36. St. Gregory the Great

NOTE: In 2015 this church was part of a list of churches in danger of merging with other churches or closing altogether as part of the Archdiocese of New York's great closings & mergers of 2015. This doesn't seem to have happened and this church remains open for regular Masses and other events. If you have any news about this closure or lack thereof please feel free to write in the comments section at the bottom of this post.

(mass times & church info last updated 03/22/2016)
Address: 144 W. 90th St. (between Columbus & Amsterdam)
Phone: 212.724.9766
Weekend Mass Times:
Sat: 5:30pm (English)
Sun: 8am (English), 10am (Spanish), 11:30am (English), 1pm (French)
Weekday Mass Times:
Mon-Fri: 12pm (English)
Tue, Thu: 9am (Spanish)
Sat: 12pm (English)
First Fridays Masses: 12pm (English), 7pm (Spanish)

Confession:

Tue, Thu: 11:30am-12pm

Sat: 4:30pm-5:15pm

Exposition:

First Thursdays: 12:30pm-5pm

Miraculous Medal Novena & Benediction:

Mondays after the 12pm Mass
Links:
Official Website
St. Gregory the Great School
About St. Gregory the Great
Upper West Side Developments

There are strangers out there praying for me.

I must wonder if this is the sort of thing I had in mind when I began this blog?

Honestly, no.

All it was really was this sense that there were these 96 Catholic churches out there just waiting for me to walk inside of and I felt the need to register this act in some way - to record it. I did think about keeping a journal - but that process seemed somewhat internalized. I thought it better to begin a blog (something I knew very little of at the time.) Really it was just going to be info on the church and maybe a few random thoughts of mine from that week. Then when I got to the first church I thought I had surely better take a photo with my phone because there is just so much artwork and I need to do something further to remember the experience. Then I began writing and stuff just kind of came out - really now that I think of it hasn't this all been some kind of long confession? The blog title might just as well be Reconciliation - A Young Man's Turmoil in Discovering 96 Houses of God.

So I've confessed - my sins, my human nature, my drinking, my women, to myself, to my God, to the priests at some of these very churches. And has it mattered - have any of these confessions been worthwhile? No they have not. For some reason I cannot let go my sins. I'm not saying I was always continually committing them - but that in spite of the priests' absolutions and the knowledge of God's forgiveness, I wasn't forgiving myself of some of these things, I was holding onto the sins quite possibly because I felt I had little else to hold on to.

What a disaster of the human consciousness! To grasp something detrimental because there is nothing else within reach. Of course, there is always Something within reach, often closer than we think. So why do we fall? Why do we we fall so far below that which we are to be, into the very pits of hell, into the very depths of the unknown darkness. The dark, unseen, yet so much easier to reach for than at the light which absolutely calls to us - and we are blind and deaf and ignorant.

I write this blog and I go to these churches because, as Drusilla pointed out to me, God is tugging at me. He's actually screaming at me, lassoing me, throwing rocks nightly at my window, IMing me with "High Importance" messages, leaving voicemails, sending texts, shaking me awake and a bunch of other things. And I'm here and sometimes I listen. God is that strong force with the wee voice in the very back of my head which I learned once to listen to, always, but thusly learned that it's so very hard to hear.

Fallen Sparrow's blog is what I meant this blog to be if only I was a better writer, researcher and soul. Thank you again, Fallen Sparrow, for your words and yours, Dawn Reader - I'm not sure when you first came across my ramblings, or when your prayers started, but they began working right off, I daresay. (By the way, the Memorare is one of my very favorite prayers and I say it at least once daily - and when I do say it I am always reminded of a green field in Kentucky when I first prayed it with such intensity and so very real intentions.)

In that time between my first Memorare (first real one, anyway) and yours', many prayers have been answered and many more have been prayed. Lately these days inside a church, or sitting somewhere else, I ask three things of God, consistently, and that these things be answered if it be His will. That my monsters cease tormenting me; that if there is a woman out there for me I may find her and treat her well and be faithful and good and devoted and kind; and for God to point me in the direction He requires of me, and set me in a place I know that I am serving his will, and doing some kind of good.

For now at least it seems as if the second prayer has been answered.

