Hello everyone.
Welcome to Round 19 of the Reflection Hunters Contest hosted and judged by @annephilbrick. If you haven't heard about this awesome contest, read all about it in the link here. You are all welcome to join.
Last Sunday we were supposed to attend mass in our regular church but wound up hearing mass in another one as the church we normally go to was closed indefinitely. The other church we went to is The Lady of Lourdes Parish Church and is named and dedicated in honor of the appearance of the Blessed Virgin Mary to Bernadette in Lourdes, France. And although we have, in the past, attended mass here we seldom come back because the priests here often mix their homily with Visayan, the dialect commonly spoken in our city. As my wife grew up in a different city, she hardly speaks the dialect and understands only the basic words and none of those used during mass.
I was surprised to see how clean and orderly the church looked. Apparently, the pandemic had caused a reduction in the number of churchgoers and in the number of masses said. This church used to be so crowded with people that finding a seat becomes a real challenge, especially for those who come in late. This time, there were a lot of vacant seats and less traffic that I was able to notice the reflection of the altar on the marble floor.
The picture above was taken just right after the mass when almost everyone had already left. Normally, because of the big number of attendees, the same floor would be by now covered with dust making the floor look dull and smudged. You see, there is a practice here after mass where parishioners line up in front of the altar to be physically blessed by the priest. This results in having a huge crowd massed along the front of the altar waiting their turn to be blessed. So all that dust and grime picked up from outside the church are stamped on the floor. But with the pandemic this practice was disallowed and people just leave the church immediately after the service. This is why the altar area was almost deserted right after mass and I was able to focus on the floor which looked so glossy with the altar reflected on it.
The picture below was taken from the back where I was seated. I noticed that the unusual cleanliness allowed the reflection of the altar even at the back row.
Here is how the altar looks like from afar, from the angle where I was seated.
It gladdens me immensely that finally the maintenance of the church can now cope with keeping the place a lot cleaner and shinier. There was just too much traffic and hourly masses said before that sprucing up before subsequent masses was an impossibility. As the saying goes, "Cleanliness is next to Godliness."
That's it for this entry. Thanks for visiting and I hope you enjoyed it. A ton of appreciation to @melinda010100 @galenkp @traciyork and @ecency.com for donating to this contest's prize fund. Great job guys! Please stay safe and may your weekend be a real blast!
(All photos are mine.)