Santa maria del mar: Santa Maria del Mar Catholic Church

Santa Maria del Mar Catholic Church

    • Mass Times

    • Bulletins

    • Donation

    • Bishop’s Annual Appeal Video 2022

    • Our Liturgical Team:

      Deacon Bob, Fr. Manny, Deacon John and Deacon Manny

      • Message from our Pastor

    • State of the Parish Addresses 

      • State of the Parish #3 June 2021
      • State of the Parish #4 December 2021
      • State of the Parish #5 June 2022

    • Online Mass Links and Adoration

      • Vatican News Live Streaming Pope Francis’ Masses  
      • Catholic TV Mass  
      • University of Notre Dame Masses  
      • St. Patrick’s Cathedral New York 
      • Adorecast – Live Perpetual Adoration 
      • San Fernando Cathedral San Antonio – Mass in Spanish
      • Word On Fire Daily Masses 

    • Spiritual Communion

      In the absence of Mass and the Eucharist, the faithful are encouraged to make a “Spiritual Communion” through the prayer of the Most Holy Redeemer (Anima Christi), the prayer of Self-Offering (Suscipe), or by praying the prayer below:

      My Jesus,
      I believe that You
           are present in the Most Holy Sacrament.
      I love You above all things,
           and I desire to receive You into my soul.
      Since I cannot at this moment
          receive You sacramentally,
          come at least spiritually into my heart.
      I embrace You as if You were already there
      and unite myself wholly to You.
      Never permit me to be separated from You. Amen.

    • “When we cannot go to the church, let us turn towards the tabernacle; no wall can shut us out from the good God.” – St. John Vianney

    • Daily Catholic Readings

      We encourage you and your family to reflect on the daily readings, especially on Sundays. You can access the readings on USCCB’s website:

      • English
      • Spanish

      You may also take advantage of these
      additional publications. 
      The following publishers have generously made their resources available to support prayer during these difficult days. We thank them for their generosity and pastoral concern.

      • Dominican Friars on Sunday Readings
      • Liturgical Press: Give Us This Day
      • Magnificat:
        • English
        • Spanish
      • Bayard: Living with Christ
      • The Word Among Us
        • English
        • Spanish

    • Welcome to Santa Maria del Mar!

    • Calling all Teens!  

      Service Day!  February 25, 2023 

      10am-3pm (Lunch included)

    • Join one of our Parish Ministries!!!

      Parish Ministry Handbook

      • Ministry Handbook 2022

    • facebook.com/facebook”>Facebook

    • Welcome

      Santa Maria del Mar Mission Statement

      Centered in the Eucharist and inspired by Mary’s “yes,” we, the family of Santa Maria del Mar Catholic Church, joyfully respond to God’s mercy and love with prayer, hospitality, formation, and service. Everyone is welcome—You are God’s beloved!

       

    • Fr. Manny is available for phone calls during this time Wednesdays 9:30 – 12:30, Thursday and Friday 9 am – 12 noon

      Please call the office at
      386-439-2791 to schedule
       

    • Today’s Readings

    • Santa Maria del Mar Catholic Church

    • Mass Times

    • Bulletins

    • Donation

    • Bishop’s Annual Appeal Video 2022

    • Our Liturgical Team:

      Deacon Bob, Fr. Manny, Deacon John and Deacon Manny

      • Message from our Pastor

    • State of the Parish Addresses 

      • State of the Parish #3 June 2021
      • State of the Parish #4 December 2021
      • State of the Parish #5 June 2022

    • Online Mass Links and Adoration

      • Vatican News Live Streaming Pope Francis’ Masses  
      • Catholic TV Mass  
      • University of Notre Dame Masses  
      • St. Patrick’s Cathedral New York 
      • Adorecast – Live Perpetual Adoration 
      • San Fernando Cathedral San Antonio – Mass in Spanish
      • Word On Fire Daily Masses 

    • Spiritual Communion

      In the absence of Mass and the Eucharist, the faithful are encouraged to make a “Spiritual Communion” through the prayer of the Most Holy Redeemer (Anima Christi), the prayer of Self-Offering (Suscipe), or by praying the prayer below:

      My Jesus,
      I believe that You
           are present in the Most Holy Sacrament.
      I love You above all things,
           and I desire to receive You into my soul.
      Since I cannot at this moment
          receive You sacramentally,
          come at least spiritually into my heart.
      I embrace You as if You were already there
      and unite myself wholly to You.
      Never permit me to be separated from You. Amen.

