The Chanting of the Passion.

The Solemn Prayers.

The Adoration of the Cross

Ecce Lignum Crucis…

Ἅγιος ὁ Θεός, Ἅγιος ἰσχυρός, Ἅγιος ἀθάνατος, ἐλέησον ἡμᾶς.

Vexilla Regis prodeunt…

Holy Thursday in the Traditional rite at St. Mary, Norwalk – need we mention that the church was standing room only? (Please click to enlarge).

The washing of the feet.

The mass.

The Procession through the church and then through the main doors to the chapel.

The stripping of the altar (including the removal of the altar frontal). The ceremony is accompanied by the chanting of the antiphon Diviserunt and Psalm XXI.

The altar of repose.

Please note that the Mass time for today has been changed to 7:30 pm at Holy Innocents Church in Manhattan.

The following churches are offering liturgies for Holy Week according the the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.  Please inform us of any information you may have of liturgies that are not on our list.

St. Mary Church, Norwalk, CT
Palm Sunday, 9:30 am, Solemn Mass beginning with outdoor procession
Wednesday: 7 pm Low Mass, St. Luke’s Passion; 8 pm, The Solemn Office of Tenebrae
Holy Thursday, 7 pm, Solemn Mass of the Last Supper followed by adoration until midnight; 9 pm, Stripping of the Altars and visit to the seven churches in Norwalk
Good Friday, 3 pm, The Lord’s Passion
Holy Saturday, 8 pm, Easter Vigil, Solemn Mass
Easter Sunday,9:30 am, Solemn Mass

Basilica of St. John the Evangelist, Stamford, CT
Palm Sunday, 8:30 am Low Mass
Easter Sunday, 8:30am, Low Mass

St. Stanislaus Church, New Haven, CT
Palm Sunday, 2 pm
Good Friday, 12 noon
Easter Sunday, 2 pm

St. Bridget of Kildare Church, Moodus, CT
Palm Sunday, 12 noon
Easter Sunday, 10:30 am
Saturday in the Octave of Easter, 5 pm, Missa Cantata

St. Peter Church, Hartford, CT
Palm Sunday, Low Mass with blessing of palms and procession 7:30 am
Easter Sunday Low Mass 7:30 am

Church of the Holy Innocents, Manhattan
Palm Sunday, April 17th, Solemn Mass at 10 AM. Fr. Michael Barone, celebrant.
Holy Thursday, April 21st, Solemn Mass at 7:30 PM. Fr. John Zuhlsdorf, celebrant.
Good Friday, April 22nd, Solemn Service at 3 PM. Fr. Richard Trezza, celebrant.
Easter Vigil, April 23rd, Solemn Service at 9 PM.Fr. John Zuhlsdorf, celebrant,
Easter Sunday, April 24th, Missa Cantata at 10 AM. Fr. Zuhlsdorf, celebrant.

Immaculate Conception Church, Sleepy Hollow, NY
Palm Sunday, 3 pm
Easter Sunday, 3 pm

Holy Rosary Church, Jersey City
Palm Sunday, 10 am
Good Friday, 3 pm
Easter Sunday 10 am

Our Lady of Fatima, Pequannock, NJ
Palm Sunday, Procession at 10:20, Masses as usual
Holy Thursday, 6 pm followed by adoration until midnight
Good Friday, Stations of the Cross at noon, Mass of the presanctified at 3 pm
Easter Vigil, 10pm
Easter Sunday, 7 am, 9 am and 11 am

St. Anthony of Padua, West Orange, NJ
Palm Sunday, 7:30 am and 10 am
Holy Thursday, 7 pm, Solemn Mass followed by adoration
Good Friday, 3 pm, Liturgy of teh Passion and Death of Our Lord
Holy Saturday, 9 pm Easter Vigil Mass

Yesterday a large congregation of the faithful was present at St. Mary’s Church, Norwalk for the Solemn Requiem Mass for Robert James Monahan. Fr. Paul Check was the celebrant. As member of our society, Robert was an indefatigable supporter of the traditional Mass and of the ongoing restoration of the church of St. Mary’s. It was his wish to be buried according to the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite. However, I don’t think even Robert could have imagined the splendor with which his Requiem Mass was celebrated.

