The End and the Beginning

Saturday, we finished the second leg of our pilgrimage, and began the third. I was going to post pictures from the entire morning's walk, but I don't have much time today, so I'll just show you the first part. On Friday, we  reached the Walgreen's in Hernando, which is just half a mile away from the church, so that's where we started on Saturday morning. This wasn't exactly the most exciting stretch of the pilgrimage.

Of course, we could have taken this picture anywhere. There must be at least 50 buildings that look exactly like this within a fairly small radius around us.

Then we headed down the main street in Hernando, which is called Commerce. It begins in the newer commercial area which has the ubiquitous Walmart, and several banks and fast food restaurants, and ends at the old town square. Holy Spirit Catholic Church is just under halfway to the square. 

First we had to walk under I-55. You can see that our granddaughter is with us, and that she has much less hair than she did during the famous snake incident.

The thrilling underbelly of the expressway.

Holy Spirit from the street. You can see the spire of the old church on the left, and the much larger new church on the right. The old church is very small. It probably doesn't hold more than about 150 people. It's not particularly beautiful, but it has a very nice, peaceful atmosphere. I used to go there a long time ago when the pastor would say Mass sometimes for our prayer group, and then later my dear, dear, best spiritual director ever was the pastor, and I would drive down (about 45 mins. from my old house) once a month to see him.

Then the parish outgrew the church and they had to have Mass in the gym while they were raising money and building the new church. The drawback to Mass in the gym was that it was in the gym, but that couldn't be avoided since they could have filled the old church four times over. Now they have the big church and it's a big, new church. 

So, we arrived. We wanted to go in and say a prayer, but we weren't sure we could get in on a Saturday.

Hmmmm.

As luck would have it, we got there while some florists were decorating for a wedding--see the flowers on the doors--so we got to go in. The florist weren't quite sure we should be there, but we were quiet and sat in the back pew, so they let us carry on.

After leaving, we walked on to the town square to celebrate. Since this would be the first part of the walk to the next church, we will consider that we are on our way. I'll post pictures from the rest of our walk later or tomorrow. They are more interesting.

AMDG