Note: I had wanted to post my homily based on Ephesians 5:21-32 from the 9 a.m. Mass at St. Teresa of Avila in South Ozone Park in Queens, NY on Sunday, August 25, 2024. I received compliments on this sermon of how following Jesus shapes our relationships. But I forgot to record the homily. So I give you my favorite story of my summer travels.
My return to Boston from Rome on Thursday, June 20, 2024, would take me through Barcelona. A previous blog entry mentioned my failure to visit the Basilica of Sagrada Familia on my flight to Rome on July 27, 2023. This year, my intention was to concelebrate the 10 a.m. English Mass on June 20 in the crypt church of the basilica.
How did it go? I could describe the trip in three words: perfection, headache and misidentification.
Check out my Instagram reel of the layover.
Perfection
Everything had to work perfectly for me to attend the Mass. Thanks be to God, it did. The taxi arrived to pick me up at 4 a.m. and zipped to the airport in 15 minutes (instead of 45 minutes in usual Roman traffic). The flight left a little late, but it arrived in Barcelona at 8:45 a.m. With my luggage checked in for the connecting flight, I left my backpack at a luggage storage company.
I hopped in a taxi at 9:15 a.m. Looking at the driver’s Google Map app, I started to worry whether I would arrive in time. Each worry was surrendered to Jesus. But the taxi driver knew that the streets in downtown had one or two dedicated lanes for buses and taxis. He took advantage of them. He dropped me off a block from the basilica at 9:50 a.m.
Running to the basilica, I looked for the crypt church, asking with my broken Spanish. I was pointed to the other side of the basilica, which required a long walk around. A few more questions prompted a dash to the sacristy. I arrived there at 9:55 a.m. and asked whether I can concelebrate. The sacristan agreed and gave me an alb, a stole and a chasuble. At 10 a.m., I concelebrated the English Mass with the parochial vicar and a visiting Irish Jesuit before a congregation of at most two dozen people.
Being a concelebrating priest, I received a ticket to visit the upper basilica. The parochial vicar accompanied me to the visitors’ entrance. He said, “Nineteen thousand people will visit the basilica today. The next 19 days, there are no tickets.” Pointing to some tourists scanning the QR code for tickets, he commented, “They won’t get any tickets today.” I was grateful for the opportunity to visit the basilica.
Gaudi completed the Nativity façade first because he reasoned that the entire project wouldn’t be abandoned if he completed one section. 
At the center of the Basilica of Sagrada Familia, Gaudi put the letters “JMJ,” which stands for Jesus, Mary and Joseph, in the floor. 
This photo of the main altar of the Basilica of Sagrada Familia captures the forest of stone that Gaudi designed for the interior. 
Gaudi uses more vibrant colors of red, orange and yellow to use the western, afternoon sunlight to represent the Passion of the Lord. 
The rainy skies, the rib-like structure above the Passion facade and sharp lines capture the starkness and harshness of the Lord’s Passion. 
The Our Father is written in Catalan on the doors for the Glory facade at the Basilica de Sagrada Familia. The prayer is also written in other languages on the door.
With an audio guide, I wandered through the basilica and listened. The basilica was amazing. The light filling the soaring interior was uplifting. I prayed twice, once in the Eucharistic chapel in the apse and again before the main altar in the nave. Many hours would find more intricate details. The towers had great views of the city, but the rain prevented me from going up.
The basilica is famous for being in construction since 1882. The parochial vicar told me that everything would be done in 2026. I want to return when it is completed.
Then, I visited the school built for the construction workers and the museum about the architect Antoni Gaudí. My admiration for Gaudí grew as I learned about his life. Here is my favorite fact about him: He designed the tallest tower of the basilica called the Jesus Tower to be a half-meter short of the tallest mountain in Barcelona because he believed that the work of man should not exceed the work of God.
Headache
The steady rain made me abandon plans to visit other sites in Barcelona. I opted for the subway to the airport. When I looked at the subway map in a train, I had to do a double take. I asked myself, “Barcelona can’t have that many subway lines?” Rome currently had 2.5 subway lines. Barcelona had a web of lines. Eventually, I figured out how to get to the airport and that I was going in the wrong direction. A quick change at the next station resolved the issue.
When I entered the airport, I picked up my backpack and passed through security. No mention of my flight to Boston on the departure boards should have been a warning. But I wanted to have lunch. A connection to the airport Wifi brought the news: my connecting flight was canceled.
In my years of travel, I have had delays or flights canceled days before my travel day, but never a flight canceled on the day of travel. A few hours of waiting for any update from the airline were fruitless. I finally called the travel website through which I booked my flight. An agent told me to go to the check-in counter to get accommodation.
I exited the gates and entered a line. After a wait, the airline employee told me that I was on the wrong line. Pointed to the right check-in desk, I rushed over. Thank goodness, the airline employee was able to rebook me for the next day. Other passengers had a much more frustrating time. I was among the last passengers to receive help and waited for the airport shuttle to the hotel.
The hotel was in a seaside town southwest of Barcelona. If I had known that there was a beach nearby, I would have walked to it. But it was late. I needed to eat and sleep quickly to pick up the earliest airport shuttle the next day.
My hunt for breakfast brought me to McDonald’s at the airport. I would have bought the standard breakfast fare, but I saw this menu item: slices of ham in a sliced roll with a tomato puree (not like ketchup and thinner than salsa). Interesting. With a cup of espresso, that sandwich was a perfect travel breakfast.
I meditated over Scripture after breakfast in a courtyard in the terminal. The sky was blue and clear with a cool morning breeze. OK, this extended layover didn’t allow me to see more of Barcelona. But that prayer and people watching were nice gifts from the Lord.
The flights to Madrid and then to Boston went smoothly.
Misidentification
In the search for help for my canceled flight, I found myself on the wrong check-in line at the Barcelona airport. Ahead of me was a group of elementary school children flying to a soccer camp in Argentina. Because I concelebrated Mass at the basilica, I was dressed in a clerical shirt, a white neckband collar, a black suit jacket, black dress pants and dress shoes.
A boy, age 8-10, looked at me, pointed and said, “Michael Jackson.” He called out to me, “Hey, Michael Jackson.”
Well, that’s the first time that I was confused with the King of Pop.
Bad singer and terrible dancer but a man of God.
Legendary singer + wonderful dancer = King of Pop
The next day at the Madrid airport, I was going through passport control. I was wearing the same clothes as before. The official looked at me and asked, “Are you an undertaker?” I answered, “No,” and recounted the story about the boy calling me Michael Jackson. The official laughed as he stamped my passport.
These two incidents made me wonder. When someone sees me, shouldn’t they know that I am a Catholic priest? Has Spain become so secular that the people no longer know what a priest is and how he dresses? My sister Liza took a more benign interpretation that the Spaniards have a different idea of how a priest dresses.
Live the Essentials 
[…] Thursday, June 20, I began my trip to Boston through Barcelona that stretched into Friday. (Read about the layover and my visit to the Basilica of Sagrada Familia.) […]
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