5. St Mary, Mother of God

St Mary's is one of several Roman Catholic churches in downtown Washington, DC.  It seems more hidden than others, however, located as it is well within Chinatown behind the Verizon Center.  It is crowded on either side by buildings, making it difficult to spot from the street.

St Mary's is one of the few DC churches to offer a traditional Latin Rite Mass; we attended such a Mass last year - on Sunday, June 20th, however, we attended the regular 7:00pm Mass.  St Mary's advertises this Mass as the latest one in the city.  Presumably it is timed to catch those unable to attend Mass earlier in the day and, perhaps, those returning to the city from a weekend getaway.

We didn't know what size or type of congregation we'd see there.  It was very mixed - young and old of many ethnicities.  We estimate a least eighty people in attendance.  We couldn't tell who was from the parish itself and who travelled from elsewhere for the Mass.

The parish priest celebrated Mass with the assistence of an altar server.  The Mass moved along quite quickly, as there was no music or choir.  The priest gave quite a long sermon - about 15-18 minutes - that hit numerous points.  He served communion by himself, which took a while with the large congregation present.