Dedicated by Cardinal Cushing on November 11, 1969, Saint Francis Chapel in the Prudential Center today offers more than twenty-five Catholic masses per week.
St. Francis Chapel at the Prudential Center, Boston
The 52 floor “Pru” was constructed between 1960 and 1964 – the highest skyscraper in the world outside of New York when it was completed. Cardinal Cushing saw an important ministerial opportunity in this commercial center and initially conceived of the chapel as a satellite of nearby Saint Anthony’s shrine though it quickly became a chapel in its own right.
Responsibility for the chapel shifted from the Franciscan Friars to the Oblates of the Virgin Mary in 1983. The chapel physically moved when a new Prudential Center complex was built and opened in its current location in 1993.
Three masses are held each weekday, five on Saturdays, and seven on Sundays in addition to open hours for confessions and the Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. Local residents, students, workers and visitors from the nearby Convention Center stream through the chapel regularly – more than one hundred on weekdays and one thousand on weekends. Six priests from the Oblates of the Virgin Mary and a sacristan serve the chapel assisted by staff and volunteers. A small bookstore adjacent to the sanctuary offers a range of devotional objects and reading materials in English and Spanish.
Open throughout the day for passersby, the chapel aims to be “An oasis of silence, an oasis of prayer,” in the midst of a busy downtown shopping area.
For more information: https://www.omvusa.org/st-francis-chapel/
Visit other spaces in the Back Bay / Fenway Area.