The Month of Ma(r)y and Explaining a Really Long Rosary

Take a look at the photo above. The character in the statue is carrying what looks like a Rosary, right?  There is a crucifix, the first few beads for the opening prayers, and beads in groups of ten for each decade of the Rosary.  Here's where it get's fishy.  A typical Rosary has five of these decades, but clearly there are a lot more here.  I counted fifteen decades.  That's 150 Hail Marys!

Yes, there are people who are devoted to prayer, but how many folks really do 150 Hail Marys in a sitting?  What could this super-long Rosary mean?  Is it maybe just a Paul Bunyan-esque gimmick so people in the back of church can see it?  

Ok, it isn't anything too superfluous.  This statue is a representation of Our Lady of the Rosary.  The long Rosary she is carrying represents the fifteen different decades of the Rosary grouped by what the Church calls the Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious mysteries.  Pope (now Saint) John Paul II added a fourth set of mysteries, the Luminous, late in his Pontificate.  If Our Lady's Rosary were up-to-date, it would have twenty mysteries and over 200 prayer beads!

Today marks the last day of May, often referred to by the Catholic Church as "The Month of Mary."  On my visit to St. Peter's in Stevens Point last month, I noticed this statue of St. Mary and the Christ Child and was surprised to see this huge Rosary.  A little explanation from the young seminarian at the parish and a bit of intuition clarified its purpose.

St. Peter's Parish

800 4th Avenue, Stevens Point, WI 54481
http://www.saintpetercatholic.com/

Just Passing By: Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, Lansing, Iowa

Immaculate Conception Parish

648 Main Street, Lansing, IA 52151
http://holyfamilyofthebluffs.org/

St. Peter's Catholic Church, Stevens Point

It's only fitting that this church visit came barely a week prior to the canonization of St. John Paul the Great, better known as the late Pope John Paul II, and lesser known as Karol Wojytła.  St. Peter's is one of very few, if not the only church that he visited in Wisconsin.  His visit to Stevens Point was largely driven by the strong Polish-American culture in the area^[1].  St. Peter's Catholic Church remains a bastion of this Polish-American culture in Stevens Point today, as seen in much of the church's artwork.

Note: Click on any photo to see it in greater detail.  The details in some of them will make it worth the effort!

Gothic altars reign supreme in the front of the church and statues abound.  There are 21 statues that I can pick out in this photo alone.  Church yearbook photos indicate that these altars and most of the statues have been in the church since at least the 1920s.

                  

Left: St. John

Right: St. Casimir, King of Poland

High Altar detail.

Left: St. Agnes, Martyr

Right: St. Peter, holding the "keys to the Church"

The Easter scene at the church is one of the more elaborate I have seen, complete with the empty tomb.  The smell from the fresh flowers filled the church on Holy Saturday afternoon.

                

Left: St. Hedwig, Queen of Poland

Right: St. Rose of Lima, first canonized saint from the Americas

Left: "Wypłyń na głębię." (Polish)  "Put out into the deep." (English)  Relating to the story of St. Peter from the Gospel of Luke.
Right: "Totus Tuus." (Latin)  "Totally yours." (English)  Motto of Pope John Paul II.^[2]

The floor was updated in the last few years with these and other religious artwork.

Not a terrific photo by any means, but worth a closer look (click to do so) simply to look at all the detailing that makes this rendition of Our Lady of Częstochowa and Child.  My limited translation tools did not generate a sensible translation for the message at the bottom either.  If you can translate the Polish well enough, feel free to comment at the end of the post!

St. Peter, from above the front door of the narthex.

St. Peter's is surrounded by a host of stately buildings.  The Parish school, which I did not photograph, is off to the right from this photo's vantage point.  The rectory is in the foreground in this picture.

Across the street to the side of the church is the Stevens Point Area Co-op.  Based on the stone at the top of the building, it was originally built as Kosciuszko Hall.  The Co-op has this to say about their building:

"The SPA Co-op building was constructed in 1909 and served the community for many decades, as a mercantile and grocery store on the main floor and a dance hall upstairs, before becoming a furniture store and warehouse in the 1960s.

