Continued from Part I

(Above and Below) The splendid music included Mozart’s “Sparrow” Mass and his setting of Ave Verum Corpus. The musical forces were led by Marjorie Donalds, parish music director (who also sang).

More photos at Part I

Cardinal Raymond Burke celebrated a Solemn Pontifical Mass on Saturday, March 25 – the feast of the Annunciation. The church of St. Mary, Greenwich CT (Fr. Cyprian La Pastina, pastor) was filled to overflowing.

(Above and below) In the rectory: initial prayers and the vesting with buskins and episcopal sandals.

The church of St Mary was standing room only – and many had to remain standing in the vestibule. The Traditionalist movement pays a price for its own success now and then!

(Above) The sermon.

More photos in Part II

This past Monday, March 20, 2017, was the Feast of St. Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Patron of the Universal Church. As part of the festive celebration of the Feast of St. Joseph, Holy Innocents had a beautiful Sung Mass at 6PM. This was the last day of the triduum in honor of St. Joseph, which concluded with Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament. After the Mass and the triduum, everyone in attendance was invited to go to the parish hall for the beautifully arranged and decorated St. Joseph’s Table.

A special Italian custom!

(Text and photos courtesy of Eddy Toribio)

Here is a photo from Friday’s traditional mass for the Feast of the Epiphany at St. John the Baptist Church in Jersey City, courtesy of David Clark.

This evening a solemn Mass for the Feast of the Epiphany was celebrated at St. Mary’s, Greenwich, CT.

A Solemn Requiem Mass was celebrated yesterday for the soul of Paul G. Hughes at the Basilica of St. John the Evangelist in Stamford. The music included the Officium Defunctorum a 6 by Tomas Luis de Victoria.

Missa cantata – votive Mass of Our Lady of Ransom (or Mercy) – Fr. Leonard Villa, celebrant.

The congregation filled the cathedral.

Mr Pedro D’Aquino, choirmaster and organist.

Fr. Stephen Saffron, Chaplain of the Regina Caeli council of the Knights of Columbus, homilist.

Pictures from this evening’s Solemn Mass celebrating the Feast of the Holy Rosary at St. Mary Church in Greenwich.

(Above) San Gennaro – or St. Januarius.

Solemn High Mass yesterday at the church of the Most Precious Blood – amid the noise and crowds of the San Gennaro Festival in New York’s Little Italy.

(Above) The first Solemn Traditional Mass in ages in this church – but the next is already scheduled for the 29th of September! It was a privilege for this Society to sponsor this mass in such a repository of Catholic tradition. The music included, among other works, Mozart’s Missa brevis in F (K. 192). Our thanks to Msgr Donald Sakano, Pastor of Old St Patrick’s and of Most Precious Blood, for the invitation to sponsor this mass during the San Gennaro festival!

(Above and Below) Occupying much of the rear of the nave is a huge Neapolitan Christmas creche. The church of the Most Precious Blood is a treasury of Catholic and Italian devotions. For more on this church see HERE

(Above) The Sermon – amid the forest of statues. For Fr. Cipolla’s sermon see HERE.

(Above) Good participation for such a small church – including some who ventured in from the nearby festa on Mulberry Street.

by Jill Chessman

There are few places to visit in the United States that are so closely associated with a canonized saint as the island of Molokai in Hawaii.  Fr. Damien de Veuster, a priest of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, came from Belgium to Hawaii as a missionary in the late 19^th century.  At the time, there was an outbreak of leprosy on the islands. People with leprosy were sent in quarantine to an isolated peninsula on the island of Molokai to live with neither medical nor spiritual assistance. In 1873, Fr. Damien volunteered to go to Molokai to be their priest with the understanding that he would have to spend the rest of his life there. He labored tirelessly for 16 years caring for the spiritual and physical needs of those in the leper colony before dying of leprosy himself. He was canonized in 2009.

