27. Corpus Christi Church

(mass times & church info last updated 03/08/2016) 

Address: 529 W. 121st St. (Near Columbia)
Phone: 212.666.9350

Weekend Mass Times:
Sat: 5pm (English)
Sunday: 8:30am (English), 10am (Spanish), 11:15am (English/choir)
1pm Family Mass (Labor Day thru June 30)
5pm (at St. Paul's Chapel at Columbia when class is in session)

Weekday Mass Times:

Mon-Sat: 8am (English)
Mon-Fri: 12:10pm (at St. Paul's Chapel at Columbia when class is in session, otherwise at the church)
Sat: 11am (Spanish)

Confession: 

Sat: 4:15-4:45pm (in the church)
Mon-Fri: 1pm-2pm (in 100 Earl Hall at Columbia except summer & university vacations)

Adoration: 

Mon-Fri: 8:30am-9:30am (when Columbia is in session)
Mon-Wed, Fri: 4pm-5pm (when Columbia is in session)
Thursday: 8pm-9pm Holy Hour (when Columbia is in session)
Saturday: After 8am Mass until 11am
Links:

Official Website
Music Concerts at the Church
About the Organ
Feast of Corpus Christi

From Yahoo Travel:

This Roman Catholic church was founded in 1906, and the present building was designed and built in 1935. It is best known for its music programs, as well as a vast collection of historic, religious, architectural and contemporary art. The medieval design will enchant you, as will the world-renowned choir and the heavenly sound of the Holtkamp Organ that was installed in the 1950s. Every Sunday the church performs the Gregorian Chant, the Renaissance polyphony, and Baroque and early classical choral music.

In my brief research (basically of this church's very great website) I discovered that this is the church where Thomas Merton was baptized.

Of Corpus Christi, Merton later wrote:

"The words, songs, ceremonies, signs, movements of worship are all designed to open the mind and heart of the participant to this experience of oneness in Christ. One reason why I am a Catholic, a monk and a priest today is that I first went to Mass, and kept going to Mass, in a Church where these things were realized. . . . There was nothing new or revolutionary about it; only that everything was well done, not out of aestheticism or rubrical obsessiveness, but out of love for God and His truth. It would certainly be ingratitude of me of I did not remember the atmosphere of joy, light, and at least relative openness and spontaneity that filled Corpus Christi at solemn High Mass."

(Seasons of Celebration, p. 237)

And what of my time there this morning?

I did attend the 11:15 Choral Mass - and it was everything as described above.

To be in a holy place and surrounded with such music; to be in the presence of those so beautiful because they truly want to be there and are thus truly there - it's all enough to fill one with more emotion than one can handle on a drab day such as today.