Cleveland Mass Mob XVII — Nativity of Mary

Cleveland Mass Mob XVII 
Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary † Lorain
10.30 am Sunday 27 September 2015

418 West 15th Street 

Lorain Ohio
Road trip
Keep Massing and Mob On!

One metropolitan area is Cleveland-Akron-Lorain [the metropolitan statistical area would include extends to Canton]. And we have all suffered over the years, and we are one. Within that whole, Lorain suffered a high percentage of parish loss (6 of 11):

• St. Stanislaus (Polish)
• St. Ladislaus (Hungarian)
• SS. Cyril & Methodius (Slovene)
• Holy Trinity (Slovak) 
• St. Vitus (Croat)
• St. Joseph (German)

One parish that did survive is Nativity of Mary (Polish). We will celebrate an anniversary of theirs, and in a certain respect, they will represent the other parishes which we can no longer celebrate with.

The parish began in 1898 as St. John Cantius. The next year, the first church was built with a Marian name, and now it is Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In 1915, the present church was built, and we in part, are celebrating the century of its use.

Cleveland Mass Mob XVI — Our Lady of Peace

Cleveland Mass Mob XVI 
Our Lady of Peace
11 a.m. Sunday 23 August 2015
12503 Buckingham Avenue

To-day, all around the world there are Luna Park amusement parks. The first was in 1903 on Coney Island (New York City). Frederick Ingersoll, a creator of roller coasters and other rides, began the first chain of such parks. 1905 he opened his first two of forty-four in Pittsburgh and Cleveland. Prohibition and the Depression ended the park. In 1940, Woodhill Housing projects went up on the Cleveland site.

Father James Cummins was an infantry chaplain in the last days of, what was then called, the European War. The war experience affected him deeply. After the war, he began a new parish in the Larchmere neighborhood (beyond Woodland and Buckeye), Our Lady of Peace. Before a temporary church could be built, the parish first met at the Luna Park's billiards hall. A wooden church was ready for Easter 1920 on Buckingham. In three years a new solid church was ready, and is now Cummins Hall. The present church was built between 1949 and 1951. The parish that began after the First World War, had a new church after the Second World War.

To-day, Our Lady of Peace is the home of St. Raphael Syro-Malabar Catholic Mission of Cleveland. Once a month, Mass is said in Malayalam (language of Kerala state in India). They are one of the St. Thomas Christians. Once a month, a Mass is said in the Igbo language of southern Nigeria for Roman rite Catholics. This Mass Mob will be mostly in English, with a word or two in Aramaic, and maybe Greek, Latin is a possibility; but the congregation are to say and sing these words.  Pax vobiscum — you all.

Cleveland Mass Mob XV — Saint Ignatius of Antioch

Cleveland Mass Mob XV 

Saint Ignatius of Antioch

11 a.m. Sunday 26 July 2015

10205 Lorain Avenue

Cleveland was expanding outwards.  Ignatius Horstman was bishop in 1902. The new parish on the west end of Cleveland was to be named after his patron saint,  Ignatius of Antioch. A new parish on the east side was named after his mother's patronal saint, Catharine (now demolished).

The present church was built (1925-30) delayed and finished during the Great Depression. As life has strange episodes, the first Mass in the current church [then incomplete upper church, a lower floor was being used] was the requiem for its pastor, Thomas Hanrahan. He had gone to Rome, a few years earlier, and wanted the new church to look like the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls.

The church has two dozen columns of Italian marble. The outside is of Bedford limestone. Its ground storey stained glass windows have fives scenes stacked on each other, and there is a clerestorey level of smaller windows. Each is of many pieces of deeply colored glass to look like high mediæval glass. The stations of the cross are metalwork.

It is the second tallest church in Cleveland. The campanile (bell tower) rises 210 feet, and dominates the neighborhood. It is lit up at night and is a landmark along Interstate 90. Recently the tile roof, and stone work of the tower have been refinished, repaired, and strengthened.

This is one of two (St. Colman's, the other) parishes that massive public pleading prevailed to have removed from the closure list of 2009. These two closings would have left a chasm about Lorain Avenue. Come and see the church, and meet some of the people.

Cleveland Mass Mob XIV — Saint Jerome

Cleveland Mass Mob XIV 

Saint Jerome

10 a.m. Sunday 28 June 2015

15000 Lake Shore Boulevard

 




The mob goes to North Collinwood this time. As the fotos suggest the patron of the parish is St. Jerome. The plaque gives his life dates (*340, 420†), and the founding of the parish (1919) and the consecration of the church (1994).

We see St. Jerome anachronistically dressed as a cardinal, centuries before the office existed. For some years Jerome was a scholarly hermit. He is one of the four chief doctors (teachers) of the early Roman Church. His translation of the Scriptures were the official standard throughout Christendom. The statue on the right, which sits in an alcove that held a confessional, Jerome holds a book opened to his words "Ignorance of Scripture is Ignorance of Christ". The statue in the center is outside on the campanile (bell tower). It is an older picture, before the tinge of moss was removed. On the left is a window from the choir loft. Jerome's likeness is unknown after so many centuries, so the artist can use his judgment. From description, we know that Jerome had lost an eye, and the depiction with the lion was confused with Androcles.

The present church building began in 1950. It is one of the few post war churches built in a gothic fashion. The stained glass windows were made in Boston in 1951 in mediæval style, the great entrance window has delicate stone tracery, and niche stones are cut for that ancient fashion.  For some reason there is a heraldic Scottish lion, and thistle on the outside walls. Entry door are solid wood with carvings. In addition there is a beautiful side chapel dedicated to St. Joan of Arc. O, yes, Saint Jerome is a beautiful church.

We scheduled this mobbing with Fr. Anthony Cassese late last summer. The long time priest (and pastor) of the parish died the penultimate day of last year.

