St. Josaphat Church in Bayside Queens will offer a Missa Cantata this Friday, Jan. 4 (First Friday) and this Saturday, Jan. 5 (first Saturday), both Masses at 9:30 am.

Father Richard Cipolla, our Society’s chaplain, will be celebrating his thirty-fifth anniversary as a priest with a Solemn Mass at St. Pius X Church in Fairfield, CT.

Please join us for the Second Annual Lepanto Conference! This year’s conference will begin with a Pontifical High Mass. The Mass and Conference will take place at the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer in Manhattan.

The mass and conference will begin at 12 noon on Saturday, February 16th, and will end near 5:00 pm. Following the Mass (which begins promptly at 12), the theme of the conference will be ‘Sacred Liturgy as Key to Mending the Crisis in the Church.”

The Society of Hugh of Cluny is proud to be a co-sponsor of the conference

This is the second annual Lepanto Conference after last year’s  massive success in Waterbury, CT, which was attended by hundreds of college students and young professionals. A donation of $10  is suggested for attending the conference. Further details will follow.

Mass for the Feast of the Circumcision of Our Lord at the Church of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, Bridgeport CT – now in the care of the Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest.

Fr. Carl McIntosh will offer a low Mass at St. Roch Church in the Chickahominy section of Greenwich, CT, this Saturday at 8 am.

Also coming up in Greenwich: On Monday, Jan 21 at 7:30 pm, Fr. La Pastina will offer a traditional Mass for the Feast of Saint Agnes.

…can you see this wonderful painting at the Pierpont Morgan Gallery, where it is the centerpiece of this exhibition:

Pontormo: Miraculous Encounters

Otherwise you will have to travel to a small town about ten miles outside of Florence to see it again.

Pontormo painted this work in 1529-30 at a key transitional point in Western art, religion and politics. In Italy, an aesthetic reaction was setting in against the seemingly immutable balanced “classicism” that had been achieved in the Renaissance golden age. North of the Alps, the Protestant Reformation had erupted – but the first stirrings of the Counter-Reformation were also already at hand. And Pontormo painted this work while the doomed Republic of Florence was under a devastating siege by the Imperial army.

This Visitation offers a perspective entirely different from that of the art of Pontormo’s immediate predecessors. The figures are elongated and almost float in the air. The colors are startling. But, for me, what is most impressive are the faces of the Virgin and St Ann. The entire painting concentrates on the moving encounter of these two women as they silently gaze at each other’s countenance… We can sense here the beginnings of a rebirth of a more intense, almost ecstatic religious feeling.

For more information see the WEBSITE of the Pierpont Morgan Library

…yesterday evening at Holy Innocents Church in New York, Solemn Mass for the patronal feast day.  

Followed by a procession and recitation of the rosary for the persecuted Christians in the world.

Tomorrow, December 29, Father Michael Novajosky will celebrate a Missa Cantata at St. Patrick Church, Bridgeport, CT at 12 noon.

The Roman Forum announces a new location for its annual New Year’s Eve party: Immaculate Conception Church at 199 North Broadway, Sleepy Hollow, New York, 8 pm onwards.

The organizer, Dr. John Rao describes the party as “a great Catholic Event -Finding more joy in the Christmas season. Family friendly – best recorded music.”

Bring your own food and drink to share.

Parking is on the surrounding streets.