"St. Paul Church, Cambridge, Mass. - Description, Exterior and Interior"

"St. Paul Church, Cambridge, Mass. - Description, Exterior and Interior"

St. Paul's Catholic Church, Cambridge, Massachusetts

This booklet is a printed copy of an account of details of the building of St. Paul’s Catholic Church, currently located at the corner of Bow and Arrow Streets in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The new church building opened on Easter Sunday in 1923. This description of the details of the building was written by Rev. John J. Ryan, the pastor of St. Paul’s at the time, and printed for the dedication of the new church on October 13, 1924. In the foreword, Fr. Ryan writes that this booklet was published for the “inquiring public” at the “expressed wish” of William Henry Cardinal O’Connell, the Archbishop of Boston. Fr. Ryan notes that “the assurance of a booklet, explanatory of everything to be seen in their church, was welcome with joyous satisfaction” by parishioners and visitors of St. Paul’s.

The booklet contains descriptions of the architectural and artistic features of the church, including the exterior style and location, the bas-relief of the Ascension above the embellished altar, the scenes portrayed in paintings around the church, the saints represented in stained-glass windows and statues, the design of the Stations of the Cross, and more. Fr. Ryan notes various things about the church, from practical aspects such as the dimensions of the interior and the estimate that “more than one million bricks were used in construction,” to more theological aspects of the church, such as the religious meanings of symbols and the statement that “St. Paul’s is the formal expression of an unqualified belief in revealed religion and the Divinity of Christ.” The text also features nine pages each with a black and white photograph of the church, distributed throughout.

This copy of Fr. Ryan’s booklet is currently kept in the parish office at St. Paul’s.

Fr. John J. Ryan

St. Paul's Catholic Church

October 13, 1924

Ink on paper, 48 pages
8 1/2 x 11 x 1/8 in. (21.6 x 27.9 x 0.3 cm)

English