Friday, February 25, 2011

Immaculate Conception Lapeer - test


This is a test to see how blogging from the droid might work. this is the facade of immaculate Conception in Lapeer, MI

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

St. Hyacinth, another Polish Beauty.

This past Saturday I had the great pleasure of visiting St. Hyacinth. St. Hyacinth was founded in 1907 for the growing numbers of Polish immigrants in Poletown. Father Sylvester Kolkiewicz was the founding pastor. The first mass was celebrated in a house. In 1908 a combined church and school was built in 1908. The school was staffed by felicians. The present church, built in a Byzantine/Romanesque style was designed by the Donaldson and Meier firm and dedicated in 1924. A more detailed history is available on St. Hyacinth's website. I took much of this information written here from a pamphlet I was given by an usher after mass.

Upon entering you find that the church has been lovingly maintained and is in very good shape.
Being that the 100th anniversary was only 4 years ago, they probably did some major upkeep in the last decade.

This church stands out. Here is the beautiful Facade.

The apse above the sanctuary is painted a very pretty solid blue and features a large "medallion" which represents the sacrament of Holy Eucharist. Here you see it though it is obstructed by a light fixture.

Here is the stand-alone altar and high altar/reredos.

The church has remnants from Immaculate Conception church was razed amid controversy for the Hamtramck/Detroit GM Plant.


The second cupola features Polish saints:


To see more images, check out my Picasa album. Start Here and keep clicking.

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Saturday, February 12, 2011

More St. Aloysius Photos

I have added more Photos from St. Aloysius to the gallery after a visit on Tuesday.

Start browsing here.

And here are a couple.

Crypt Level Altar and Reredos:


Above door detail. Left hand entrance. "Thou wert slain and redeemed us to God with in thy blood."


Other St. Aloysius posts can be views here. The most informative would be this one.

Monday, February 07, 2011

SS. Andrew and Benedict

Saints Andrew and Benedict are a pair of Slovakian Benedictine saints. Svorad-Andrew hailed from Poland and Beňadik (Slovak spelling) likely was Slovak. Both died in the 1030's. They are the namesake for a small, but pretty church on Beatrice street on Detroit's very southwest side. (Southwest of Delray, nearly in River Rouge or Ecorse.)

As you may have guessed, SS Andrew and Benedict church was historically a Slovak community. It was founded in 1924 to serve the Slovak Community. Today there are some Slovaks, but the parish prides itself on it's diverse community, and the Church features images of Saints of African/Black descent. I called the church a Frankenstein church, because it had elements from different now closed Detroit parishes, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel (closed 2008) and St. John Cantius (closed 2007) being the two that I specifically remember. The community was welcoming, and one of the ladies told me from whence certain pieces came. The community remains active and has Mass everyday besides Saturday.

SS Andrew and Benedict is a small Romanesque church. The sanctuary and walls behind the side altars are a very pretty rose color, and there are nice painted features elsewhere.
Here is the Sanctuary. The Our Lady of Mt Carmel and the Infant of Prague came from OLMC Detroit. I think the reredos was also from there.


Detail of the painted wall and the image of the Holy Ghost as dove on the ceiling.


The Mary Altar. You can see on the left an image of St. Josephine Bakhita, a Sudanese-born Canossian saint. On the Right is St. Martin De Porres, the Peruvian-born son of a former slave and Third Order Dominican saint.



This angel was originally in St. John Cantius. See this one in its original location here. (FYI:Music autoplay on site)


There are plenty more photos. Start browsing here.

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Detroit's Blessed Sacramental Cathedral shown to National Audience

There has been a lot of buzz about the Chrysler 200 commercial from Super Bowl XLV, at least on Facebook. For about a second in the video there is a shot of Blessed Sacrament Cathedral as seen from John R. So approximately 110 million people either saw it or were grabbing dip at this time.
There were a few discussions online about which church it was, and thanks to a priest's comment we were able to ascertain that it was indeed the Cathedral



0:48 is where it is.



We get close to St. Aloysius, but we don't get to see it. There is a chance that St. Al's may be in an upcoming motion picture...

Tuesday, February 01, 2011

Virtual Tour from the Detroit News

I came across this virtual tour from this past summer on detnews.com. John T. Greilick and Michael Hodges take us to 12 churches around the city, 6 of them are Catholic and have been featured on this here blog previously

This Screen capture shows the format. The video itself is a narrated slide show with interesting information on the history, architecture, and art.


Featured Churches (with links to my posts when applicable):
Check it out if you so desire!