Get Thee to the Church: St. Jude Shrine, Baltimore, Maryland

Every summer we attend at least one Indy Car race, and this year it was the first ever Baltimore Grand Prix on Labor Day Weekend. I was hoping to get something up on this blog about that before now, and I hope to post a few photos and thoughts about it sometime this week. Anyhow, since this was the first Indy Car race in Baltimore, and the first street race we've ever attended, we decided to splurge and get a hotel right beside the track. When we went down to the lobby for the continental breakfast, we could hear the race cars on the course.

There were several churches withing walking distance (including the Basilica of the Assumption; I hope to visit that one the next time we're in town); and the closest was the Shrine of St. Jude.

The morning Masses were back-to-back, and we arrived just before the first Mass ended. You can see the priest blessing folks on the left.

My favorite Station of the Cross.

One of the lovely stained-glass windows

A close-up

Mary Queen of Apostles

There was a lovely side chapel dedicated to St. Jude, but I didn't get any photos because there was a steady stream of people going in there to pray and I didn't want to disturb them. During Mass, Larry and Joe got to bring up the gifts!

After Mass we headed downstairs to their gift shop. While we were there a lady asked Joe if we were here for the Grand Prix. Yes, we were, he told her. The woman then asked, "Are you one of the drivers?" Joe (laughing inwardly) said, no, we were just here to watch the race. The nice lady told him that if he was a driver, she would say a prayer for him.

Someone must have been praying for the drivers that day; take a look at this:

This crash happened on Sunday morning during practice, right in front of the grandstands where we sat during the race. We weren't here for this because, well, we were at church. Tony ended up finishing in third place.

And look what we stumbled across on our walk back:

Pretty cool.