Cleveland Mass Mob XIII — Saint Stephen

Cleveland Mass Mob XIII

Saint Stephen

Pentecost

11 a.m. Sunday 24 May 2015

1930 West 54th Street

 

Pentecost Sunday is the perfect day for the mob to mass, for this is the day the Holy Spirit spread to the peoples of the Earth (first in Jerusalem). It is the birthday of the Church. You are invited, bring friends.

Saint Stephen Cleveland internally is a perfect late nineteenth century South German splendor. Much of the woodwork is carved oak from the old country. The pulpit before it sat inside church was part of the Columbian Expostion of 1893 in Chicago. 

The windows are in the South German painterly style and were created with much fine detail. They were made by the Mayer studio in Munich. They came in 1906. The only older windows that remain are behind the organ. In 1953, a tornado blew out the windows from behind the altar. Forty years later, Mayer windows from the razed St. Joseph Woodland were put in. Other Mayer windows are at St. Adalbert's Cleveland, St. John Cleveland, First Methodist Cleveland...wherever they are, they are brilliant.

The building is made of sandstone quarried in Amherst. It is not a mediæval cathedral, but some of the same architectural features are evident. It is one of the few buildings around with functional gargoyles (monster shaped water spouts).

One can visually examine the details for hours, and with knowledge, see what a harmonious, cohesive, congruent, complete, and co-ordinated whole the interior is. A lot of this planning was done by the first pastor, Kasimir Reichlin. See this beautiful church, which has served a community for generations. Parishioners mortgaged their homes to help build their parish church, their spiritual home. This was not uncommon; so the question who does the church belong to?; is answered: to the People of God. This is the second church of the parish built between 1873 and 1881. The parish began in 1869, and quickly needed a bigger church.

Recently, this church and parish was suggested to be extinguished, then merged, then put on 'probation', and is now free from that threat. There were several parishioners willing and prepared to appeal to Rome. That is one trial St. Stephen did not have to undergo.

Trial of St. Stephen-Protomartyr before the Sanhedrin. Franz Mayer window 1906 Munich. St. Stephen Cleveland.

Cleveland Mass Mob XII — Immaculate Conception

Cleveland Mass Mob XII 

Immaculate Conception

10 a.m. Sunday 26 April 2015

4129 Superior Avenue

Come celebrate with the parish of Immaculate Conception for their 150th birthday. The parish is one of the oldest in the city. It began as a mission in the back of St. John's, the then very new cathedral. The chapel was moved whole east into an Irish neighborhood in 1856. Immediately after the War for the Preservation of the Union ended, the mission church became a parish (1 May 1865) with a French priest. The first bishop of Cleveland was a Frenchman, and to Cleveland came French sisters and priests to several churches. The neo-gothic church of to-day, had its cornerstone laid on the Feast of the Assumption 1873. Construction of the final stones waited for the new century.

Superior Avenue had several Catholic churches, as none were permitted in the nineteenth century on parallel Euclid Avenue. Since then: St. Columbkille is now in Parma. St. John the Evangelist had been enlarged and remodeled, more than once. St. Thomas Aquinas is gone, the school remains. St. Francis burned and the church moved to the school building and the parish has been just recently been eliminated, as has the nearby St. George whose property has been sold and is returning to nature. St. Andrew Svorad (the original home of the Benedictine Abbey and high school) has also been made to go extinct, and had been abruptly demolished with the bell still in the church, days before an announced list of parish closures. St. Peter, which was closed for a time, has been reopened by Rome.  St. Nicholas Byzantine continues on. Immaculate Conception (or the Mac) has retained its form and beauty. The stained glass, the stations, the organ are beautiful. The church is a sensual treat of sacred space.

Post World War II urban change, including highways, has reduced the population in the city and its neighborhoods. The urban Catholic villages are barely remnants. The church is not as filled as it has been, and most Masses are said in English; but Immaculate Conception was the first church in Cleveland to have the return of the Latin Mass in 1989.
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Mass Mob Principle:
A church is not common real estate. A church is sacred space, wherein the People of God gather to celebrate the Eucharist and other Sacraments as a community.

Mass Mob Foundational Statement:
We wish to attract people to come for a Mass, a celebration of Liturgy and Eucharist, in a parish community of an historical, and beautiful church.

The 'mob' is the People of God.

Keep massing and mob on!

Spring into the Mass Mob

Cleveland Mass Mob  XI
Saint Mary of the Assumption (Collinwood)
10 a.m. Sunday 22 March 2015
15519 Holmes


After a winter's hibernation the migratory parish of pilgrims is back. The first Cleveland Mass Mob of the new year will be south of Interstate 90 and the railroad tracks, in the northeastern part of Cleveland, Collinwood, which was annexed in 1910. The parish to be visited is Saint Mary (founded in 1905). It is one of two remaining Slovene nationality parishes in the larger metropolitan area. Cleveland is the chief locale of the Slovene diaspora. The 10 a.m. Mass on Sunday March 22nd will have elements of the old country's traditions in choir and costume.

This will be Cleveland Mass Mob XI. In this the second year of mobbing, the gatherings will center on the fourth weekend of the month. Some twenty cities have declared this type of ecclesial mobbing activity. The success and frequency has varied. This national phenomena began in Buffalo, and only Buffalo's mob is older. More recent mobs, and newspapers, have acknowledged Cleveland as a model. Cleveland has had the most mobbings, and its practice is to announce the next mobbing in the church of the present mobbing.

Mass Mob is a celebration of community, and sacred space, with the presence of Jesus. We wish to attract people to come for a Mass, a celebration of Liturgy and Eucharist, in a parish community of an historical, and beautiful church. Keep Massing and Mob On!