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Our Beautiful Basilica by Joseph E. Manton, C.Ss.R.
Way back in 1870 when Grant was President, and Roxbury was mostly rocks, and St. Alphonsus Street bore the quaint name of Bumstead Lane, a frame church pushed up its shy steeple over the very spot where you now walk into the Rectory and because the new church was not a parish church but only a mission, and because it was in charge of the Redemptorist Fathers, whose chief work was preaching missions, people promptly labeled it 'The Mission Church'. Just a half-dozen years later these priestly pioneers with the 20-20 vision (meaning vision far into the twentieth century) dared to fling up the huge and majestic Mission Church you see today - except for the towers. These famous twin spires first speared the sky in 1910, and like a lighthouse of God their golden crosses have burned high and steady over the dark rolling waves of the city's rooftops ever since. Lighthouses often have bells, and from these towers twelve booming bells, like the voices of twelve Apostles, call to every quarter of the compass. On festive days they blend in a mellow carillon that sprinkles its notes like silver holy water on Mission Hill's clustered homes.
Back Bay from Parker Hill Reservoir, 1878 Our Own Leaning Tower of Pisa ... The mission Church is on the level only spiritually. Physically, due to a sloping foundation, the west cross tops its tower at 215 feet; the other spire is two feet shorter. The length of the church is also 215 feet, presenting a perfect proportion. Inside, it is 114 feet high and 78 feet wide. In the huge Catholic Directory covering the whole United States you will probably look in vain under Boston for the Mission Church. Undoubtedly you would find it listed under its official title, Our Lady of Perpetual Help. That same problem presented itself when there was a question of crowning the Main Altar (of massive Carrara marble) with a suitable statue. Our Lady of Perpetual Help is, after all, a painting. But it is a painting, as close scrutiny will reveal, of a Sorrowful Mother. Its background is grim with the instruments of Our Lord's suffering. So the statue you see on our Main altar is a statue of Mary, the Mother of Sorrows, sadly holding a crown of thorns. It is the next best thing to a statue of Our Mother of Perpetual Help of which there is no official model. Behind and above that statue of Our Lady of the Thorns sweeps a dramatic circle of special saints. You might call them Founding Fathers, because these were the spiritual giants of long ago who founded the great religious orders. Here, grouped around Christ the commander in His tent (that is, Tabernacle) are the Colonels of famous spiritual regiments: Dominic of the Dominicans, Benedict of the Benedictines, Francis of the Franciscans, Ignatius of the Jesuits; plus some special patrons of the Redemptorists. From Gospel toward the Epistle side they run this way: Theresa, Augustine, Dominic, Ignatius, Alphonsus, Bernard, Bruno, Francis, Catherine of Sienna. They are flanked, by a half-dozen famous figures of the Old Testament, who scan in the same G-E direction, as Abel, Noah, Moses, Abraham, Melchisedech, and lsaac.
Lift up your head now to the many-splendored dome, where against a baby-blue heaven and a swirl of snowy clouds, a colorful quartette of Redemptorist Saints pays tribute to the Blessed Sacrament and the Blessed Virgin. Really the red-robed Bishop, John Neumann, whose diocese was Philadelphia, is not yet a saint. Just beatified, his title is, 'Blessed', but recent miracles wrought through his intercession make us hope that a halo for him is glittering on the horizon like a rising sun. Standing opposite Bishop Neumann and wearing the quiet black habit is St. Gerard Majella, a Redemptorist Brother, who in recent years has achieved startling renown as the patron of motherhood. His power in this improbable field, has at times made skeptical doctors smilingly admit that when you pr-ay to St. Gerard in cases of maternity, he certainly delivers. That Mysterious "C.SS.R.".... The grey-bearded patriarch kneeling in the ample cope lived beyond ninety and is none other than St. Alphonsus Ligouri, who founded the Redemptorists in Italy the very year George Washington was bom. By the way, just as doctors sign themselves M.D., and Jesuits, S.J., Redemptorists flick after their signature the letters C.SS.R. This stands for 'Congregation Sanctissimi Redemptoris.' Admittedly this should add up to only C.S.R. but the Latins indicate a superlative by doubling the initial, so 'Sanctissimi' comes out SS and the whole deal C.SS.R. It means 'Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer.' This C.SS.R. is not to be confused with the USSR: these are the Reds, we are the Redemptorists. We live in Community but not as Communists. Anyway we are humbly proud of St. Alphonsus, because he is not only one of the few Doctors of the Church (actually the title means teacher, and there have been only about thirty so honored in twenty centuries) but also because St. Alphonsus is often hailed in the seminaries of the world as the Prince of Moral Theologians, and has been officially designated by the Church as the patron of Confessors. Kneeling on the other side and wearing the vestments of Mass, is St. Clement Hofbauer, to whom the Emperor of Austria once incredulously remarked, 'You know, you and I are the two best known men in Vienna.' Clement had so burned himself out in work among the little people that the incense clouds of his fame reached even the sniffing nostrils of the great. Most People