The SPAC has dedicated itself to renovating and preserving this historic building.^[3]"

It seems safe to argue that a healthy Parish and Co-op aren't just good for the buildings they exist in, but for the neighborhood as a whole.

Our Lady of Częstochowa and Child at the portal from the nave to the narthex.

St. Peter's Parish

800 4th Avenue, Stevens Point, WI 54481
http://www.saintpetercatholic.com/

Many thanks to the young seminarian who gave a more detailed tour of St. Peter's after Easter Sunday Mass!  Also to the other folks who offered help in my visit!

Additional Sources
[1] http://journaltimes.com/news/local/wisconsinites-remember-soon-to-be-pope-s-visit-to-stevens/article_c9fb2ef8-6dde-5f26-b098-6f47a14ae510.html
[1] http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/whi/fullRecord.asp?id=55071&qstring=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wisconsinhistory.org%2Fwhi%2Fresults.asp%3Fpageno%3D61%26keyword1%3DU.S.%26search_type%3Dbasic%26sort_by%3Ddate
[2] https://www.osv.com/OSVNewsweekly/DailyTake/Article/TabId/736/ArtMID/13645/ArticleID/14269/Totus-Tuus-Prepare-for-canonization-with-Pope-John-Paul-II-Marian-consecration.aspx
[3] http://www.spacoop.com/history.html

Roadside Stop at St. Mary's of Częstochowa, Junction

An interesting stopover on the way to somewhere else...here is another closed church, St. Mary of Częstochowa in northwestern Clark County.  Opened effectively, if not officially, as a Polish ethnic parish, it stands at the crossing of two nondescript gravel roads that earned the glamorous place name of Junction (you can see it in DeLorme's atlas of Wisconsin).  The area around the church is not heavily populated, which probably led to the parish's closing in 1996.  However, on the last Saturday of the month, I am told the parish priests from nearby All Saints (Boyd/Cadott/Stanley) and St. Bernard/St. Hedwig's (Thorp) do Mass at this church.

I am not sure what the building's condition is, but I think the main altar is centered on a rendition of the Black Madonna of Częstochowa painting for which the parish is named.  

St. Mary of Częstochowa Catholic Church

W11686 Elm Road, Stanley, WI 54768

Holy Thursday Night - Agony in the Garden

From St. Mary of the Angels, Chicago.

St. Mary of the Angels Parish

1850 N. Hermitage Avenue Chicago, IL 60622
http://www.sma-church.org

Veiled in Lent at St. Mary's, Pine Bluff

Veiled in Lent?  What does this mean?  One does not simply cloak themselves literally with a liturgical season.  Heck, how often does the average person hear the term "liturgical season?"  

Take a closer look at the altars folks.  Where are the statues?  Aha!  Cloaked in purple, the representative color for the Lenten season.  Not every church follows this tradition.  In fact, I have only heard of a few. However, just fifteen miles west of downtown Madison, St. Mary's in Pine Bluff puts their statuary under wraps for the last weeks of Lent.

I do not know the history of St. Mary's yet, but the set of vintage-looking Gothic Revival altars look like they could be quite new.  From a smattering of blog posts I've run into, this parish community seems very active in its religious life, including in their care of the sanctuary.

These impressive altars should be getting all the more attention from the parishioners as the commonplace "table altar" is absent.  At St. Mary's, Mass is offered ad orientum, with the priest facing "liturgical east" (towards the high altar).  This is definitely a step toward older traditions in the Catholic Church, mostly before the Vatican II council of the early 1960s.

   

            

Left: Side altar featuring St. Mary under the larger veil.

Right: Detail from the base of St. Mary's side altar.

The tradition of veiling statues and other artwork within churches late in Lent appears to have murky origins possibly tied to the Lenten veils^[1] which have been used in some Old World churches as far back as the 7th Century^[2].  The sources I have included at the end of the post offer more insight into the history behind the use of Lenten veils in St. Mary's and elsewhere.