She is different than the others and I am different for knowing her and wanting to be true to her. She is sweet and seemingly all the good things I have sought after. What am I to her, what will I be?

A few weeks ago I finally fell free of my sins from before, releasing them to God as we should all learn to do. I gave them up. Along with my sins I gave away those portions of my past I have so desperately and mistakenly clung to. I have now repented and now no longer wish to look back at my past with any sort of yearning - that too is some kind of sin.

For now I will only look forward - to some kind of path, some kind of life, some kind of good doing. I will begin to look forward towards her. And I will look forward always to God.

I apologize to all those still reading any of this who are interested in actual information about St. Gregory's as opposed to my silly ramblings - which have gone on long enough, don't you think?

This is a nice first floor/basement church with a school building sitting atop it. The ceiling is flat and you do not find the majesty of the vaulted high ceilings you find in other churches, but you do find a wonderful mural of many saints on the wall behind the altar. The priest this Sunday (and I apologize I do not know who it was,) an older gentleman, spoke solidly and talked about Ingrid Betancourt - what a brave woman was she.

The singing of the choir was enchanting - again something medieval and/or Narnian about it. The song which caught the bulk of my attention was My Soul in Stillness Waits. Something about the tune and the tone always grabs me - it's serious, and mystic.

I sat near the stained glass of the right side of the building, occasionally looking up at The Last Supper, not noticing Judas slinking away into the dark - and then he was all that I noticed.

I felt better at this church than I have felt at any of these churches in a long time. Perhaps it was the prospect of some new life I see before me. Because we bless ourselves with holy water upon entering and exiting the church each week at Mass, and celebrate the Eucharist and go through Jesus' life and resurrection - isn't this the way we should leave Mass every week - a prospect of some new kind of life?

But this week I feel it stronger than perhaps how I should feel it each week. I feel relieved - and blessed - and happy - and strong - and faithful.

But life is hard and I know that in the past I have been a wreck, and perhaps wrecked others. Even though I feel a change coming on does not mean that I won't simply slip back into the habits of my old ways - I know that this is all but certain to happen - and I hate that, and I don't know if I am prepared. I am surely to fall along the way.

And when I do fall, and oh I will fall so badly, I will feel myself forced in the very least to record it here, for you my brothers and sisters to read and to see and to witness - as God above witnesses. And in the meantime, please, if you will, keep up your prayers for me, as I desperately am in need, as I attempt this existence, as I wander from church to church still seeking that which I do not yet find within, in this great and terrible place, chaos mounting in other lands, and I, here, endeavoring to calm the chaos of my heart to bring stillness to my soul that I may pass it on to others. This is it, this is what will happen, this is what I have.

Good or bad this is my New York, my experience, my life, my love, my God.

My Soul In Stillness Waits, by Marty Haugen

For you, O lord, my soul in stillness waits. Truly my hope is in you.

O Lord of Light, our only hope of glory, your radiance shines in all who look to you. Come light the hearts of all in dark and shadow.

O Spring of Joy, rain down upon our spirits. Our thirsty hearts are yearning for your Word. Come, make us whole; be comfort to our hearts.

O Root of Life, implant your seed within us, and in your advent draw us all to you, our hope reborn in dying and in rising.

O Key of Knowledge, guide us in our pilgrimage, We ever seek, yet unfulfilled remain. Open to us the pathway of your peace.

Come, let us bow before the God who made us. Let every heart be opened to the Lord, for we are all the people of his hand.

Here we shall meet the makers of the heavens, creator of the mountains and the seas, Lord of the stars and present to us now.

For you, O lord, my soul in stillness waits. Truly my hope is in you.

34. St. Elizabeth

(mass times & church info last updated 04/04/2016)
Address: 268 Wadsworth Ave. (@ 187th St.)
Phone: 212.568.8803
Weekend Mass Times: 
Sat: 5pm (English), 7:30pm (Spanish)
Sun: 8am (Spanish), 9:30am (English), 11am (Spanish), 12:45pm (English)
Weekday Mass Times: 
Mon-Fri: 9am (English), 12pm (Spanish), 7:30pm (Spanish)
Saturday: 9am (Bilingual Spanish/English)
Confession:
Sat: 3:45pm-4:45pm, 6:45pm-7:15pm
Links:
Official Website
About the Organ
About the School
About St. Elizabeth

I am living a lie.

