London, GB | Formerly of New York, Buenos Aires, Fife, and the Western Cape. | Saoránach d’Éirinn.

Home Again

A pleasantly uninteresting flight across the realm of the Atlantic and I am happy to find myself home in New York once more. Not much sooner had my parents and I returned to our little abode in Eastchester than we were off to dinner courtesy of Uncle Matt and Aunt Naomi (who live next door to us) at a happy little place called Joe’s on Marbledale Road in Tuckahoe — an eatery quite keen on what is most often called home food: simple, filling, and particularly appropriate in this circumstance. I then had my first legal drink in the States: Brooklyn IPA (India Pale Ale). Not a poor drink, but didn’t strike my fancy terribly. I have had better pints before, legal or not.

After we all returned to the Cusack family compound, I tried to convince my mother of the efficacy of Catholic social teaching for a bit before heading into town to Roger Mahon’s house, wherein lay Michelle Carroll and good ole Will Freeman. Mikey, the Mahons’ Irish Wolfhound, is pretty much fully grown now, but of a very kind nature. Caro Gill should’ve been there but was exhausted since it was her birthday.

The Church of St. Agnes: exterior and tabernacle.

As I have often said, I always really know I’m home when I’ve heard the intoxicating incantation of the Asperges me at the 11:00 at St Agnes. The train from Bronxville is scheduled to arrive in Grand Central at 11:04 but almost always gets in two minutes before the hour, allowing just enough time to ascend to the grand concourse of that beaux-arts temple of transit, scurry through the Graybar passage, hop across Lexington Avenue to arrive at St Agnes just as the procession is finished and the Asperges commences. Today proceeded right on target.

Asperges me Domine hyssopo et mundabor,
lavabis me et super nivem dealbabor.
Misere mei, Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam.
Gloria patri et filio et spiritui sancti,
erat in principio et nunc et semper et in saecula seculorum. Amen.

Asperges me Domine hyssopo et mundabor,
lavabis me et super nivem dealbabor.

The wonderful thing about the Latin mass at St Agnes is it’s always just as it should be. It’s not an over-the-top ostentatious drama as you might find at Anglo-catholic churches, nor a wailing maelstrom as at some charismatic churches, nor a banal mediocrity as at the average Marty Haugen parish. It is what it is, and it is beautiful and reflective of God’s eternal glory.

Taking the train back to Bronxville, on Metro-North’s brand spanking new rolling stock I might add, I noticed a number of new buildings which popped up along the line since I last travelled on it in the winter; chiefly in Harlem. There were about five new structures: one was bland and inspid, but three were fairly decent attempts at good New York vernacular, and one was an exceptional example of the said style. It was brick, with proper windows, a wonderful cornice, and everything you might expect of a building of its kind built in the 1900’s or thereabouts. I don’t know how it managed to get built today, nor by whom, nor do I know what it is (looked like housing), but it was most certainly a new building and I admire whoever’s behind it for making new New York architecture in the New York style. Bravo.

Now I must be off to cocktails next door at the Colonel’s. It’s good to be home.

Published at 5:16 pm on Sunday 29 May 2005. Categories: Journal Latin Mass New York.
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