This weekend we’ll be attending the Diocese of Charlotte’s annual Eucharistic Congress, in Uptown Charlotte, North Carolina. Last year’s keynote speaker was Rwandan genocide survivor Immaculee Ilibagiza, but this year it’s a hometown lineup: President Bill Thierfelder and Abbot Placid Solari of Belmont Abbey College and Monastery, respectively; plus Patrick Madrid of the Envoy Institute, based at Belmont Abbey.
Last year’s Congress was memorable for many reasons, not least of which was that one of our party, riding down the escalator in the Charlotte Convention Center, managed to get one of his Crocs stuck in the moving-stair mechanism. He escaped with all toes intact, for which we are very very very grateful, especially after hearing approximately three hundred Croc-escalator horror stories from people who happened by as the security team were trying to remove this Croc from that escalator (they couldn’t, and it was out of commission for the entire weekend, so if you were frustrated in your attempts to transition from the upper level to the lower of the Charlotte Convention Center last year, it was our fault and we are sorry).
So, no Crocs this year. The Croco-Woco Kid has to wear his First Communion suit anyway, assuming we can still wedge him into it — it was none too large when he made his First Communion back in May, and that was months ago — to march in the Eucharistic Procession with all the other First Communicants of 2010.
Here are some highlights from the past two years:
Eucharistic Procession 2008
First Communion Girls 2008
Beautiful Ladies of the Korean Community, Eucharistic Procession 2008
Holy Father Meets Hello Kitty
Foggy Morning, Uptown Charlotte 2009
Brothers and Sisters, Eucharistic Procession 2009
Guys With Bells, 2009
A friend's daughter remarked, "I didn't know there were so many Catholics in the world."
Cheesecake On a Stick.
Okay, so it’s not exactly Rome, but it’s a great event in our diocese. More to come.
From a person who was born in Charlotte in the 1940s, where is Uptown Charlotte? Is it where Trade crosses Tryon? Is Downtown Charlotte where St Peter’s Church is? If not, where exactly is downtown Charlotte? Loved looking at your pics. When I was growing up there, Catholics were regarded with suspicion, to put it mildly. My own mother told me that Catholics were evil. I converted in 2000, a long geographical and metaphorical way from there.
Imaculee was in Charlotte yesterday at the Envoy Award banquet where she was honored. I drove from Fuquay to hear her. She is such an inspiration.
You and your family and friends have fun this weekend Sally and please say at least one prayer for me.
Thank You in advance
I know — wish I’d been able to be there. She lectured at Belmont Abbey, where my husband teaches, Wednesday night, and of course we heard her last year, but I would have loved to have been at the dinner.
Dawn — yes, it’s that Trade-Tryon area. People call that whole area, which I’d call a downtown, “Uptown.” The Congress itself happens at the Charlotte Convention Center on College Street. I lived in Charlotte in my early twenties, more than twenty years ago, and having moved back to NC two years ago, to a small town about 45 minutes out, I find Charlotte largely unrecognizable. Get lost every time I go there. But the Congress is fantastic, and having come from a place which had nothing like that, we really live it up every year.
Victor — of course you’re in my prayers. Maybe, like The Anchoress, I should have asked for intentions to take there, though I’m not really visiting any major shrines (unless you count walking past the new Wachovia building . . . ).
Sally,
I’d love to hear your views on some of the parishes and schools here in Charlotte. We moved here 2 months ago and have already left our parish and pulled ours kids from the Catholic school. The concerns made me decide not to attend the EC. We now think the cathedral parish will suit us well although it is far away from our house. Made it to the adoration chapel @ Belmont it was lovely.
Cherie — You can feel free to email me privately at sallytslc at hotmail dot com. We don’t live in Charlotte, so I don’t have the real skinny on parishes there (though if you want to commute out to the provinces, I know an excellent one . . .
). And we homeschool, so I’m not much for school recommendations, either . . .
The Congress is fantastic. I’m really sorry you were scared off, though I can understand how you could be. It is very orthodox, very centered on the Eucharist, massively well-attended — we were just saying, as we came home tonight, what a great thing it is for this diocese to have something like that, which pulls people together and energizes them. And you get to see all the seminarians (mostly very young, energetic, the whole shebang), monks, nuns — it just is very, very good. And my kids love it. My oldest daughter is in Munich right now, and she was *disappointed* to be missing the Congress.
Glad you made it out to the Abbey. That chapel is lovely. The times I’ve been to the Cathedral have been lovely, too. We always make the trip in for the diocesan Chrism Mass in Holy Week, another thing my kids look forward to.
Welcome to NC, and if there’s anything we can help you with, let me know.
“guys with bells” is Cory, at least the bearded one is. He’s a seminarian @ his first year in Josephenum. He graduated from Belmont Abbey last year… and the “brothers” are Benedictines at said Abbey.
Crescat — we know Cory well. My husband was his senior-thesis supervisor, and he’s something of an unofficial big brother/thorn-in-side to my oldest daughter. So I had to splash him up there for the world to see. The other guy is a good friend of ours as well, who converted to Catholicism two years ago at 18 and is waiting to have been Catholic long enough to start the process towards priesthood in earnest. I love that picture of the two of them.
And yeah, Fr. Ciaran and Br. Edward . . . that same daughter managed to get herself lost at the March for Life in DC last January in company with Br. Edward. She kept saying to herself, “My dad won’t worry, because I’m lost with a monk.”
I’ve been figuring you must have an Abbey connection, ’cause where else would you have gotten your blog name?