    • “When we cannot go to the church, let us turn towards the tabernacle; no wall can shut us out from the good God.” – St. John Vianney

    • Daily Catholic Readings

      We encourage you and your family to reflect on the daily readings, especially on Sundays. You can access the readings on USCCB’s website:

      • English
      • Spanish

      You may also take advantage of these
      additional publications. 
      The following publishers have generously made their resources available to support prayer during these difficult days. We thank them for their generosity and pastoral concern.

      • Dominican Friars on Sunday Readings
      • Liturgical Press: Give Us This Day
      • Magnificat:
        • English
        • Spanish
      • Bayard: Living with Christ
      • The Word Among Us
        • English
        • Spanish

    • Welcome to Santa Maria del Mar!

    • Calling all Teens!  

      Service Day!  February 25, 2023 

      10am-3pm (Lunch included)

    • Join one of our Parish Ministries!!!

      Parish Ministry Handbook

      • Ministry Handbook 2022

    • facebook.com/facebook”>Facebook

    • Welcome

      Santa Maria del Mar Mission Statement

      Centered in the Eucharist and inspired by Mary’s “yes,” we, the family of Santa Maria del Mar Catholic Church, joyfully respond to God’s mercy and love with prayer, hospitality, formation, and service. Everyone is welcome—You are God’s beloved!

       

    • Fr. Manny is available for phone calls during this time Wednesdays 9:30 – 12:30, Thursday and Friday 9 am – 12 noon

      Please call the office at
      386-439-2791 to schedule
       

    • Today’s Readings

    • Santa Maria del Mar – the main church in El Born

    Santa Maria del Mar – one of the few surviving completed Catalan Gothic churches that have survived to this day, is located in the Born Ribera area. This church was erected in a very short time in the XIV century with public money: donations were collected by sailors who did not skimp on their modest means to allocate part for the construction of the building of Santa Maria del Mar, and all the merchant guilds contributed to the construction.

    History

    The building was first known in the second half of the 14th century. The heyday of Catalonia came, the period of the construction of many architectural monuments.

    Santa Maria del Mar was named after the patron saint of sailors, Saint Mary.

    The construction was initiated by Bernat Lhul, then archdean of the church. The king of Aragon, Alfonso IV, laid the first stone in the masonry (an inscription on the facade, preserved from that time, testifies to this).

    The whole world managed to create the Church of Santa Maria del Mar, which at that time was second in size only to the Cathedral of Barcelona. In terms of the beauty of the building, this Catalan shrine is in no way worse than the center of the Old Town.

    Architecture of the Church of Santa Maria del Mar

    Harmony and grace immediately draw attention to the ancient building of Santa Maria del Mar:

    1. The wide arched entrance with a rose window above it recalls the age of this beauty. The stained-glass windows dating back to the time of construction are unique.
    2. Gothic style is present in the design of the interior decoration of the Catalan temple in every detail.
    3. The figures of Jesus Christ on the throne and John the Baptist with the Virgin Mary, carrying their ideas to people who entered the church, have been preserved.
    4. The statues of St. Paul and Peter at the entrance are a real gem of Santa Maria del Mar.
    5. To the right of the entrance is an octagonal chapel where you can see the black image of the Virgin Mary.

    Architects all over the world pay tribute to the creator of the church, because he managed to combine the best traditions of Catalan Gothic, a large volume of space and purity of form. There are no stucco moldings, unnecessary decorative elements, but at the same time everything is very appropriate and dignified.

    The altar is decorated with sculptures:

    • Coronation of Saint Mary
    • at the feet of the Madonna – a sailing ship that appeared here in the 15th century

    Santa Maria del Mar has excellent acoustics and concerts are often held. You can come to the church any day from 9.00 to 20.00, admission is free, there is a break from 13.00 to 16.30.

