When: Saturday, April 30th, 2011.
Web: The center's website is here.
We attended Mass at the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center, not far from the National Shrine and CUA campus. The Center was in the midst of a weekend of events to coincide with the beatification of Pope John Paul II. This included this evening's Mass, which served as the Mass for Divine Mercy Sunday.
The Mass was held in the beautiful atrium at the Center, overlooking the pool and meadow. There were about eighty in the congregation - including a large Polish contingent. A single priest celebrated Mass, assisted by an altar server, two readers, and two cantors, one of whom played the piano. The Mass followed the standard rite, though there was a special prayer for Pope John Paul II's case for sainthood at the end. The priest told us an amusing anecdote of concelebrating Mass with John Paul in 1999; for the most part, however, he centered his homily on today's Gospel reading. He spoke of Jesus's divine mercy toward the apostles; instead of upbraiding them for abandoning Him at the cross, he gave them His peace, gave them the power to forgive sins on His behalf, and told them to found the Church. The priest asked how many of us had abandoned Jesus, and were in need of His divine mercy?