This Saturday at there will be a solemn high Mass in honor of St Rocco at 4 pm at the church of St Rocco in Glen Cove on Long Island.  (Near LIRR station.)

This is part of their big annual St Rocco feast celebration with amazing food made by Italian grandmas, rides, games, etc. They have beautiful religious events every night during the feast, and this annual High Mass is the highlight. 

More information about the feast: https://www.glencovecatholic.org/feast-of-saint-rocco

On Friday, July 26, at 7 PM, the Society of St Hugh of Cluny and Immaculate Conception parish will be sponsoring a Solemn High Mass for the feast of St Ann. The music will be directed by James Wetzel; refreshments will follow. the parish is located at 414 East 14th Street, New York.

Immaculate Conception is a historic church which was formerly an affiliate of Grace church prior to its purchase by the archdiocese of New York. The old parish of St. Ann was absorbed into Immaculate Conception after it was so tragically closed. In its last years it was the Armenian Catholic cathedral. It also was a national shrine of St Ann – as visitors may recall being proudly displayed on a lamp over an elaborate metal railing. (New York City still has a second shrine to St. Ann(e) at the church of St Jean Baptiste)

It also was the scene of the first officially approved Traditional Mass celebrated in the Archdiocese of New York since the Vatican Council. The time of the mass was maliciously set in the early afternoon on Saturday; that first Mass was cancelled by the Archdiocese on the day it was to be celebrated. But the Latin Mass did indeed resume at St Ann’s shortly thereafter and continued for many years. We know of priests and laymen involved in the Traditional Mass movement today who had their first experience of the Traditional Mass there.

We hope all of you can make it!

The Latin Mass of Sleepy Hollow, NY, is pleased to announce that Dr. Jennifer Donelson, Director of Sacred Music at St. Joseph’s Seminary (Dunwoodie), will be starting a schola for children ages 5-14 beginning in September 2019.

Weekly classes will take place after school on Wednesday afternoons in the church hall of St. John Paul II Maronite Catholic Church at Immaculate Conception in Sleepy Hollow. Exact starting date and time to be determined.

  Children will be instructed in the Ward Method, learning both Gregorian chant and music from the Church’s tradition of sacred polyphony. In addition, the children’s schola will perform several times a year alongside the adult schola at Sung Masses in the Traditional Roman Rite, which is celebrated every Sunday at 3 PM at Immaculate Conception.  

For more information, etc. contact:                                            kevincollins1@mac.com 

Just a few more days to catch the great Giovanni Battista Moroni exhibition at the Frick Gallery…

We hear sometimes of the “Catholic cultures” of the past – indeed, some fancy recreating one. But what exactly is such a culture? Is it not an all-embracing sensibility or “atmosphere” – present everywhere, yet not visible anywhere (as someone said of the hand of a great artist in his works)?  Moroni is a case in point. His main achievements are secular portraits – his religious works, still found mainly in the churches where he painted them, are said to be less successful. Further, Moroni’s world is restricted to Bergamo and its surroundings. Bergamo was one of the smaller – but not insignificant – Italian cities of that era (the middle of the 16th century)  Moroni’s world was that of the Council of Trent and the Battle of Lepanto, of Charles V and Philip II, of the last years of Michelangelo and Titian, of St Francis Xavier and St. Ignatius Loyola, of Tasso and Palestrina.

Moroni portrayed aristocrats, artisans (famously, a tailor), scholars and clergy. There are both beautiful, gorgeously attired women – who happened to be eminent poets in several languages – and an old widow, the patroness of a convent. About these people are the attributes of their status: the armor and swords of the soldier, the books of the scholar, the shears of the tailor, the dazzling garments of the aristocratic women. At times the references are mysterious: broken walls and statuary allude to some unknown event in the life of one sitter. Yet these images are all of real individuals who play a variety of specific public roles in their society. Need I say that men and women are clearly differentiated? All in complete contrast to the “gender-bending” images the media constantly thrust upon us. Indeed, recently we see in our local press women imitating men who have imitated women.….

