Cathedral of St. Paul, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

I received a rare Sunday off because the church where I'm employed was having Youth Sunday, complete with "praise music" with lyrics projected on the wall.  Seizing the opportunity to get the heck out of Dodge, we traveled to my husband's hometown.  My plan was to go to a Mass with fantastic music, something that rarely happens.  My husband's home church is very beautiful and has a holy priest with wonderful homilies, but the music there sounds like something that'd be sung by Joe Biden at an LCWR convention in Vegas honoring the most reverend Joan "Joanie-Babes" Chittister on the occasion of her ordination.

I thought perhaps we should just do penance and go to Mass there anyway to make some family members happy, but I was reminded of this post at The Chant Café and decided to stick with the original plan and attend the choir Mass at the Cathedral of St. Paul in Pittsburgh, where we'd be guaranteed beautiful music. The kids and I left with plenty of time to take pictures before Mass began.  We assumed the church, which is adjacent to the University of Pittsburgh campus, was beautiful inside because we'd passed the stunning outside several times before while visiting museums in the area.

1962 Von Beckerath Organ

Note the beautiful woodwork and the stations above.

Very charming (and very narrow) stairway in the rear of church, leading to the choir loft and to the basement.  

View from the rear of the cathedral

Baptistry 

Detail of baptistry, featuring St. Joan of Arc

Windows above baptistry

Holy Family garden outside the cathedral.  If the pictures seem out of order, it's because we walked outside to get jackets from car, then returned to cathedral. :)

Pond with the hugest koi I've ever seen.

Cathedral doors. Note that the priest is wearing red for Pentecost Sunday.

Delicious gothic architecture

Very similar to a picture above, but sunshine is coming in these windows.

Gorgeous altars and a nice simple crucifix.

I thought it was interesting that modern doorways were installed inside the original doorways.  Curious.  A security measure, maybe?

Nice cathedra there on the left, eh?

What a fantastic altar. So beautiful. Too bad those chairs are in the way.

Our Lady! And Baby Jesus!

Another altar, this one on the left side of the church.  The altar with red on the far left houses the tabernacle.

Check out that communion rail.  Fantastic!

Tabernacle.  Sorry about the lighting.

I assume this is a baldacchino, but have never seen one used over a side tabernacle before.

Very sweet St. Michael statue. NOT girlie.

Copious candles

Mass was beautiful and reverent. The choir, though not professional, was a joy to listen to, and the organist was fantastic as one would expect at a cathedral.  We were treated to Gregorian chant, Renaissance polyphony from Thomas Tallis, and "modern" music from Maurice Durufle. Also included were hymns such as Hail Thee Festival Day, and O Breathe on Me O Breath of God.

The priest announced at the end of Mass that the next two Sundays would have Adoration immediately following the noon Mass; we were all calculating inwardly how long it would take us to drive up there.

Unfortunately (maybe) for me, attending this Mass drove home the point that I'm wasting time at my current position.  The resume is updated and ready to go out.  Now it's time to contact some Catholic churches.