44. Church of the Incarnation

(mass times & church info last updated 03/23/2016)  
Address: 1290 St. Nicholas Blvd. @ 175th St.
Phone: 212.927.7474
Email: incarnation@archny.org
Weekend Mass Times:
Sat: 5:30pm (English), 7:30pm (Spanish)
Sun: 8am (English), 9am (Spanish), 10:30am (English upper church), 10:30am (Spanish lower church), 12pm (Spanish), 1pm (Spanish), 1:30pm (English)
Weekday Mass Times:
M-F: 8am (English), 12pm (Spanish), 7:30pm (Spanish)
Sat: 9am (English)
Confession: Sat: 4pm-5:30pm
Adoration: Fri: 4pm-7pm
Links:
Official Website
About the Organ
The Incarnation
SATURDAY DAILY MASS

Rushing out of the apartment today, I forgot my camera and what a shame because this is a really beautiful church (So I had to depend on my Blackberry camera again - shame shame shame!) I have been to this church before when I was staying in Washington Heights and for some reason I had never experienced what I did today: realizing the absolute gorgeousness of the stone of the building and the clarity of the stained glass. Perhaps this was because it was a little far to walk down the discombobulation of St. Nicholas Avenue - due to the other worldness of the place - it seems like such a different country here in this part of the Heights. In the past, I have also been down to the basement for a Spanish Mass one Sunday morning which was one of the most celebratory experiences I've ever had in my Catholic search of New York. The main church reminds me of the Cloisters. It is simple and grand stone, lovely, peaceful.

Yes, these days I am finding some peace. Most of the times.

All I do I do to seek the Almighty. Too often I error and merely seek out more worldly pursuits, those things that lead me to a selfish sense of some kind of euphoria: that high that drinking or drugs delivers; mere earthly pleasures like the gluttony of too much food and drink; escape into the awful and misinformed mirror that is television and pop culture. But going to these churches I feel I am honestly seeking out, in some kind of honest yet unrealized manner, the Almighty...

In a recent Anne Rice interview I was watching, she recounts how she visted the churches of Brazil without any clue as to why, until later she realized it was because of her own journey seeking Christ.

So I seek and seek and I seek. And always I continue seeking. And the reason for this is all too often a kind of loneliness that abides in me that I can never quite get away from.

It was brought up to me a few weeks ago, around the same time as the idea of receiving three wishes each time you enter a new church, that as we humans face our loneliness, perhaps God too has a kind of loneliness. Perhaps this is why we were created in the first place. If you think about how we are made in God's image (and this should be taken to mean as sentient thoughtful creatures as well as any of our physical manifestations, that every thought, feeling and emotion is somehow reflected in the Almighty as well, or more likely God's feelings reflected in us,) then it is not ridiculous to ponder that God too may feel lonely at times.

Recently I had my first impulse to flee from my, what has so far been a going-somewhat-very-well, relationship that I find myself in. Is it fear of loss or failure? Is it something biological and forever ingrained? Can it be helped?

Thankfully, the feeling passes and I remain because I wish to remain because I know there is something meaningful I have found here. Even when she and I slip into some kind of uncomfortable awkwardness - one where we don't seem to be on the same plane - that inevitable boy-girl relationshipness, I so far choose to stay and not run, even though something in me screams to flee flee flee. Why is it that at the beginning when we enter into relationships we project so much of what we want, as opposed to really seeing the beauty that is there to begin with? We all have these plans and desires and when we find something that is good we can't always take it at face value for the goodness that it offers, we always want it to give us more of something that exists in our imaginations, that we want but don't necessarily need, that we think could be better.

Why do we do this?

Why can't we just be grateful for what we do have?

Why do we suffer from this awful human condition?

And have all these feeling existed since the very beginning, somewhere within our Creator?


(02/05/2011)
additional photos...
Rereading my post from that day back in September of '08, I realize I should certainly have fled that relationship as soon as I even had an inkling there were problems. Instead, I ignored that little voice that we should all strive to listen to as often as possible. The voice that is always there, guiding us for the better.

 

 

 

 

12. St. Aloysius

NOTE: In 2015 this church was part of a list of churches in danger of merging with other churches or closing altogether as part of the Archdiocese of New York's great closings & mergers of 2015. This doesn't seem to have happened and this church remains open for regular Masses and other events. If you have any news about this merger or lack thereof please feel free to write in the comments section at the bottom of this post.

