! I was in bed by 4 AM. What a day!
