The 12:30 pm Sunday Traditional Mass is continuing under the new rector at St. Patrick’s Church in Bridgeport, CT (the Cathedral Parish).

(Above)Master of the Paris Bartholomeus Anglicus, Book of Hours Use of Paris, In Latin and French, Illuminated Manuscript on Vellum, Anjou or Le Mans, circa 1440s. CHRISTIE’S (Illustration: Artnews, 02/11/2021)

On April 23 you will get a chance to bid on a rare collection of manuscripts and early printed books at Christie’s, New York. I just had the pleasure of perusing this collection on a visit to Christie’s galleries. How precious to people of that age was the printed or written word! With what great care was it presented and preserved! The surprises are many – such as the first complete printed edition of Plato in any language (1484-85, in Latin translation). Most of this edition was printed by the Dominican nuns of San Jacobo di Ripoli, a Florentine convent!

But what probably will interest our readers most is the collection of books of hours – many magnificently illustrated. A book of hours was a medieval devotional book, which started as an abbreviation of the breviary but expanded to include much else beside. It was the most widely disseminated book of the later middle ages – in Latin but also in the vernacular. For the book of hours was not intended primarily for religious. Indeed, after the invention of printing, such volumes become acccessible to a fairly wide range of the population. Eamon Duffy has written an insightful and sympathetic account of late medieval prayer life, its origin, flourishing and end, based upon his study of books of hours and their annotations. (Marking the Hours: English People and their Prayers 1240-1570, Yale University Press, New York and London 2006)

It is amazing to walk past each of these beautifully displayed volumes, which admittedly represent a selection of the more luxurious books of hours. We are entranced by the jewel-like illuminations and the light flashing off the gilt pages. The book can be of incredibly small dimensions. The various liturgical “uses” represented show the diversity of the Roman rite at that time. Yet, as Duffy explains – somewhat contrary to a suggestion in the auction catologue – these books were not merely the status symbols of that time but afford us a glimpse into the private prayer life of the late medieval people.

You can review for yourself each volume in detail – or register to bid on the 23rd. Consult the Christie’s site:

Illuminated Manuscripts and Early Printed Books from the Collection of Elaine and Alexandre Rosenberg

(Estimates for the books of hours range from $30,000 to well over $1,000,000; the incunabula – books printed prior to 1501 – can be much more reasonable)

Church-turned-Condo is Heaven on Earth.

$700,000 purchase price including bell tower, two bedrooms, 2 1/2 bathrooms.

The 22nd Street Condos, in Pittsburgh’s historic South Side neighborhood, were built inside a former church that was erected in 1902 as the home of the Catholic Lithuanian St. Casimir parish 1)

The condo is built into the choir loft of the church. St. Casimir’s was the first parish for Lithuanians in Pittsburgh. It was closed in 1992 by (now) Cardinal Wuerl in the first round of parish reductions for Pittsburgh. The interior pews, organ and other artifacts were moved to Holy Trinity Church in Pilviskiai, Lithuania. 2) It was a part of a process of decline that has continued to the present day. As an aside, Arcadi Nebolsine, for whom we have written an obituary on this blog, was involved at some point in the fight for preserving Pittsburgh’s Catholic ethnic parishes – it may have even been before Donald Wuerl’s tenure at that diocese. It was one of the first of his many campaigns to preserve historic art and monuments – even though Nebolsine was not a Roman Catholic!

The conversion of the church to the present luxury condominium complex took place in 2017-2019:

How did a closed church become a luxury living space? Developer Ivor Hill describes stumbling upon the old building one night when leaving guitar class. Someone had attempted a conversion, and the building contained two apartments and a yoga studio. It was listed for sale for only $600,000. Shortly before closing, Mr Hill sat on the former altar and began sketching out his plans….1)

1. St-Esprit, Meg, Church-turned-Condo is Heaven on Earth, The Wall Street Journal at M1 (April 16, 2021)
2. Global True Lithuania: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Developments in the Church do not happen in isolation – they unfold in a specific historical, political and economic situation. To understand what is going on we always need to look at the context. Certainly the last year has been one of social turmoil and upheaval – much of it at the direction of the controlling “civil society” of the United States and Western Europe. Today, we read the following in The Wall Street Journal:

Bank Earnings Soar to Record Highs

Goldman posted records in quarterly revenue and profit, while JPMorgan notched its highest quarterly profit on record. Wells Fargo enjoyed its best-ever quarterly profit in corporate and investment banking.

As John Dos Passos wrote:

(Wars and panics on the stock exchange,

machinegunfire and arson,

bankrupticies, warloans,

starvation, lice, cholera and typhus:

good growing weather for the House of Morgan.)

Dos Passos, John, 1919 ( U.S.A. trilogy) at 648 ( Library of America edition, 1996, New York; originally published 1932)

This Thursday Fr. Perricone will be conducting his monthly Catechism class at St. Josephat’s lower church hall starting at 6pm. The class is open to all.

We wish you, your families and loved ones a happy and blessed Easter!

The word “conservative” does not belong among the happiest formulations.  It conceals a character related to the temporal and fastens the will to the restoration of unsustainable forms and conditions. Today, he is the weaker who would retain something.

It would do us good, therefore, if we endeavor to separate the word from Tradition. Rather, what is important is to find or even rediscover that which always was the foundation of a healthy order and which will be so again. This, however, is outside of time and neither progress nor regress leads to it. Movements therefore circle around it. Only the means and the names change. In this sense we have to agree with the definition of Albrecht Erich Günther, who didn’t understand conservatism as “an attachment to that which was yesterday, but a life out of that which is always valid.” But only that which is removed from time can be valid always. That asserts itself, and, in fact, disastrously so, when it isn’t respected. 

Ernst Jünger, Rivarol, at 47 (Ernst Klett Verlag, Stuttgart 1989) (my translation)