About twenty-five acolytes served the Mass, including many students from Anchor Academy, the independent Catholic school to which Robert was a major benefactor.

David Hughes conducted the choirs of St. Mary’s in the Requiem Mass of Tomas Luis de Victoria

During the proclamation of the Gospel, the faithful hold lighted hand-candles, a symbol of Baptism.

Ecce Agnus Dei

Before the body is borne out of the church, Fr. Check circles the catafalque twice, first to sprinkle it with holy water, and then to incense it.

This week Friday, April 15th — the Friday before Palm Sunday — there will be a special morning Missa Cantata of Our Lady of Sorrows at the Church of the Holy Innocents in Manhattan at 8:30 AM.

This Mass is celebrated in white vestments and includes the chanting of the Stabat Mater sequence.

From the organizers of this Mass: “On your way to work Friday, join us in reviving this wonderful tradition of anticipating the beginning of Holy Week with the Mass of Our Lady of Sorrows.”

Please note that this Mass is at 8:30 AM . (The Mass of Our Lady of Sorrows will NOT be celebrated at 6 PM at Holy Innocents. The 6 PM Mass that day will be a Solemn Requiem Mass marking the Anniversary of a Death.)

From the organizers: “The history of the celebration of this Mass on the Friday before Palm Sunday is an interesting one. It was approved for the universal calendar of the Church in 1727 and continued to be celebrated as a high-ranking feast until just before the Second Vatican Council. In the calendar of the Roman Missal of 1962, the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows is still celebrated on September 15th, the day after the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. However, the 1962 calendar reforms reduced the Feast celebrated on the Friday before Palm Sunday to a commemoration. Fortunately, the Mass of Our Lady of Sorrows may still be celebrated on the Friday before Palm Sunday where special devotions to Our Lady of Sorrows are observed.”

The Catholic Artists Society is hosting the first Mass for Artists.

The mass will be offered at the Church of Our Saviour in Manhattan at 5pm on Sunday, May 15th. Fr. George Rutler, pastor of Our Saviour’s, will offer a Solemn High Mass in the extraordinary form, with choral music by the choir of St. Mary’s Norwalk. The organist will be Hervé Duteil. Afterwards, there will be a reception and a lecture by Fr. Joseph Koterski, SJ, from the Fordham philosophy department. Fr. Koterski will speak on Ignatian spirituality and the work of the artist.

The Catholic Artists Society looks forward to bringing together members of the many groups of Catholic artists and media professionals doing wonderful work in New York City and beyond.

The Church of Notre Dame
405 West 114th Street

Joris-Karl Huysmans tells us in Les Foules de Lourdes  how the graces of Lourdes began to spill over and manifest themselves in satellite shrines having the same image and dispensing imported Lourdes water. Indeed, subsidiary sanctuaries in Belgium and even in Constantinople were the site of even more numerous cures  than at Lourdes itself!  A similar process began in New York with the importation of Lourdes water at the Redemptorist parish of Most Holy Redeemer. Miracles followed shortly thereafter. Soon half the parishes of New York displayed a Lourdes Grotto. But it was only in 1915 with the consecration of the Church of Notre Dame on West 114th Street that New York acquired its own replica of  Lourdes.

 
This church, a great  treasure of the Golden Age of Catholic church architecture, is one of the finest Beaux Arts spaces of New York City. Like St. Vincent Ferrer or Blessed Sacrament of the same era, this church and its furnishings – the windows, sculptures and metalwork- were conceived as a whole. Such architectural sophistication required substantial resources, and these were provided by a rich patron, Mrs Geraldyn Redmond.  It was she who donated more than $350,00 of the original $500,000 cost to erect this church. The Church of Notre Dame was also intended to be a French national chapel – a satellite of the original French national church of St. Vincent de Paul on West 23rd street. Construction began in 1910. It is astonishing to read that, when Cardinal Farley dedicated the church on February 11, 1915, over 2,500 French Catholics were in attendance. 1)  (By 2011 French Catholics have disappeared from the New York City landscape even more completely than their German and Czech counterparts.)  In 1915  Notre Dame also became an independant  parish. It  was originally in the care of a French religious order, the Fathers of Mercy.

