Lincoln Heights: Blessings

While in Lincoln Heights we stopped at Sacred Heart Church (est. 1897) for a few minutes and listened to the high school kids sing. The church was packed. It was noon-ish on a Wednesday. It was hard not to be charmed.

Sacred Heart School is across from the church. Karin tells the story of the mural here. It's about family and community, lives long and short and intertwined.

Manny estimates Lincoln Heights to be about 70% Hispanic (mostly of Mexican heritage), 20% Asian and 10% "everything else." Surely I'm generalizing, but 70% Hispanic/mostly Mexican is likely to mean a lot of Catholics.

Many of the markets in Lincoln Heights (except the Asian ones) have a representation of Our Lady of Guadalupe painted on the exterior. Always a lot of color; always Our Lady.

PLUS I CAN'T BELIEVE I FORGOT to include this in yesterday's post about Lincoln Heights architecture!

I haven't forgotten it's Thanksgiving, no indeed. I'm thankful every day for too many things to mention. Really, you don't want me to start. Once I get started I think of more and I can't stop.

So I'll just say here and in keeping with this post that I'm thankful for the diversity in our world and our nation, not to mention in Los Angeles and Pasadena and especially in my neighborhood of Northwest Pasadena. What a great place to live.

Happy Thanksgiving! May you have many blessings to count.

Madonna and the Military Church

This statue was erected a few years ago and is now proudly standing in front of the illuminated military church near Toruń's New Square.

Side Street Madonna

The stretch of Orange Grove Blvd. between Los Robles and Fair Oaks has Mexican restaurants, a Latin grocery, a hair salon and more. People live here, work here, get stuff done here. It's all a bit tattered--the only shiny thing besides the church is the new plant nursery on the corner of Orange Grove and Marengo. There's always a lot going on.

Google's street view photo, showing the north side of Orange Grove between Worcester and Marengo, must have been taken before I moved to Pasadena. The photo shows small homes. Now it's all storefronts.

The side streets go north and south into the neighborhoods. Just north of Orange Grove on a street called Worcester, a faded Madonna waits and watches in a meditative pose. I've driven by many times, and didn't notice until I finally stopped that she has little plastic stars glued into her thick, chipping paint. Someone must have thought the stars had value; many of them are missing.

Art like this abounds in Los Angeles, where Catholic Latin America makes its second home. Altadena Hiker did a couple of posts a while back featuring photos of murals along a downtown commute. East of West L.A., is always finding urban religious icons with which to haunt us. (Just look under "previous posts" and click on what intrigues you.)

Some of Pasadena's hidden treasures are more hidden than others.