52. Holy Trinity Church

(mass times & church info last updated 03/20/2016)
Address: 213 W. 82nd (between Broadway & Amsterdam)
Phone: 212.787.0634
Weekend Mass Times: 
Sat: 5:30pm (English organ & cantor)
Sun: 7:30am (English), 9:30am (English organ & cantor), 11:15am (English choir), 12:30pm (Spanish), 5:30pm (English contemporary)
Weekday Mass Times: 
Mon-Fri: 9am, 5:30pm (both English)
Thu: 7pm (Spanish)
Confession: Weekdays: 5pm-5:30pm
Nocturnal Adoration: Last Saturdays after the 5:30pm Mass (in church)
Links:
Official Website
Medieval New York
About the Organ
The Blessed Trinity

THE FEAST OF THE BAPTISM OF THE LORD

"Dating back to 1898, the Holy Trinity Church of New York City's Upper West Side...[is] one of the finest examples of Byzantine and Romanesque architecture in New York City, the Church was loosely based on the Hagia Sophia of Istanbul, Turkey. Stunning architecture makes this one of New York's most extraordinary churches. "

- Found on the Nile Guide website

I attended Holy Trinity with my old roommate who I have not seen all that much recently - a trend I've noticed with other friends lately as well. As we all grow older and apart and into marriages and relationships and careers and mundanities it seems we find less and less time to spend with one another. At least though, for today, we managed to go to Mass and then have brunch at the Emerald Inn.

One thing that spoke to me during Mass was the first reading, (Isaiah 55:1-11):

"Thus says the LORD:
All you who are thirsty,
come to the water!
You who have no money,
come, receive grain and eat;
come, without paying and without cost,
drink wine and milk!
Why spend your money for what is not bread,
your wages for what fails to satisfy?
Heed me, and you shall eat well,
you shall delight in rich fare.
Come to me heedfully,
listen, that you may have life...

Seek the LORD while he may be found,
call him while he is near.
Let the scoundrel forsake his way,
and the wicked man his thoughts;
let him turn to the LORD for mercy;
to our God, who is generous in forgiving.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD.
As high as the heavens are above the earth
so high are my ways above your ways
and my thoughts above your thoughts.

For just as from the heavens
the rain and snow come down
and do not return there
till they have watered the earth,
making it fertile and fruitful,
giving seed to the one who sows
and bread to the one who eats,
so shall my word be
that goes forth from my mouth;
my word shall not return to me void,
but shall do my will,
achieving the end for which I sent it."

As I look into my finances of the past year and reflect on what junk I have bought up with what little money I have to begin with, and what little value it all has on a spiritual level, I wonder why have I done it all to begin with - filling my place and my room and my life with perverse items (ranging from any of Ikea's disintegrating particle&dust-made items we've purchased to an ongoing series of overindulging restaurants experiences and bar-hops.) Nothing in line whatsoever with what I want my life to be, somehow lead by and to the Divine.

The music played at the 12:30pm Mass was outstanding. I can think of no better word to describe the song played during the offertory than trippy. Beautiful, to be sure, and otherworldly and mystical, as well - but it was also just plain trippy. As I knelt there in the pews of this extraordinary church, my mind carried off into the cosmos as well into the most inner chambers of my soul - and what I saw in both places was the same.

A lot of that, BS to be sure, but the point being is that this church in it's design and concert helped my experience this week to view the Almighty and my life in quite a different way than I have before. Go visit this place and have your own experience.

"...Oh when I got it I just spend it, If I save it, then I get fat, And I don't really want to change it, 'Cause I like it just like that..."

-Bobby Conn

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.