Name of Church St. John the Baptist
Address 1015 Baker Street, Costa Mesa, CA 92626
Phone number 714-540-2214
Mass times Saturday: 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. (vigil); Sunday 8 a.m., 9:30 a.m., 11 am. & 5 p.m. 12:30 p.m. – Latin Tridentine Mass. Monday-Friday: 6:30 a.m., 8:30 a.m. & 5:30 p.m. Vietnamese Masses: Saturday, 6:30 p.m., Sunday 6:30 a.m. and 1st Fridays, 7 p.m. Spanish Mass: Sunday, 2 p.m. Holy days: visit the website, www.stjohnthebaptistcostamesa.org, or see the church bulletin. Please dress modestly; see the parish website for recommendations.
Confessions Monday – Thursday, 7:30 p.m. and Saturdays, 9 a.m.
Names of priests Staffed by the Norbertine priests of St. Michael’s Abbey: Father Augustine Puchner, pastor. Fathers Godfrey Bushmaker, Andrew Tue Tran Tue, and Claude Williams, parochial vicars. Father Robert Hodges, school chaplain. Father Vincent Gilmore, school rector. (To learn about St. Michael’s Abbey, please visit https://www.stmichaelsabbey.com/abbey/.) The priests are all faithful and reverent, and range in age from mid-30s to late-60s. All are good-natured and well educated, and give fine homilies. Father Claude, the youngest priest on the staff, celebrates the Tridentine Mass. (Ironically, the New Mass had been adopted throughout the Church before he was born.)
School Grades K-8.
Special events Weekday Liturgy of the Hours, 6 a.m., 7:15 a.m. & 5 p.m. (join the Norbertines in prayer). Weekday rosary, 7:30 a.m. Weekday Holy Hour 4-5 p.m. and 24-hour adoration 10th of the month, with the special intention of praying for vocations to the priesthood and religious life. Children’s adoration: 2nd Tuesdays, 3 p.m. Our Lady of Perpetual Help devotion: 6:10 p.m. Wednesdays. Rosary & Divine Mercy Chaplet for Priests: 1st Fridays, 3 p.m.
Special parish groups Knights of Columbus (enjoy their pancake breakfast on the 4th Sunday of the month), youth and young adult groups, Altar Society, Legion of Mary, Filipino-American Ministry, Saint Gianna Moms Group, Endow (group for women), Works of Mercy Club, Bible Study (Wednesday evenings with Alan Meister), St. Vincent de Paul Society.
Liturgy/Music Always reverent. Music by organ, cantors and/or choirs. The Tridentine liturgy is sung (Latin Schola).
Fellow parishioners Anglo, Hispanic and Vietnamese, all ages. Most are from nearby, although a few drive from farther away in search of orthodoxy and/or the Latin Tridentine Mass. See the website for information specific to the Spanish or Vietnamese ministry.
Parking Plenty of parking on the church and school grounds.
Acoustics Good.
Cry room No, but the vestibule is separated by glass.
Additional observations St. John the Baptist is a parish of the diocese of Orange. It is staffed by six Norbertine priests of St. Michael’s Abbey. It is an ideal Catholic parish in many ways, with both excellent priests and a beautiful interior. The centerpiece of the interior is its beautiful retablo, or altar piece, depicting Christ’s baptism by St. John the Baptist. (Visit the parish website for information on its relatively recent renovation and artwork: https://www.stjohnthebaptistcostamesa.org/about-us/.) The parish has andoration chapel in the rear of the church; the tabernacle is visible in both the main body of the church and the chapel. Alongside the church is a shrine of Our Lady of La Vang, of special significance to the Vietnamese community.
Pray God will continue to bless the Norbertines!
The Norbertines from St. Michael’s Abbey are very orthodox. One of their priests says a Mass and hears confessions every Sunday at my parish, St. Margaret’s in Oceanside — to help out our pastor. His homilies are amazing and he is a great confessor. Having a K-8 school is a big plus and a way to form children in the faith — the Catholic faith!
24/7 Adoration in a special Adoration chapel where the Holy Eucharist is reserved in a Tabernacle, and exposed except on Sundays during Mass times. And it is QUIET, something rarely found in other Adoration chapels in this area. You will always be fed not only the Body and Blood of Christ, but sound doctrine and dogma, even if it’s only a short sermon on a weekday. We are so blessed to have the Norbertine priests, not only at St. John the Baptist, but at other parishes where they offer a Mass or two on the weekend to help out the resident pastor. Pray for them; they have “kept the Faith” despite all the wreckovations and awful music other parishes have adopted.
Sounds like a blessing to have this parish. God bless them.
Love the beautiful retablo! God bless the Norbertines is right!
Now, here is courage: to say a regularly scheduled TLM in a true Catholic Church in the Diocese of Orange, the site of the truly awful “Crystal Cathedral” (where you will never see a regularly scheduled TLM).
How long will it be before B. Vann tries to stop the TLM at St. John the Baptist? All parishes should have a regularly scheduled TLM. Note that it is the youngest priest that is trained and motivated to say the TLM; not at all that surprising as the young are increasingly embracing the Mass of All Time (while the old guys cling to the N.O.). Pope Francis could not have been more wrong by referring to the TLM, and the allure of that Mass to Catholic youth, as a “fad”.
lSt. Mary’s by the Sea in Huntington Beach, not far from Costa Mesa, has had a regularly scheduled Latin Mass on every Sunday of the year, for many years. It is at noon, a sung Mass. A Norbertine priest offers it every week.
Went to Mass there this morning. Wonderful parish.
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I visited this parish earlier today for the Saturday Vigil Mass! The OF mass is very holy and reverent! We felt blessed to visit today. Thank you CCD for posting Churches worth driving to. This is very helpful. God bless you!