Sunday, July 19, 2015

Little cathedral around the corner

The Roman Catholic church I see out my kitchen window, St. Joseph's, has become a co-cathedral. It's been through a restoration and is now surely one of the most splendid religious spaces in Brooklyn. I'll go back soon with a better camera, but these snaps should give you a sense. Surrounding the altar, a row of life-sized (well, human sized) angels in an array of colored robes. They're a little androgynous, all white. 
But from either side one is bathed by images of the Virgin Mary appearing to folks around the world - the New World is of course well represented. But one is also Chinese, looking a lot like Guanyin - she was too bright for my cell phone camera, so here are the Korean and Filipina ones.
As you leave the church you see two enormous murals, Our Ladies of Lourdes on the right and Fatima on the left. Embedded within the latter is a vision of genocide and the destruction of war, and two men in white: one looks to be John Paul II, the man in glasses may be Maximilian Kolbe. [or Oscar Romero?] Saints alive!