(mass times & church info last updated 04/01/2016)
Address: 219 W. 132nd St.
Phone: 917.261.6507

Weekend Mass Times:

Sun: 10:15am (English, Gospel Choir), 12:15pm (Spanish)

Weekday Mass Times:

Tue, Thu: 9am (English, in the chapel)

Wed, Fri: 7:30pm (Spanish, in the chapel)
Links:
Landmark Designation Commission Report
NY Times Article - Landmarking Harlem Churches
NYC Landmarks Commission Report
Catholic Encyclopedia: St. Aloysius Gonzaga
Wikipedia: St. Aloysius Gonzaga
Prayer to St. Aloysius Gonzaga

EPIPHANY SUNDAY

I walked into this church in Harlem today right on time. I had read about its landmark status, along with that of All Saints church - which I attended a few weeks ago, also a Gospel Mass - and was expecting a large grandiose near-cathedral like church, like that of All Saints. Instead, St. Aloysius is smaller and somewhat quainter - but no less grand.

Please, take the time to look through the above links at the Landmark Designation Commission Report - it does justice in describing what's so special about the architecture. My favorite piece of art in the place was an African Madonna and Child (I hope my ill-suited Blackberry camera does it justice below - but you should go see it for yourself anyway. Though it is a bit faded from the years, it sits right behind where the Choir sings.)


The Gospel Mass was good, though I feel it was missing something the Gospel Mass at All Saints had - even though the church had a more "filled up" feeling. In typical African/Gospel Mass fashion, peace time took a full 5-10 minutes while everyone walked the church shaking hands and delivering well-wishes.

I felt very welcomed here.

Yesterday, I went to a daily mass with Benediction. I was a few minutes late and as I walked in the first reading was just begining. It was from John - Chapter 3, verse 11-21:

"Beloved:
This is the message you have heard from the beginning:
we should love one another...
...Do not be amazed, then, brothers and sisters, if the world hates you.
We know that we have passed from death to life
because we love our brothers.
Whoever does not love remains in death.
Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer,
and you know that no murderer has eternal life remaining in him.
The way we came to know love
was that he laid down his life for us;
so we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.
If someone who has worldly means
sees a brother in need and refuses him compassion,
how can the love of God remain in him?
Children, let us love not in word or speech
but in deed and truth...
...for God is greater than our hearts and knows everything.
Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us,
we have confidence in God."

I feel I spend most of my time trying to be loved by others. I walk past bums and homeless all the time, without flinching, caught up in whatever my iPod is spitting into my ears. And despite what the rest of the world is trying to tell me, about religion spoiling everything and how we'd be better off giving up faith as a waste of time, I know there is something else there that, for some reason, a lot of the world is ignoring and turning away from. Why do they do this? And what is it I feel?



additional photos...
(11/25/2012)

My wonderful girlfriend surprised me this morning by taking me to this church for the 10am Gospel Mass. As always, nice music. Here's some new photos. Not sure why they turned out a little dark and drab. Perhaps this church is not as well lit as some of the others.

7. St. Andrew Church (Now the Parish of Our Lady of Victory and of St. Andrew)

NOTE: In 2015 this church merged with Our Lady of Victory Church as part of the Archdiocese of New York's great closings & mergers of 2015. Both churches will remain open for regular Masses and other events. This new combined parish is called the Parish of Our Lady of Victory and of St. Andrew.

(mass times & church info last updated 03/31/2016)
Address: 20 Cardinal Hayes Place
Phone: 212.962.3972
Weekend Mass Times:
Sun: 12pm, 5pm (both English)
Weekday Mass Times:
Mon-Fri: 12:10pm, 1:05pm (both English)
Confession: 15 minutes after each Mass
Adoration: Daily 1:30pm-5pm
Rosary & Devotions: After the 12:10pm weekday Masses
Links:
Official Website
Architecture
Wikipedia about Saint Andrew
Sister Church of St. Jean Baptiste

I got lost on my way to this church. Heading downtown on the A train, the weekend schedule had disrupted my direct path (as I feared it may and knew it would) around W. 4th street. I sprang up from the stairwell and was greeted by a smoke shop. I proceeded down 6th avenue. Around Church and Reade and Duane and Centre I misplaced myself for a few minutes until my barings and my Blackberry eventually set me straight. When I finally found it I realized I should have known it as that big church just kind of set near city hall.

I entered and knew almost immediately there was a good feeling of being in there.

