I took the 8th grade on a field trip yesterday! It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time – a visit to churches.
In religion class, we were talking about Solomon’s temple and its furnishings, and comparing it to Christian churches. I made a slide show to talk about it, including pictures from our church that show the elements they have in common. I couldn’t include the pictures here, because the file was too big, but HERE is the slide show with just the words.
First, we went to the Roman Catholic cathedral in town – the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. The building was built about 23 years ago. It’s modern architecture, but has a lot of the things I mentioned in the slide show. The tour was super-cool. I loved it. The kids did too.
It was hard to take pictures of, because it was so big. The palm trees in the foreground are Jerusalem Palms, the kind people used on Palm Sunday. Isn’t that cool?
Here’s the nave. It did have wood on the ceiling, like the hull of a ship:
There were giant tapestries on the walls, filled with saints old and new. They were gorgeous.
Look! It’s Lorenzo Ruiz! I saw him in St. Patrick’s in New York!
After eating lunch in their beautiful courtyard, we headed to another church, just ten minutes away. This one was the St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral. It was built in the Romanesque style – “And now for something completely different…”
This church opened in 1924, but looks much older. It had many beautiful features. Here is the nave.
It had beautiful stained glass windows. They were small, because Romanesque style does not include flying buttresses, so the walls can’t be full of holes with only glass in them.
It had many beautiful mosaics
The kids did a good job with their assignment – they made some great observations. I would love to do this again next year!
Wow!! Educational for them AND for us! That slideshow is great – full of information in easy-to-understand terms that are fascinating! There was so much that was new to me as an adult. If you had gobs of time on your hands, you could offer this as a tour to adults, too.
Very cool, Brad – thanks for doing that!
Leonardo DiCaprio as John is my favorite.
Those 8th graders were truly blessed when you set all this together as you did. And WE were also blessed when you shared so much of it here. Thank you, Brad! (P.S.- I was today ears old when I realized why some churches’ rose windows are smaller than some other churches…no flying buttresses!)