10 Years since the last Seven Churches Tour

"Even the firetrucks bow to Our Lady" - Peg, 2012

It has been a little over a decade since the last time the Brothers went on a walking tour of Seven Churches around San Diego, a practice we modeled after the Seven Churches Visitation in Rome initiated by our spiritual father, St. Philip Neri, who sought to counter the immorality of Carnival celebrations. Of course, a shadow of this devotion is present on Maundy Thursday, where the faithful visit 7 local churches to adore Our Lord at the Altar of Repose. Due to the distance between churches in the United States and the 1955 Holy Week revisions, however, the faithful normally can't visit these 7 churches on foot, especially with a time window averaging about 4 hours till midnight. The time has come for us to plan another one of these local pilgrimages during the day. Watch out for future announcements here on the blog. Please view the videos and posts below for a look at what the tour offers.

(Those at St. Anne's may recognize the gentleman in the thumbnail!)

[In the video above from the 1st Tour in 2008, the Brothers sing Madonna dell'Olmo next to St. Joseph Cathedral in Downtown with San Diego native Br. Rhone Lillard (now Fr. Lillard, F.S.S.P., professor at the Fraternity seminary of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Denton, NE), a song for Our Lady from one of the Brothers' hometown of Portomaggiore in northeastern Italy. Our own Fratellino arranged this song in 2021 for SATB here.]

For our other posts regarding the Seven Churches Tour:

Our First Public Tour (2008)

Itinerary of the 2009 Tour

7 Churches Tour Files (2012 PDFs)

Photo Album from Vaticanguard (2012)

Peg's Report on the Fortnight for Freedom (2012)

Chronicle of the Sette Chiese (2012)

Fratellino: Go Forward in Procession (2012)