I was about 10 minutes early - which is rare because I usually enter just as it begins or, shamefully, a few minutes after. I sat near the front. The priest - I'm not sure which of the parish priests it was: Fr. Hayes or Fr. Addai - insisted on presenting his homily in the midst of the congegration - asking direct questions to parishioners that he knew by name and involving everyone sitting there listening.

The Feast of that day was Christ the King. The priest prepared us for next week's first week of Advent - and instructed us over and over again that we should be prepared this season for anything to happen - because things will come from the left and right...

x
(09/21/2010)
additional photos...
Note: I attended the 12:10pm daily Mass today and was struck again by how beautiful this church is. I had kind of forgotten because I hadn't been back since my original visit and all I had to go on were these photos above which do it no justice whatsoever.  It's dark, quiet and the art is well lit.  It is like entering another world in the middle of the work day.  There were about 20 or so in the congregation, I assume all as happy and pleased as I to be there.  The priest must have been a music teacher in another life because before he began, he instructed all of us on how to sing the opening song, verse by verse - and then we sang...

1. St. Agnes Church

(mass times & church info last updated 04/01/2016)
Address: 143 E. 43rd St. @ Lexington
Phone: 212.682.5722
Email: church@stagneschurchnyc.org
Weekend Mass Times:
Sat: 5:10pm (English)
Sun: 8:30am, 10am, 11am (Latin Mass), 12:30pm, 5:15pm, 7pm (all English)
Weekday Mass Times:
M-F: 7:10am, 8:10am, 12:10pm, 12:40pm, 1:10pm, 5:10pm (all English)
Sat: 8:10am, 12:10pm (both English)
Holy Day Mass Times:
Day before: 5:10pm
Day of: 7:10am, 7:40am, 8:10am, 8:40am, 11:40am, 12:10pm, 12:40pm, 1:10pm, 1:40pm, 5:10pm (High Mass), 6:10pm (all English)
Civic Holiday Mass Times:
8:10am, 12:10pm, 1:10pm (all English)
Confession:
Mon-Fri: 7:30-8:30am, 12:40pm-1:40pm, 5pm-5:30pm
Sat: 11:45am-12:30pm, 4:45pm-5:30pm
Rosary:
Mon-Fri: after the 5:10pm Mass
Sat: after the 12:10pm Mass
Exposition:
Mon-Fri: 1:40pm-4:55pm (with Benediction)
First Fridays: 9:40am-12pm; 1:40pm-4:55pm (with Benediction)
Sacred Heart of Jesus Vigil Mass:
First Fridays at at 5:10pm, followed by Exposition, with Benediction at 7pm
Miraculous Medal Novena:
Mondays prayed after all Masses
Saint Michael Novena:
Wednesdays prayed after all Masses
Sacred Heart of Jesus Novena:
Fridays prayed after all Masses
Divine Mercy Chaplet:
Mon-Fri: 3pm
Vespers and Benediction:
Mon-Fri: 4:55pm
Post-Church Brunch: Frontier Cafe - 39th and Lexington
Post-Church Activity: Chill out in Bryant Park
Links:
Official Website
Church basics and specifics about the organ
A Mystery Shopper of places of worship
About the early 1990's fire and rebuilding
Some pictures and interior detail
More pictures
Wikipedia article on St. Agnes

The walk in Grand Central to the Lexington passage is so much better on a weekend morning when the crowds of commuters are not so high in number. As one who undergoes the daily Metro-North grind, it’s a rarity to enjoy the architecture and brilliance of the place because of the usual rush and frenzy of catching one’s train, preceded by a hurry to catch one’s morning cup of coffee and possibly one’s morning bagel with spread or one’s greasy egg and cheese and bacon from Junior’s, and finally one’s Times or rather more typically, one’s AM New York. This morning, however – this Sunday morning – I can take my time and appreciate the excellent space that is Grand Central, as I step through it on my way to attend the 10am Mass at the Church of St. Agnes.

My step today is almost a limp (but not quite) lingering all the way from last weekend's jazz party in Brooklyn where I had departed in fury over this lame chick (obviously, she wasn't lame to me at the time) and stormed down the street kicking everything in sight - from abandoned beer bottles into brick walled sides of buildings to (mistakenly) those black painted and deviously disguised concrete trash cans that my right foot sent nowhere. The next morning a tremendous hangover melancholia hung about me while this raging pain pulsed through my foot. It was Sunday before 10am but that whole week was done before it began - wrath and sadness filled my cup, intruded into my work week, and disquieted my generally tranquil dispostion.

