Traditional Mass at Our Lady of Mount Carmel

Today a Traditional Missa Cantata was celebrated with the assistance of members of our Society in the splendid surroundings of the Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel on East 115th Street in New York. The Traditional Mass has been celebrated here each Sunday at 10 AM since 1988 – the promulgation of Ecclesia Dei. It is intended to celebrate a Missa Cantata here on the last Sunday of every month.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel is a magnificent church especially dear to the Italian-American community. Italian immigrants – including the women who carried bricks – built it at night in 1884. The statue of the Virgin was crowned with Vatican authorization in 1903 – one of only a handful of Crowned Virgins in North America. Pope Pius X contributed an emerald but the rest of the gold and jewels for the crowns of Our Lady and the Christ Child came from the wedding rings and other jewelry contributed by the Italian ladies of the parish. The feast and procession of Our Lady of Mount Carmel draws a huge crowd in the summer, but at other times the parish quietly ministers to a small flock, including nowadays “Hispanics” and Haitians.

We hope to support the parish’s effort to keep the Traditional Mass alive at Our Lady of Mount Carmel. They need more people to attend and more servers at the mass. The parish is easy to reach from the southbound FDR Drive and parking is available on Sundays nearby. Those of you who have a table at Rao’s a block away will be familiar with the location.

For more on the parish see:

http://www.mountcarmelofeastharlem.com/olmc.html