Monday, February 6, 2017

Painted Churches of Texas III: St. John the Baptist

The church of St. John the Baptist in Ammannsville, TX may have been the smallest temple of God we visited during our excursion. Once again, the building was completed in the early 20th century (1919) for Slavic Americans and it was not the first structure for the community, the first and second churches having been destroyed ten years earlier by a hurricane and fires respectively. It is as wide as the two St. Mary parishes, but was not divided into aisles, giving it a very baroque openness. The pale pink color gives the church a unique tint in contrast to the airy cheer of St. Mary of the Assumption and the seriousness of St. Mary's of High Hill.

We prayed Saturday Vespers (first Vespers of Sunday might be more appropriate) according to the Tridentine arrangement. Given the emptiness of the church after visiting hours, we decided to sing everything from the Magnificat onwards aloud and in Latin, quite an exuberant thing to do!




3 comments:

  1. Did you go to the divinumofficium.com for the Tridentine Ordo?

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  2. I like the quote from proverbs. Atypical in a church to see anything other than the 'standard' quotes, and it is quite lovely.

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  3. My town has two parishes.
    My parish, that of st. Nikola Tavelić, was founded in 1969, and the process of building of the church was started in 1970, and all was finalized in 1997 when the church was consecrated. Throughout all this time there were always some constructions although the faithful could worship in 1972 already. Those were tough times. Communism and all.

    The older parish is the parish of martyrdom of st. John the Baptist (or popularly, st. John the Headcut). It's construction was started in 1800 and it was finished in 1802. Here it is.
    http://invest-in-slavonia.lar-v.com/images/festivali/41crkve/01zupanja/Zupanja-03.png

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