 
Work on the interior continued through the 1920’s. The ambitions of the architects, however,  had outstripped the available funds. For their original conception was to crown the Church of Notre Dame  with a spectacular raised baroque dome in the manner of the great models for this church: the achievements of the France of Louis XIV.  This dome was never completed. Rather, 40 years later a flat dome was finished.  2)  Thus the church of Notre Dame resembles more the Pantheon than its original model, the Invalides. The exterior is surrounded on three sides by three different facades employing classical columns and  pilasters. That facing west is a free-standing colonnade or ambulatory providing direct access to the interior Lourdes shrine.

The interior is of great spaciousness, simplicity and grandeur – despite the restrained dimensions.  The vast circular dome is suspended over a nearly square space.  Chapels adorn each corner. As a unique touch, there rises  behind the main altar a life-size duplicate of the Lourdes Grotto serving as a vast reredos! it seems almost surreal – yet the rough stone of the grotto blends pleasingly with the cut stone surfaces of the interior.

The metalwork – including the poor boxes! – is of the highest quality. It is matched by the windows and most of the sculptures. All would be perfect but for the usual unfortunate Conciliar “renovation” of the sanctuary (1988).

In the course of time, the original French  parishioners disappeared. The Fathers of Mercy moved out in 1960 and the church of Notre Dame became an ordinary parish of the Archdiocese. In 2003, in an uncharacteristic stroke of genius, the Archdiocese entrusted this parish to  Polish Dominicans and made iNotre Dame the site of the chaplaincy of Columbia University. 3) We do not know what these Dominicans are doing at Columbia but we have heard good things of their activity at other places. It is good that students have chance to experience the Catholic liturgy in such a magnificent setting. Lourdes water is still dispensed here. At the Church of Notre Dame, the Catholic students of Columbia can reconnect with their own glorious religious and artistic past – classical, Catholic and traditional. And maybe in the course of time more New York area Catholics will make the pilgrimage to their own special Lourdes shrine of Morningside Heights.

1) New York Times, February 12, 1915.

2) http://ndparish.org/Church_of_Notre_Dame/History.html

3) http://ndparish.org/Church_of_Notre_Dame/History.html

Robert James Monahan passed away in his home on Thursday, April 7. His funeral, a Solemn Requiem Mass (Extraordinary Form) will be held at St. Mary Church, Norwalk on Monday at 10 am. Funeral arrangements are being taken care of by the Collins Funeral Home
http://www.collinsfh.com/obituaries.htm.
Bob was a member of our Society and dedicated supporter of the Traditional Mass. He was a major force behind the scenes in the restoration of St. Mary’s Church, Norwalk, to its original splendor. His commitment to the pro-life cause was also long-standing. Bob was a true New York gentleman of the old school – any conversation with him was a memorable pleasure.

We extend to his family our condolences and commend him to your prayers.

This Friday, April 1, there will be an all-night vigil at Holy Innocents Church in Manhattan. The vigil will begin with a Solemn Votive Mass to the Sacred Heart at 6 pm followed by Stations of the Cross, Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, Solemn Votive Vespers and Compline of the Sacred Heart, silent adoration, a procession of the Blessed Sacrament and Benediction at 4:30 am, culminating in a Missa Cantata at 5 am, the First Saturday, a votive Mass to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Also coming up at the Church of the Holy Innocents: two Evenings of Recollection for Lent.
The first Evening of Recollection will be presented by Fr. John Perricone on Wednesday, April 6th. Sponsored by the Agnus Dei Knights of Columbus Council (#12361), the evening begins with a Missa Cantata at 6 PM, includes two reflections, the Rosary, and concludes with Benediction. Confessions will be heard during recitation of the Rosary.

The second Evening of Recollection will be presented by Fr. James Miara on Wednesday, April 13th. Sponsored by the newly reinstituted Regina Coeli Knights of Columbus Council (#423), the evening begins with a Missa Cantata at 6 PM, will also include two reflections, the Rosary, and conclude with Benediction. Confessions will be heard during recitation of the Rosary.