Mass in the cemetery

There is a tiny, old chapel on the hill in Congressional Cemetery here in Washington, and the congregation in residence happens to be Our Lady of Mount Carmel Old Catholic Church. What is particularly interesting about this parish is not its historic location, but its tradition as the "Dog Chapel." What I didn't know until today is that the cemetery sells memberships for it to be used as a private dog park in order to raise funds for upkeep and maintenance of the cemetery. Since the chapel is within that cemetery/dog park, the dogs like to go inside, too, so it has become the tradition of the parish to allow people to come in for services with their dogs. They even have water bowls and doggie treats.

One of my other motivations for going all the way across town today was to see my friend Father Steven, who is now Bishop Steven, at work. He served as celebrant this morning for the low Mass.



The service opened with We Three Kings of Orient Are and closed with What Child Is This, both sung a capellla by the congregation. None of the dogs joined in or howled.

None of the rest of the service was chanted or sung except for the Gospel acclamation (Alleluia). A pastoral associate gave the rather long homily.

After the service, all the dogs ran outside the doors of the chapel where the priest and Bp. Steven passed out doggie treats.



Since I'd never before been to Congressional Cemetery, I took the opportunity after Mass to walk around and look at some of the famous graves there.