It seems that in his day and later critical opinion looked down on Moroni as too “documentarian” or merely realistic. After all, wasn’t he competing with the painterly style of Titian and the deliberately artificial and expressive images of the Mannerists? Perhaps his art was the equivalent in painting of the realistic novel, only 250-300 years too early. But in truth, Moroni was in no way a mere photographic copyist of external reality.  For one thing, his paintings so often display a fine insight into the sitter’s character. Do we not detect a hint of a sneer on the face of one elegantly clad young lady (above)? And is there not great spiritual tranquility and religious faith depicted on the features of an aged widow? Indeed, is not the painting of such a face – not superficially beautiful at all – a subject highly original in female portraiture? 

Furthermore, in one important respect Moroni does venture into the explicitly religious. We are familiar with the depictions of donors in late medieval and renaissance painting – often shown in miniature compared to the major sacred actors. Moroni, however, is said to have created a new type of image, wherein full-sized images of the donors pray before or gaze upon a smaller scale devotional scene in the background. The curators of the exhibition trace this new style of representing the donors and their faith to the influence of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola – just then gaining prominence in the Catholic world.  For St Ignatius also emphasized forming an interior image of a sacred subject as an aid to meditation and prayer.

Working within the confines of the portrait, does not Moroni display a Christian culture as fully developed as that of the masters of the explicitly religious art of his time? Does he not show us – of course without any notion of propagandizing or arguing – what one such Christian culture could be like? And is not such a faithful recorder of his time perhaps a more accessible guide for us than those contemporaries of Moroni who left us grand and ecstatic religious images?

For more details see HERE. The exhibition closes June 2.

We received the following letter from the Latin Mass Committee of Jersey City:

“Catholics in Hudson County attached to the forms of our faith that have nourished saints for nearly two millennia have been blessed to enjoy glorious liturgies for nearly a generation.  This has created a community awed by the beauty of the mystery of salvation.  In 2002, our priestly founder, Fr. Kenneth Baker, SJ, had recommended that an Association of the Faithful be formed to support and encourage this community.

“We are finally getting around to it! A draft of the proposed statutes is attached. 

“The proximate cause of this initiative is the loss of our liturgical home at St. Anthony’s last winter. We are most grateful to Fr. Thomas at St. Paul the Apostle in the Greeneville section of Jersey City who is allowing us to gather Sunday mornings at 9:15 for the Extraordinary form of the Mass. However,  we no longer have guaranteed access to the liturgy on Solemnities. Nor do we have guaranteed access for the sacraments. 

“We have adopted St. Theresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) as our patron.   St. Theresa Benedicta wrote extensively about the urgent need for the celebration of the traditional liturgy against a zeitgeist that was already showing iconoclastic impulses. We have also adopted Lena Edwards as our cause.  Dr. Edwards was noted for her piety and devotion which informed her life as the first female African American Medical Doctor in Jersey City. (a short vita)

“The statutes provide for priest members and lay members and for voting and non voting members. Anyone who has or is regularly attending the Latin Liturgies in Jersey City may claim voting membership.  Anyone anywhere who wants to be united with this community which seeks a reconciliation at the heart of the Church is welcomed and is indeed urged to join with us. We especially seek the spiritual support of priests who are laboring in the vineyard. “

If you are interested in reading and signing the proposed statutes, please contact: LatinMassJC@gmail.com.

Clifton, N.J.- Our Lady of Sacro Monte Society will host a Solemn High Mass with Gregorian chant along with an Italian Festival with authentic Italian entertainment in honor of Our Lady Sacro Monte of Novi Velia, Salerno at her shrine on Sunday, May 19th, 2019, at 11:30 a.m., at Holy Face Monastery, 1697 Route 3 East, Clifton, New Jersey.

Following Mass there will be a grand procession on the monastery grounds with the statue of Our Lady, her canopy and authentic Italian candle-houses, all accompanied by the Tony Neglia Italian Feast Band, D.J. Ciro and La Bella Musica. Tasty marinated San Mango style sliced pork sandwiches, sausage and peppers, Gioesi homemade cavatelli, zeppoli and Italian pastries for dessert will be sold throughout the day and there will be fun games, such as “Pass the Provolone,” “Mommole Mambo,” and “Count the Ciceri” for all ages to enjoy. For more information about this Grand Italian Festival, call Pat at 201-658-0775