Miss the Cupola ... Every visitor to the Mission Church remarks about this grand dome, but if you do not take a stand near the communion rail and lift your head high, you may easily miss the gorgeous cupola directly overhead. The image of Our Holy Redeemer with His Saving Cross which every Redemptorist carries on the prosaic brass medal that jingles at the end of his long, fifteen-decade rosary, you see duplicated up there in an heroic portrait in elegant crimson and cream. Let your eyes then descend gradually and they fasten upon a tall, graceful Mary, Queen of Heaven, hymned by choirs of radiant angels. Beneath that, there rest in their celestial niches a gallery of Redemptorists, illustrious in the early history of the order, but now, alas, practically anonymous except to God. If you know the symbols of the Twelve Apostles, from Peter's keys to Andrew's cross, you can make them out, six and six, directly above the altar rail. For the liturgical F.B.I.'s they stand easily identified from left to right as Matthew, Bartholomew, Jude, Simon, Andrew, Peter, Paul, James the Less, Thomas, John, Phillip, and James the Greater. By the way, right beneath this last group and above St. Patrick's altar, is a curious adornment. It is, of all things, the enlargement of an Irish Air Mail stamp. We think in terms of jets swishing across the continent with the mail. Wouldn't you know that the Irish prefer the majestic outspread wings of an archangel? Now, do a complete right-about-face and you see on the same high level a colorful parade come to a full stop for your leisurely inspection. In the glittering ranks, sharp eyes should see two Cardinals, four Popes, a nun, a Jesuit, an army officer - personages whose lives at this point or that, were silver streams pouring their particular contribution into the onward sweep of the Redemptorist Order. Who is Buried under St. Joseph's? ... Everybody is curious abut the life-size form sleeping his last sleep under the altar of St. Joseph. It is only a waxen figure in a crystal tomb, the effigy of a Roman soldier in gala dress, but the relics within ft, as the inscription tells you, are those of St. Nazarius the Martyr, who marched under the bronze eagles of Caesar's legions. When you realize that this Saint was baptized by St. Linus, the Pope who succeeded St. Peter, you feel you are looking through a window into history. You are looking at a link between Tremont Street and the Appian Way, between the Church of the subways and the Church of the Catacombs. Tip-toe now to the right and there stands before you with all the quiet dignity of death, the altar of the Faithful Departed. It is a vivid mosaic of Purgatory and was dedicated after the First World War as a memorial to the men who perished so young on the field of glory, and who are forgotten so soon in the unvisited cemetery of the past. Where
Everyone Eventually Kneels ... But all these altars and adornments are to the Mission Church only what the eyebrows and eyelashes are to the eye, attractive but not essential. The apple of the eye, the sparkling pupil is the shrine. Every hour that the church is open you will find people lifting pleading faces before the picture of Our Mother of Perpetual Help. Framed in burning tropical gold, shooting forth a sunburst of mellow rays, the Picture reminds you how help, Perpetual Help, has gone forth from it into every area of human life, from mortgages to marriages, from examinations to temptations. Never mind the vases of bright flowers on the Shrine altar; other shrines have these. Look to the left hand corner, and you see something which may stop you like a shot. Two gaunt grim vases of crutches and canes and casts. For this is the hallowed spot where cripples have left their crutches, and the blind have found their sight, and grace runs by like a shining river, and prayers rise up like a fountain, and favors come down like a flood! Heaven's Grace and Grace Hanley ... The silver plaque gleaming on one pyramid of crutches was placed there by Colonel P.T. Hanley of Civil War fame in gratitude for the cure of his daughter, Grace. When Grace was but four years old, a fall had shattered her spine. From then on she was a helpless cripple, her body boxed in a cast and her legs hobbling on painful crutches. For years, her parents shutled her from doctor to doctor, always hoping. They made Novena after Novena at the Shrine, always praying. And then, on the eighteenth of August, 1883, on the last day of one more Novena, when Grace herself was praying with them, suddenly she gave her crutches to her brother, walked over to the Shrine, thanked Our Lady, and marched down the aisle and out of the church. The fact that the pathetic condition was so well known in the neighborhood made the dramatic cure a breathless wonder throughout Boston. More cures followed just at that time, and newspapers across the country hailed the Mission Church Shrine as 'Lourdes in