Molokai is a beautiful island with stunning scenery—a well-kept secret. There are no resorts here, few tourists, traffic lights are unnecessary. The sign on the road leading from the tiny airport says it all. “Slow down, this is Molokai.” The only way to get from “topside” Molokai to the Kalaupapa peninsula, where Damien served his lepers (below), is by airplane or by a steep mule path down the cliff that separates Kalaupapa from the mainland.

The mule-ride down to the Kalaupapa peninsula takes about an hour and a half.

Stunning scenery. This was the spot where leprosy patients were forced off boats into exile or sometimes dumped in the water and forced to swim to shore.

As former leprosy patients still live on the peninsula, there are strict rules and restrictions about touring the peninsula. But the trouble is worth it, as you can visit the church, St. Philomena, where St. Damien said mass everyday, and venerate his tomb. Fr. Damien’s body was exhumed and returned to Belgium in 1936. The remains of his right hand were returned to the tomb in 1995.

St. Philomena

St. Damien’s tomb

The former tomb of Mother Marianne Cope, also a canonized saint, who came to help in 1888 with four Franciscan Sisters. Her body had also been removed to her community’s headquarters in Syracuse, New York.  When her order, like so many others, had to dispose of its property there, the diocese of Hawaii brought her body to the Cathedral in Honolulu 1n 2014.

Brother Joseph Dutton, on the grounds of St. Joseph Church, Molokai

A third figure important to Molokai is Brother Joseph Dutton, a lay helper to Fr. Damien, whose cause is up for sainthood. He is buried near the tomb of Fr. Damien.

The churches on Molokai that Damien built with his own hands are perhaps the most moving sites to visit. When he arrived, there was a small church in a dilapidated state. Damien restored the church—St. Philomena—and enlarged it several times as his flock grew. For Damien, a well-appointed church where mass could be celebrated with dignity was central to his mission. A beautifully celebrated mass lifted his poor forsaken patients from their misery. He organized altar boy groups and choirs, requesting from the Bishop of Honolulu surplices and robes. With remarkable energy, Damien built a second church on the leper colony and four churches “topside” on the main island of Molokai. He called carpentry his only hobby—for the rare moments he had to himself.

Fr. Damien enlarged St. Philomena several times, as can be seen from this side view. His final project was the stone front section and belfry. He embellished the interior as well.  Below is the original altar.  He later reoriented the church, creating a larger apse and nave, leaving the original altar as a side altar on the right.  Notice in the foreground a “folding table” Vatican II altar, a make-shift addition that surely would  have never suited Fr. Damien.

On the other side of the peninsula, Fr. Damien built a second church, which he called Our Lady Help of the Sick. The current church, St. Francis (below), was built next to it after his death and is the current parish church for the patients who remain on the peninsula.

The church that St. Damien built can be seen through the window of St. Francis (below)

Two churches remain that St. Damien built on the “topside” of Molokai. St. Joseph Church (below), built in 1876, is said to be in its original condition. A wooden steeple, removed when the tower was repaired,  has not yet been replaced.

Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows Church (below) was built in 1874 and rebuilt in 1966 using original components and furnishings. Sunday Mass is still celebrated there.

(Above) Our Lady of Lourdes with a lei.(Below) The Stations of the Cross – a series of prints which was donated to this church around Fr. Damien’s time by admirers of his work.

(Above and below). In 2010, St. Sophia, the Catholic church in Kaunakakai, the main town of Molokai, burned down. Its modernistic replacement, dedicated to St Damien, hardly reflects the simple yet beautiful traditions of the old Catholic churches of Molokai and Hawaii – and has left the parish saddled with a debt to the diocese of over a million dollars as well.

(Above and below) Before coming to Molokai, Fr. Damien was active on the island of Hawaii (the “Big Island”). We doubt he would recognize certain modern Catholic churches there. This chapel in Puaku resembles more a lecture hall than a church – if you look carefully you will notice behind the tabernacle, instead of a reredos, a banner with an image of Pope Francis….