    Useful information

    More about the entrance, the cost of visiting the church, its address and schedule.

    Coming to Barcelona and dreaming of seeing more local attractions? By purchasing tickets in advance online, you will save time and avoid queues at the entrance. You can do this at the link on the official ticket platform.

    Entrance to Santa Maria del Mar

    Entrance to this Catalan church is free. But climbing to the roof and towers costs 8.50 euros.

    Schedule

    You can get inside the church from 9:00 to 13:00 and from 17:00 to 20:30 on weekdays.

    Weekends and holidays from 10:00 to 14:00 and from 17:00 to 20:00.

    How to get to the Church of Santa Maria del Mar

    Jaume I metro station or Barceloneta metro station, yellow line L4.

    Address

    Plaça de Santa Maria, 1, Barcelona.

    Location of the Church of Santa Maria del Mar

    • How to avoid queues at Barcelona attractions. Tickets for the Sagrada Familia and Park Güell skip the line.
    • How not to be deceived by local taxi drivers. Order a taxi in advance with fixed rates online. The most reliable service for ordering a taxi is KiwiTaxi .
    • Excursions in Barcelona with locals will help you get to know this city for real. The best way to get comfortable in an unfamiliar city is to walk around it with a person who has lived here for many years.
    • We advise you to take out travel insurance so that there are no unpleasant surprises while traveling to Barcelona.
    • Barcelona City Pass is a one-stop card that makes organizing your holiday in Barcelona easier and saves you a lot of time and money.
    • Hotels in Barcelona: is our selection and recommendations.
    • Bus Turistic is a tourist bus and a great way to get to all the necessary monuments of Barcelona quickly, with a breeze and comfort.
    • Drimsim is a universal international SIM card and a free travel application. Best prices, fast internet and worldwide calls.

    Church of Santa Maria del Mar – barcelona-excursii

    The Gothic church of Santa Maria del Mar, also known as the “Naval Cathedral of Barcelona” is one of the must-see sights of the Catalan
    capital Cities.

    Of course, if I, a Barcelona guide with extensive experience, were asked: which of the churches in Barcelona seems to you the most unusual? I would answer without hesitation:
    Sagrada Familia!

    This great project Antoni Gaudí I would call the most unusual church not only in
    Barcelona, ​​but also on the whole planet Earth – and those who have been in our city and visited the Sagrada Familia, I certainly think they will agree with this.

    The most unusual, grandiose, amazing, majestic – you can add a dozen more superlative epithets here, and all of them will be more than appropriate. This is the Sagrada Familia
    the great and unfinished masterpiece of Gaudi, which, hopefully, will still be completed in the next twenty years.

    But if the question were put a little differently: which of the old churches in Barcelona deserves attention in the first place and do you personally like it? – I would immediately say: Santa Maria del Mar.

    The Church of St. Mary on the Sea, the Naval Cathedral of Barcelona, ​​as this temple is sometimes called, is one of the most amazing Gothic structures not only in Barcelona, ​​but in all old Europe – and
    After all, we travel a lot and actively, and therefore there is something to compare with.

    I declare responsibly: if you look at anything in Old Barcelona without hesitation and immediately, then this particular church. And so, after listening to my recommendations, leaving aside the Gothic Quarter with its
    Cathedral, you will delve into the La Ribera area along the medieval street of the Goldsmiths, which will lead you to the main facade of the temple.

    I have no doubt that at first glance you will be greatly puzzled.

    Where are they, tall carved spiers piercing the Barcelona sky? Where are the slender buttresses crowned with carved pinnacles? Where swift flying buttresses, like the ribs of a huge skeleton – and
    still elegant? Where is the abundance of stone lace, which is so famous for Gothic?

    Accustomed to French style patterns (let’s not forget, Gothic is a style that originated in the north of France), you will not find anything like this when contemplating the church of Santa Maria del Mar from the outside.

    Everywhere are vast planes with a minimum amount of decorations. Stone, stone, stone – too much stone: it hangs over you like a solid wall and seems to threaten to crush you.