the Land of the Puritans.' Today, more than fourscore years later, devotions in honor of the Mother of Perpetual Help are held at the Shrine every Wednesday of the year. People from Charlestown and Chelsea, from Winchester and Winthrop, from North Reading and South Natick, from East Weymouth and West Newton, pour down the marble aisles, and stir the lofty arches with the prayers and hymns to Our Mother of Perpetual Help. They love it as a golden half-hour that spiritualizes a grimy, work-a-day week. Altogether the eight services each Wednesday probably constitute the largest week day congregation in the East. Bad Luck Inside the House ... All this time you have probably been wondering about the umbrella. After all, how often do you see a gorgeous umbrella standing half-opened in a church? But this is no ordinary church. Back in December, 1954, when the sun of the Marian Year was setting, its scarlet and gold sunset fell upon the Mission Church, and is still captured in that rich Ombrellino. Because that year on December 8th, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, through the intercession of Cardinal Cushing, His Holiness Pius Xii raised the Mission Church to the regal rank of a Basilica. What a medal is to a man, what an orchid is to a woman, what an honorary degree is to a distinguished alumnus, you might say that the title "Basilica' is to a church. But, how rare an honor this is, you may surmise from the fact that while there are more than a hundred Cathedrals scattered across these United States, there are scarcely a dozen Basilicas. To merit that title the church must have: first, imposing architecture; secondly, impressive throngs; thirdly, an important spiritual treasure. On any Wednesday evening, you ran see this trio verified: The tremendous crowds pouring toward the illuminated spires, held up like the candies of giant acolytes, to pray before the Miraculous Picture of Our Mother of Perpetual Help. That Richly Embroidered Parasol... But, about the Umbrellino. You see, only the Pope can designate a church a Basilica, and when he does so, it becomes, as it were, his church. And custom requires that an ornate Umbrella of red and gold be always kept half opened in the church as a sign that priests and people are ever eager to welcome His Holiness, should he come. In that event he would be escorted into the Basilica, with this colorful canopy held over his person, as a shield against the burning arrows of the sun or the silver lances of the rain. At the opposite end of the sanctuary stands the slimmer brother of the Ombrellino, the portable Belfry. This is a graceful frame of gilded wood mounted on a staff covered with wind colored velvet. In the center swings a tiny bell whose thin note symbolically summons the faithful to meet the approaching Pontiff. In practice both the Umbrella and the Belfry are but picturesque pensioners in the Limbo of pious heraldry. Sometimes the red and gold make you think of a retired Swiss Guard and his halberg, proud on rare occasions to brush off the old medals and march in a parade. Because at Corpus Christi, on Holy Thursday, at the May procession- - in fact whenever a procession winds around the aisles of the Mission Church, you can see, swaying over the white dresses and dark suits of the marchers, the Umbrella and the Bell. Basilica Means Royal Palace ... A Basilica also has a right to its own coat of arms, and ours is emblazoned on the pillar opposite the pulpit. In humbler black and white the same device is stamped on our baptismal certificates, diplomas, etc. but Basilica or not, this great church will probably always be known as the Mission Church. For this temple is no formal, empty, musty monument; it has people in its pews every hour of every day. The cherry-red glow of its Tabernacle light reminds you that here is a home for the soul, with a warm, welcoming fireside -- a home whose gentle Master is Jesus, and whose Lady of the House is Mary, the Mother of Perpetual Help. The Picture and the Person ... As you leave, notice at the end of the Gospel aisle the rich painting that portrays Pope Pius IX giving over the original picture of Our Mother of Perpetual Help to the care of the Redemptorists. And over the opposite aisle you can see in the delicate pastel-tints of the springtime meadow, the Apparition of Our Lady at Fatima. Each episode reminds us that the power of Mary in one guise or another still comes marching down the centuries. Why not prove it for yourself by making a Novena of Nine Wednesdays? During that blessed half-hour you will find that care slips from your shoulder like a heavy sack, and peace pours in like sunlight through the windows of your soul, because the Shrine is a hallowed spot, chosen by Mary Herself for reasons no man can say. What many men can tell you though, is, that on every Wednesday of the year, Angels pass one another on unseen golden ladders above the Shrine, carrying urgent petitions up, bringing merciful answers down. For, Mary still is what she called herself centuries ago, the Mother of Perpetual Help! Note: Boston's Beautiful Basilica was first published by the Mission Church Press March 29, 1960. This is a 1995 reprint of that original publication.
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