Matthew Monday: Father’s Day 2022

Father’s Day for us means a father/son adventure!  It’s not always so adventurous—I wouldn’t do anything risky—but it does mean a father and son together event.  You can look through all the Father’s Day adventures through the years here and you can see how Matthew has grown through the years.  I mentioned this year we took a weekend trip together down to Washington D.C. when I posted last week a photo essay on Washington’s Cathedral of St. Matthew.  

Obviously the Cathedral wasn’t the only place we toured.  First we drove down on Saturday, taking about five hours.  That afternoon we went to a Washington Nationals game.  We sat in the outfield by the opposing team’s bullpen on Matthew’s desire.  He wanted to watch the pitchers warm up.  They were playing the Phillies that day is here is Aaron Nola warming up before the game.

And here is a nice action shot of Didi Gregorious swinging the bat.

Sunday morning we went to Mass at the Cathedral of St. Matthew as I explained in the photo essay.  You have plenty of pictures of the Cathedral in the other post, but I don’t think I mentioned that Sunday was the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, and like most parishes across the country took in procession the Blessed Sacrament. 

We didn’t unfortunately participate in the procession around the neighborhood since the afternoon was planned for sightseeing.  We got on the Metro (way nicer than the NYC Subway) and got to the National Mall.  This is not in any particular order and it does not cover all our sights.  I provide it as a sampling to project adventure.

The World War II Monument:

The presidential monuments: Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson.

We didn’t actually go to the Jefferson Monument.  We saw it in the distance.  He didn’t want to walk there since his feet were hurting.  (Kids today, I tell you.  Not like when I was a kid.)

Now some of the other war monuments: Korean, World War I (Statue of General Pershing), and the Vietnam Wall Memorial.

 

While at the Vietnam War Memorial we looked up the name of the only person who we knew that died in the war, that of Fr. Lieutenant Vincent Capodano, “the Grunt Padre” who died giving his life trying to save wounded soldiers.  He was a Navy chaplain from Staten Island and is in the process of being considered for sainthood.  You can read his entire story here.  

One of the buildings that really impressed us was the original post office.  We didn’t know what it was until we got up to it and saw the statue of Benjamin Franklyn. 

That night Matthew splashed around at the hotel pool.

So after checking out Monday morning, we went to Arlington Cemetery, where we also saw the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

2670, 2669, 1091

 

Close by—though we got lost getting there—was the Iwo Jima Memorial.

1093, 1100

That was magnificent.  I had never been there before.

And so, on the way home we did stop at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception. 

It was an exhausting Father’s Day weekend, but well worth it.  I love spending time with Matthew, and Matthew learned a lot from this trip.