By Nadja Drost
In November, it’s Our Lady of Divine Providence. December is saved for Lady Guadalupe. January celebrates Santo Niño. And so it goes at St. Cecilia’s Church in East Harlem, where barely a month goes by before the congregation is celebrating another holiday for a revered saint.
As churchgoers from countries such as Ecuador, Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and the Philippines fill the pews of this Roman Catholic church, their patron saints are filling every altar top and inch of available wall space.
“We used to joke we were looking forward to Lent coming because the parties would end,” said Rev. Francis Skelly who was the priest at St. Cecilia’s until 2005.
But recognizing the many saints at this church isn’t just about statues and feasts and dances: it’s a way for the members of this diverse congregation to express their faith and cultural identity at the same time.
Rev. James Gilmour, who rejoined the parish as their priest in 2005 after serving in Baltimore and Paraguay, hopes to encourage his largely-immigrant congregation to participate in the church by embracing the customs of their home countries. That means giving their saints wall space in the church and airtime in the services.
“We’re honoring each culture who makes up the mosaic of the church…Their spirituality and devotion broadens the spirituality of the community,” said Gilmour.
If the number of saints revered are any measure, St. Cecilia’s church can’t handle much more devotion.
There’s Peruvian-Dominican St. Martin de Porres, revered by African-Americans. The Dominicans put flowers at the foot of the Virgin of Altagracia. Mariachi bands gear up for the celebration of the Virgin of Guadalupe Today, the church carries about 10 big celebrations for the saints worshiped by the church’s various cultures.
It wasn’t always that way.
When St. Cecilia’s church was founded in 1873, it served a primarily Irish and Italian community. By 1950, the neighborhood had become defined by its Afro-American and Puerto Rican residents. When the waves of Mexican immigrants started arriving in the 1990s, so too came their desire to celebrate their patron saint, the Virgin of Guadalupe.
Soon enough every group wanted their saint to have a space in the church, and a calendar date devoted to their worship, remembered Skelly, who now runs retreats at the San Alfonso Retreat House in New Jersey.
He wanted to show that “we were one church, but many people.” But he became faced with a surprising problem: “We’re running out of wall space… I don’t think we can afford to have another ethnic group in here,” he recalled joking.
The emerging competition between the devout was revealed through more and more expressions of their faith and their culture.
“Ideas built upon ideas,” Skelly explained. When, following a saint’s celebration, the Ecuadorians blocked the street with folkloric dancing, the Puerto Ricans decided they too wanted to fall into step come their celebration of the Lady of Divine Providence. Another time while celebrating Mass, Skelly noticed out of the corner of his eye that the baby Jesus had – by miracle or a determined group of Filipinos – landed himself by the front altar.
Today, the good-natured rivalry of the faithful makes for an active parish. Honoring patron saints is one way to help make newcomers “feel like it’s their church,” Gilmour said.
He looks after the service, but lets each group plan their celebration, often a feast rounded out with dancing.
The events can be a draw to St. Cecilia, like this month’s celebration of San Lorenzo, the first Filipino saint. “If you want to convene Filipinos in New York, invite them to a Catholic Church for a celebration,” said Tess Cerna, a Filipino parishioner attending the Mass.
Half of the packed church was filled by Filipinos, who make up only about 40 of St. Cecilia’s 900 or so parishioners. Many devotees came from other boroughs to walk down the church’s aisle and lay flowers down at the altar of San Lorenzo.
But the Filipinos weren’t the only ones in line. African-Americans, Hispanics and others joined them. And they were quick to follow the scent of a simmering feast into the basement.
The feasts not only satisfy the appetites of parishioners, but help bring together a diverse congregation. Churchgoers from various cultures and different neighborhood blocks and even boroughs find themselves seated at the same table.
Carmen Vizcarrondo, 63, began coming to St. Cecilia’s when she was just a 10-year-old girl growing up in a Puerto Rican family. Her favorite part of any saint’s celebration? “The eating of course!” she said over a plate of Filipino stew. “That’s why we do it anyway, to come and enjoy and see how each other celebrates their fiesta, as if it was in their country.”
The relationship between religious and cultural expression is an important one for many of St. Cecilia’s parish.
“I certainly think the kind of practice of honoring patron saints is an effort to link their identity as Catholics with their identity as an Ecuadorian, Peruvian or Mexican,” said Margaret Steinfels, co-director of the Fordham Center on Religion and Culture.
St. Cecilia’s church has managed to strengthen the connection between their members’ faith and their culture without isolating one group from another. And in fact, celebrating that link has taken on a contagious fervor.
Skelly recalled his surprise when he noticed many African-American church members at a special mass at St. Cecilia in honor of the Mexican Virgin of Guadalupe.
“Why are you here?” he asked, knowing they couldn’t understand the Spanish service.
“Oh,” they answered, “we like the mariachi.”
The Harlem Chronicles 
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