    The bell towers, octagonal at the base, are small – only forty meters high – and end not with spiers, but with perfectly evenly cut and horizontal, like a table, finials.
    The buttresses are massive, primitive and crude.

    The main facade is emphatically horizontal – pay attention to the stone belts, as if purposely grounding this mass of stone.

    Yes, there is a huge stained-glass rose window, yes, there are lancet arches and stained-glass windows (by the way, there could be more of them, you note) – but this is all the similarity with the Gothic we are used to and
    ends.

    Is that all? What are you telling us here? So you exclaim indignantly. We have seen more beautiful churches! But
    wait to draw conclusions. Just go inside the church – and you will immediately understand everything. And freeze for a while, unable to explain to yourself how
    such gloomy, massive walls rooted into the ground could hide so much space and light?

    And how does this space manage to exist for seven hundred years, relying only on the lightest web of ribs and columns? So I once: I entered this temple and could not believe my eyes, amazed by what I saw.

    In Spain or Europe there are temples larger than Barcelona’s church of Santa Maria del Mar, but no temple is larger. Paradox – and yet, he has his own explanation. One of the key
    features of the Catalan Gothic is that, if the church is three-aisled (that is, its interior space is divided by two longitudinal rows of columns), the height of the side aisles
    will be almost equal to the height of the central one.

    For comparison, in very many French Gothic churches, the side naves are half as low, which is why the internal volume of the temple is also smaller. In the church of Santa Maria del Mar, the height of the central nave, from
    masonry floor to the keystone, will be 33 meters, and the height of the side – 27.

    Gothic church of Santa Maria del Mar

    The numbers, as we see, are very close, and this is one of the clues to this feeling of huge volume, which embraces everyone who crosses the threshold of the church. Alone but not
    the only one.

    The second clue is the columns. In the church of Santa Maria del Mar, you will not find massive, solid, oak-like pillars called “bundles of columns” – as, for example, in
    Notre Dame de Paris. No!

    The columns here are very simple, octagonal in cross section, seeming unnecessarily thin and slender for a structure of this magnitude. And – with the widest among all the Gothic churches in Europe
    step: the distance between them is 13 meters.

    However, everything can be measured, weighed, counted – and explained scientifically with the help of exact numbers. It is impossible to understand one thing – how it was possible to build this miracle in the distant and gloomy 14th century, moreover,
    erect in record time: March 25, 1329the king of Aragon, Alfonso the Meek, laid the first stone in the foundation of the temple, and on November 3, 1383, after some half a century, the construction was
    completed.

    And this despite the fact that in 1379, shortly before Christmas, there was a fire that destroyed part of the structures already erected.

    There is also an explanation for this truly incredible pace of construction: they built a church for all the seaside, rapidly developing and growing rich due to maritime trade, the La Ribera region.
    They were built in an effort to outshine the Cathedral of Barcelona, ​​which was being built at the same time, a temple for counts, kings and high clerics.

    And Santa Maria del Mar was supposed to be, first of all, a church for simpler people, for artisans, merchants and sailors, and therefore all the inhabitants of Ribera – from a wealthy merchant from Montcada Street to
    port loader – took an active part in the construction of “their own, naval Cathedral”.

    By the way, it was the port loaders who, on their backs, dragged all the stone necessary for the construction of the temple from the Royal Quarries on Montjuic. Otherwise, how
    a feat, you can’t call it.

    It is not for nothing that the gates of the main portal are still decorated with bronze figures of loaders, bent into three deaths under heavy stone blocks.

    It is impossible not to mention the most talented architect who owns the project – Berenguer de Montagut.

    It is known for certain that it is most directly related to at least three great Gothic churches: the cathedral of the city of Manresa (Catalonia),
    the Cathedral of Palma de Mallorca and our Santa Maria del Mar.

    Each of these churches is beautiful in its own way, and it’s good that the name of the architect has not sunk into oblivion – it’s known that the first Gothic architects remained forever
    nameless.

    And the name of another person who begged for alms on the steps of the church of Santa Maria del Mar in the 16th century became famous all over the world! Meet Ignatius Loyola, founder and first
    general of the most powerful religious community on planet Earth – the Jesuit order.