Mission Complete

Poppy and I have been going to all the far-flung churches in our very spread-out parish for the past year. She wanted to see all of them. Most of them are quite old, some are very beautiful, all of them only have Mass once a month.

This past Saturday, we went to the final church. It's not that far from our house--about thirty miles--but it's in quite a dramatic location.

After turning off the paved road.

It's an adobe structure that was sheathed in local cut stone.

This is the only church in our parish that is privately owned. It is also the oldest church in our parish. The family that owns the ranch takes care of it.

Some of the older owners of the ranch are buried right under the church. Their tombstones are under the statue of Jesus there in the center.

Poppy and I climbed up to the rear choir loft, from which we had a good view of the giant pieta at the entrance to church.

Most of the grave markers in the surrounding old cemetery were hand-carved sandstone.

It was a good thing we had time to look around the cemetery before Mass, because this was what was coming towards us as we were going in to Mass.

Dramatic.

The storm hit during the Gospel reading. It was mostly over by the time we left, thankfully, and the dirt road was still passable.

And that's it. Our tour of the parish churches is concluded. It was fun, but I appreciate only having to drive ten miles to our regular church.