9 Jan
2024
7 Jan
2024
We are pleased to sponsor this event in Princeton this Friday evening:
7 Jan
2024
20 Dec
2023
29 Nov
2023
20 Nov
2023
Also coming up, the annual Women’s Retreat with Fr. Perricone. Mark your calendars.
6 Oct
2023
NORWALK, CONN.—St. Mary’s Church and the St. Cecilia Society are pleased to announce a free concert-meditation by the Harpa Dei Choir on Tuesday, October 10, 2023 at 7:00 p.m. at St. Mary’s Church, 669 West
Avenue in Norwalk, Connecticut.
Harpa Dei will also sing at the 12:10 Mass at St. Mary’s Church on Tuesday, Oct. 10. The Mass on that day will be a Solemn Traditional Mass.
Harpa Dei has a peaceful and reflective musical style like no other: their beautiful sound is achieved only by theunaccompanied voices of four siblings. Nikolai, Lucia, Marie-Elisée and Mirjana Gerstner were born in
Germany and grew up in Ecuador. All four have as their spiritual foundation the long formation they have received in a religious community of Catholics.
Since 2011, as part of a peace initiative, the siblings have been called to evangelization through Sacred Music.
Harpa Dei tries to collect the most beautiful songs from different traditions, in order to glorify God, and to
transmit to people the beauty of the Lord, which shines so eminently in Sacred Music. Their mission has taken
them to many countries in the world, including Mexico, Israel, Germany, Russia, Ecuador, Lithuania, the
United States, and more, as well as to their beloved channel on YouTube (youtube.com/@HarpaDeiMusic).
Harpa Dei hopes to be able to contribute to recovering and creating sensitivity towards the musical tradition of
the universal Church, which, in the words of Vatican Council II, “constitutes a treasure of inestimable value,
which stands out among other artistic expressions.” (Sacrosanctum Concilium).
The concert program will include songs from the most diverse Christiantraditions: Armenian, Greek, Coptic,
African, Indian, Russian, Georgian, among many others. Do not miss this opportunity to experience the
haunting beauty and spiritual depth of the Harpa Dei Choir in person!
25 Sep
2023
25 Sep
2023
Cantantes in Cordibus is the schola for the Traditional Mass at Our Lady of Sorrows in Jersey City. Please support this fine choir.
17 Sep
2023
Last night a concert of the music of William Byrd took place in the splendid, resonant and historic setting of Most Holy Redeemer Church, East 3rd Street, New York. A good-sized audience heard a superb performance of Bryd’s music, both sacred and secular. The church was an ideal acoustical environment for this kind of smaller scale, somewhat melancholy music. The warmly applauded performers were Charles Weaver, Elizabeth Weaver, Terence B. Fay and Grant Herreid.
Do I need to point out that Charles Weaver is the Music Director at St. Mary’s, Norwalk, where Elizabeth Weaver and Terence Fay sing with him each Sunday at the Solemn Traditional liturgy? Throughout the evening Charles Weaver interspersed historic commentary which highlighted Byrd’s deep ties with the Catholic recusants (Byrd was one of their number). Indeed, he had a specfic connection with the manor of the Paston Family in Norfolk where some of the music heard last night would have been performed. Edward Paston was, moreover, not just a patron but an artistic collaborator of Byrd; a poem written by Paston in honor of the Catholic Queen Mary and set by Byrd was performed last night. For it is an amazing fact that in their clandestine celebration of the prohibited Mass the Catholic recusants of Elizabethen England often created magnificent music and art. As Julian Kwasniewski points out in an essay distributed last night with the program:
Although I have spoken primarily of his life as a musician, Byrd’s life as a recusant Catholic should serve as inspiration for Catholics today, who face varying degrees of persecution not only from secular governments, but from within the Church’s hierarchy itself. Figures like Byrd remind us that the creation of great art is possible even in times of adversity. 1)
Since 2011 we at St. Hugh of Cluny have often covered events at the grand Church of Most Holy Redeemer, formerly Redemptorist, formerly German. Indeed, this Society has sponsored some of them. Today a young priest of the archdiocese leads this parish in the midst of what some might consider one of the city’s more inhospitable surroundings – half party land, half “underprivileged” neighborhood. Yet, under Fr. Sean Connolly, the church looks better than ever before and the parish is sponsoring an ambitious program of musical performances. 2)
(Above and Below) Most Holy Redeemer is an endless source of insights into the Catholic devotional life of the past ( and, as is the intention of this parish’s current management, of the future as well). Since 1914 the lavishly decorated shrine of Our Lady of Perpetual Help is supposed to be the center of this devotion in New York City. 3)
(Above and below) The chapel-shrine of the relics includes those of St. Datian, a romam Martyr, enclosed in a wax image. His relics were brought to New York in the 1890’s amid great rejoicing.
(Above) Catholic devotions of an “earlier age” – that of the poor souls in purgatory. (Below) This modern, somewhat expressionless statue used to adorn (protected by a cage) the facade of the nearby Nativity parish, victim of a recent Archdiocesan downsizing. Most Holy Redeemer parish is now “Most Holy Redeemer-Nativity.” 4)