San Fernando Cathedral (12/23/2014)

This morning we headed over to San Fernando Cathedral. Even though it's visible from our hotel (I'm standing in the cathedral plaza and there's the Drury Plaza), we took the bus and got our bearings in downtown and a little background info.

The cathedral was founded in 1731 and is the oldest, continuously functioning religious community in the State of Texas.

Pope John Paul II was here.

In the olden days, a community picked a physical object as the "center" of town and all things are measured from that point. The cathedral doors were deemed the center of town when the town was founded but later they expanded the church and the doors were moved, so they put this marker in the floor where the doors used to be. But then it turns out it has to be something visible from outside, so the town decreed a new center of town and it's the top of the dome on the top of the cathedral.

BIG Advent wreath.

Beautiful stained glass windows. During the 2003 $15 million renovation, they cleaned all the stained glass windows and removed the old protection and put new protection that let more light in. The one on the left here is St. Aloysius...one of the saints my grandfather was named for.

Answer: 1 Patricia plus a bonus just-the-top-of-her-head pic.