A week later I hobbled out of the Grand Central terminal on my way to St. Agnes', my roommate accompanying me. We found ourselves on Lexington and 43rd, and I could see the cross on the top of the Church of St. Agnes. We walked along 43rd and made it in just in time as the singing was beginning and these were my first thoughts:

The architecture looked very new – the websites where I briefly discerned some info about the church had described it Neo-classical. The fire that occurred here in the early 90’s must have performed quite a number because nothing (with the exception of some of the exterior) resembled something built in 1873. One of the websites detailing the fire and reconstruction had mentioned that (then attorney) Rudy Gulliani, upon seeing the fire from his office window next door, had rushed into the burning church to see if anyone was trapped inside and while there prevented the looting of church property. Very brave of him and though he in no way belongs in the White House in 2009, a tale like that does go to show that there is good in everyone, and great deeds to be done...

Yet, in spite of the fire and loss and because of the reconstruction, it is a beautiful church and there is quite a bit of intense religious art to view. I was pleasantly surprised while taking Communion to confront a painting I just viewed yesterday in the Met - The Holy Family with Saints Anne and Catherine of Alexandria, by Jusepe de Ribera. I had stared at it for a few minutes in the museum as it had caught my eye because, not only is it an incredible work, but it had also been featured in a Sopranos episode I viewed recently - Carmella is overcome with emotion viewing the scene. The one hanging in the transept of St. Agnes contains only the figures of the child Christ, Mary and St. Catherine. St. Anne and St. Joseph are not included. In the museum I was struck by the stern gaze of St. Joseph looking straight at you, into you, the viewer. That look tells me that he is a new father and must already be filled with worry and stress and, perhaps, purpose. He seems to inquire of the viewer, are you ready for this, would you be ready if this responsibility was handed to you? As I had this thought I couldn’t help but smile. My good friend and his wife practice that very naturally planned and very Catholic Rythmn Method. Once a week, in a straightforward and utterly honest manner, he tells me verbatim, I fear I may have impregnated my wife. We have a chuckle that is always followed by an awkward silence and then further chuckling. For the moment, the coast is clear for them but when that time finally rolls around, I think I'll grab my friend and take him to the Met to the European paintings wing and show him this painting and describe to him my thoughts about that stare of St. Joseph.

After Communion, I am calmed and pleased by the painting I just viewed and the beauty of the church I am in; and happy my roommate has come along to share this Sunday morning; and just in general pleased with everything for that moment, right then and there. Nevermind the awful week I feel I just endured or the stress of the work week that is coming around the corner; or the girl from last weekend; or the fact that I lost many hundreds of dollars and possessions when a freak shelf-falling-off-the-wall accident claimed our new TV and laptop. Never mind that – for now St. Agnes' is a very great church to be in.

The websites call it a commuter church and it’s mass schedule is definately set up to accommodate travelers coming in at all times (again, as one who takes these trains into and out of the city, I will definitely keep this place in mind for future daily mass and Holy Days.)

The artwork and statues are beautiful and there is a simple and pretty stone figure of St. Agnes outside the building. I did not catch the priest’s name – he was African and a good speaker. The Gospel was the one about the 10 lepers who Christ heals and only one of them comes back to say thank you. The priest compared these references to leprosy in that day to our current world HIV/AIDS crisis where many millions lay uncared for, neglected and negated. My thoughts (which have such a way of being carried away during the time I spend in Mass – I think I must have a slight undiagnosed case of ADD) turned to my own time in Africa where I fully realized the scale of that epidemic – no, pandemic. There was that one time, that crazy night - driving around with a South African volunteer with the body of an AIDS victim in the back of his truck who we had gone to visit that day and found she had died during the night. And as we drove around searching out a funeral home that was still open and would take her, as we passed the many other homes and shacks, I asked myself how many others were laying and dying behind these walls and closed doors?

My thoughts returned to the present, and I snapped out of my memories, and before long the Mass was completed and I took some time to walk around and enjoy the rest of the church. And after, whether it be the very pleasant day greeting us as we exited, or the simple joy of having come to Midtown and seen a new church, or brunch at the Frontier Cafe, or a nice hour spent in Bryant Park - something finally snapped me out of my putrid and selfish mood I had found myself stuck in all week. Something had come and rescued me and let me know that other things were just around the corner.

*Please forgive the incredibly poor quality of some of the images attached here. For the most part they are taken with my Blackberry camera which I feel is an incredibly inadequate camera for a cell phone these days, especially a cell phone that is as prestigious and expensive as a Blackberry. 

(09/15/2010)
Additional Photos...