Students participating in Howard Hall's signature event, the Lenten Chapel Crawl, will visit 28 residence hall chapels throughout the liturgical season. The Chapel Crawl, which began on Ash Wednesday and continues through March 23, is lead by Howard liturgical commissioners Marissa Browne and Emily Patton.
Throughout the Lenten Chapel Crawl, students attend pre-scheduled Monday through Saturday, and are instructed to attend their own dorm’s chapel mass on Sundays, Brown said. There are no Chapel Crawl Masses from March 5 through March 12, due to spring break.
Patton said the goal is that participants will visit each of the University's 28 undergraduate residence halls throughout Lent.
“During the Chapel Crawl, we schedule a Mass for every day of Lent in a different chapel on campus, so that students have the opportunity to attend Mass in every chapel,” Patton said. “It doesn’t actually work out that we get to celebrate Mass in every one, but for those we can’t schedule Mass in, we do a rosary in that chapel as an opportunity for everyone to see all of the chapels during Lent.”
According to the Chapel Crawl Facebook Page, many residence halls' signature Masses are included in the Chapel Crawl schedule, including the Howard Hall Monday night Muffin Mass, the Duncan Hall Tuesday night Donut Mass and the Dillon Hall Thursday night Milkshake Mass. Although all other residence hall masses are attended only once during the Chapel Crawl, Howard’s Monday night Mass is included multiple times.
“We’ve met a lot of people through it who’ve wanted to attend daily Mass during Lent, and so it’s kind of a cool way to meet people who share that commitment to their faith and also to see what Mass is like in other chapels,” Patton said. “For instance, we went to Welsh Fam Mass, and they have this totally unique vibe where they sit down on the ground and do Mass — and that’s something I never would have ever even known happens, so it’s interesting to see how the different chapels celebrate Mass.”
Browne said while coordinating all of the Masses to fit into a schedule to last through all of Lent was difficult, once the Chapel Crawl began this it has been a relatively easy event to run. Both organizers encouraged all members of the community — not just Howard residents — to participate.
“It’s campus-wide,” Browne said. “We encourage everyone to join us.”
“We go to Mass together, but we also want to try at some point to organize a meal together with the people who have been coming to Mass,” Patton said.
Patton said she hopes for an increased participation in the Chapel Crawl as the event continues.
“We just want to get more people involved and give them the opportunity to go to Mass every day with a group of people, if that’s something they’d like to do during Lent,” Patton said. “One of the girls comes almost every day with us, and she says that she’d always gone to daily Lenten Mass with her father at home, and now she does it here. Our hope is that people like that can come with us if they want to experience different Masses on campus.”
The daily schedule for the Chapel Crawl is available on the Howard Hall Chapel Crawl 2016 Facebook page.
