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| Angie’s Sugar Church |
When we told the grandchildren about the Viking World Cruise, the first question from one granddaughter was, “Mima, what will you do about Mass?” An excellent question since helping their customers find religious services is one thing Viking Cruise Lines can’t seem to handle. I called Viking and asked if there would be a priest onboard the cruise. And the answer was that they did not schedule one, but if one happened to be on the ship, they would make accommodations for services on board.
Now that question was answered but didn’t really help with any kind of planning. So I did what your typical engineer does with a problem – built a spreadsheet.
I had an itinerary for the 130 days, but I knew there were going too many things I needed notes on for each location, and a spreadsheet gave me the flexibility to keep track of multiple items quickly. First, I color-coded the weeks, so it was easy to find the Sundays. Of the 19 Sundays, 11 would be at sea. I also marked Ash Wednesday, Easter, birthdays, St. Valentine’s Day, and St. Patrick’s Day. I had several months to research all the locations where we would be on land for a Saturday night or Sunday Mass.
Although MassTimes.org says that can help you find a mass in any location, that is a little bit of a stretch. They depend on volunteers and the local churches and dioceses to keep their information up to date. In the places we would be on land, there were gaps in their data – churches with no listed Mass times, churches that were closed, or just nothing at all. I was able to find what I needed for every Sunday on land except Easter! That town supposedly has two Catholic churches and will have Mass at one at 8 AM and at 10 AM at the other. The problem is neither church has any address listed other than a post office box. Google maps just has “catholic church” at one location and “rc priest house” at a second location and a surprising lack of street names. It is a tiny town, so we should be able to figure it out by Easter.
