Going to Church on Sunset Boulevard


Smack dab in the middle of Hollywood on Sunset Boulevard is Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church. This Jesuit-run church, which was constructed in 1927, though the parish dates to 1904, is huge and beautiful, inspired by the Italian Renaissance style. 


The church was within walking distance of my hotel. I went to Mass there on Friday, December 15.


The Mass was held in front of this side altar. The priest gave a good homily about how we may have our plans for the day, but God may have other plans for us. We need to try to follow God's plan and not think it's an intrusion.


The Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary: The Resurrection of Jesus, The Ascension of Jesus, The Descent of the Holy Spirit, The Assumption of Mary, and The Coronation of Mary, Queen of Heaven and Earth.


The parish serves people of many ethnicities. The Mexican flag hangs behind the shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe.




Such a quiet, peaceful, spiritual place amidst the worldliness of Hollywood.


There were many side shrines.


The Sacred Heart of Jesus is special to the Jesuits. When St. Margaret Mary Alacoque of Paray-le-Monial, France had visions of Jesus and his Sacred Heart, people were skeptical. God told her he would send her a perfect friend, which He did, St. Claude la Colombiere, a Jesuit priest who was assigned to be her spiritual director. Together, they worked to spread the devotion to the Sacred Heart.

Father James Martin, SJ, writes of the Sacred Heart in America Magazine, June 15, 2012

The Sacred Heart invites us to meditate on some of the most important questions in the spiritual life: In what ways did Jesus love his disciples and friends?  How did he love strangers and outcasts?  How was he able to love his enemies?  How did he show his love for humanity?  What would it mean to love like Jesus did?  What would it mean for me to have a heart like his?  How can my heart become more "sacred"?  For in the end, the Sacred Heart is about understanding Jesus’s love for us and inviting us to love others as Jesus did.

St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit order. In the book he is holding and on the stained glass window below on the right are the words, Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam, the Jesuit motto, meaning To the Greater Glory of God.



Jesuits: the Society of Jesus

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