St. Mary of Pine Bluff Catholic Parish

3673 County Highway P, Cross Plains, WI 53528

http://stmarypb.com/

Thanks to the parish priest and a few of the parishioners who let me take these photos and provided some context about the parish during my short visit.  Hopefully I can make another photo visit soon!

Additional Sources

[1] http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2012/03/lenten-veils.html#.U08k9_lkSSo

[2] http://newtheologicalmovement.blogspot.com/2011/04/why-veil-cross-and-other-images-during.html

[3] https://www.ewtn.com/library/Liturgy/zlitur72.htm

Old St Bruno's, Dousman

Breaking new ground with this post...for the first time on this blog, we are exploring a closed church.  Even when a parish has vacated a church building, the story of the structure and the parish itself is still unfolding in an empty or maybe forgotten edifice.  Old St Bruno's on the western edge of Waukesha County validates this point.

This Old St.Bruno's Catholic Church (there was one more church built before and after this one) was built in 1887 for a largely rural congregation.  As the original settlement near the church shifted a couple miles east to present-day Dousman, this church was closed in the mid-1950s.  For being closed for nearly sixty years though, the church appears to have aged relatively well.  My tour guide, St. Bruno's parish priest, gave me a good summary of why we see Old St Bruno's in the shape we do today.

In the early 1990s, several parishioners worked on their own initiative to bring life back to Old St. Bruno's.  I do not have any record of what the church looked like before their restoration project, but among other things, pews were acquired from another church and new artwork was picked for the Stations of the Cross.  It also looks like the items on the high altar were re-assembled for the old Latin Mass, as the sheets on the altar appeared to be written out for that purpose.

The paint on the high altar and its statues looked like it was in good shape.  The detail on this Gothic high altar is striking, especially in the context of a simple rural church.

The Lamb of God, called up in Mass, but not easily noticed in ecclesiastical art.  Here the Lamb of God is sitting on a book depicting the seven seals of the Apocalypse, from the Book of Revelation.^[1]

The statuary too may have come from a hodge-podge of places according to Father.  This holy water font-bearing angel is in the sacristy not far from the high altar.

The side altars too are intricately designed and look well cared for, despite the fact that regular maintenance apparently hasn't continued since the restoration efforts twenty years ago.  Mostly lit by the afternoon sun, this statue of Mary looks particularly nice.

      

Left: St. Joseph

Right: St. Therese de Liseux

A look at the pews.  I'm not sure how often the Building Fund box is checked for contributions.  Behind locked doors, it's painfully hard to contribute!

St. Bruno's has had four different church buildings in its history.  Its current church does have a few pieces that originally were at Old St. Bruno's.  Above is a statue of St. Bruno himself.  Although Father told me a lot about the long and hermetic life of the German saint, the fact that I remember best is that the religious order he founded, the Carthusians, are makers of Charteuse liqueur.  After dinner drinks anyone?

IX  Jesus falls for the third time.

The Stations of the Cross came from Old St Bruno's and were "antiquated" by an artist in Door  County for the present church building.  I found these statues quite tasteful for the current church interior.  Placing them lower on the walls and having lights directly above the Stations allows many visitors to give the Stations a closer look and more seriously consider the Stations and the artwork itself.

II  Jesus carries his Cross.  Detail.

Back at Old St.Bruno's a neighbor keeps a birdhouse, or possibly a Little Old St. Bruno's, complete with a cornerstone (not shown).

Old St. Bruno's Catholic Church, St. Bruno Parish

County Road Z Dousman, WI 53118 (in St. Bruno's Cemetery)

St. Bruno's Catholic Church, St. Bruno Parish

226 W. Ottawa Ave. Dousman, WI 53118

Additional Sources

[1]http://www.romeofthewest.com/2008/02/photos-of-saint-peter-church-in-saint.html