When my mother was ill back in August I promised St. Anthony that if he helped her with his prayers I'd make a pilgrimage to his Pennsylvania shrine. Ma's okay and this weekend Rocky and I went to Pittsburgh to visit the St. Anthony Chapel. It is a very remarkable and holy place. If you are ever in Pennsylvania and can do it, do yourself a favor and stop by.
This chapel was founded by a saintly priest, Fr. Mollinger and contains over 5000 relics of the saints and has more relics than any other place outside of the Vatican. Sr. Margaret, a lovely habited nun from Ireland gave the tour. Besides the relics, the chapel also has life sized stations of the cross. Oh, and Sr. Margaret was kind enough to bring out the chapel's relic of the True Cross.
After the visit we walked over the chapel's museum and then stopped by Most Holy Name of Jesus parish. They had the altar decorated with pumpkins and wheat and we decided not to go to Mass there. Instead we went to Ephinany which is in downtown Pittsburgh. They had a brisk Mass and had a male cantor. He had a strong tenor voice and was very nice to us. In fact, everyone we met was delightful.
Pittsburgh Steeler fans have got to be the most devoted I've ever seen. They put Redskins fans to shame. Even little old ladies were wearing their Steelers jerseys on Sunday. I don't think we'll be back, except to visit the chapel but it's an interesting town.