Before that, my experience at St. Elizabeth's this week:

There are so many great big big churches located uptown. In a way, they are all similar - all seem to have had their heyday a while back, they are massive and are now largely vacant and rundown - at least many of the English services - I can't safely say this is true for the various other language masses offered. I guess I could group them all together like that - but I have to realize that it is amazing they are all there at all. Each with an exterior gorgeousness and a truly beautiful inner soul. And some devout faithful gathering there each week and some everyday to receive the sacraments - that too is beautiful. I may concentrate on these uptown churches for awhile to see what I can come up with there - to see if what I am looking for is concealed somewhere in the cavernous space of these upper Manhattan spiritual treasure coves.

Then there is me and my lie...

My lie is my conceit.
If ever I had cause to think that I was so much more than what I am; and prideful enough to consider myself above others and better than some places and certain lifestyles; or arrogant so much to think myself perfect in ways big and small (the smallest of these instances being much too big,) regarding all my undertakings beyond scrutiny - then I was wrong in the deepest most sincerest way one can be wrong. Wrong without barriers or guidelines. Wrong without constraint.

My lie is my city.
What is this place? The epitome of the modern age and modern America? It's a money pit consumed with itself and everyone coming in (just as the immigrants of yesterday) falls into line quickly enough with it's consumption and their self-consumption. We are full of ourselves as we make fools of ourselves.

My lie is my vices.
I drink because I want to see something more beautiful than what is. And when the drunk is past, and the hangover comes full throttle, or even in the midst of the night before's chaotic celebratory rhetoric - I can still somehow see that I've missed it. Done it all wrong. That there is more to it and I somehow just misstep. Always there is wonderful (disastrous!) escape calling out to me.

My actions towards girls have not always been so favorable either - and I have been wrong each time I've entered into relationships with such sweet beings and held such dark misgivings and harbored such infidelities in the back recesses of my mind or followed through with such immoral actions.

And I have to attempt to morally straighten myself out and pray to God for assistance.

But I wonder sometimes can God too be a vice if taken the wrong way?

My lie is my search.
Where have I been going and what have I been doing? I am lost at a crossroads and no longer know the right path nor remember from which I came. I'm atop a bridge, stuck in the middle, and the decision if I should venture onward or decide to head back escapes me. I am looking under rocks for profundity that can only begin to fit within the depths of the seas or the infinity of the skies.

My lie is my demons.
They prey on me and I know not if they are even there. I am mocked and pitied. Inside of me I see them the next room over and I cannot join them and this too I know not why. I cannot escape them as I cannot escape myself - and this too is my lie.

I am an indigent glutton; a dessicated drunk; a heedless seer.

"...they take and that they take in turn and they give you nothing real for yourself in return and when they've used you and they've broken you and wasted all your money and cast your shell aside and when they've bought you and they've sold you and they've billed you for the pleasure...some people have got no pride they do not understand the Urgency of life..."

-Morrisey

32. Our Lady of Peace (CLOSED, but under review)

NOTE: In 2015 this church closed down and was merged into St. John the Evangelist Church as part of the Archdiocese of New York's great closings & mergers of 2015. Only St. John's will remain open for regular Masses and other events. This combined parish is called St. John the Evangelist-Our Lady of Peace Church. However, the parishioners of Our Lady of Peace have been working diligently to prevent their church closure and to remain open to continue their mission to save their beautiful and landmarked church. I applaud this effort as this was one of my favorite churches I visited during my journey, one which gave me much peace. If you wish to help the good folks of Our Lady of Peace, you can find out more about their progress here, or sign this petition to help save the church or join their Facebook page.

(church info last updated 03/25/2016)
Address: 237 East 62nd Street (between 2nd & 3rd sts.)
Phone: 212.838.3189
Links:
Our Lady of Peace Old Website
New Official Parish Website
About the Organ

Another weird experience in church this week, this time verified by a friend in attendance with me. It was just a strange vibe. I decided to go to Saturday Mass because I felt I needed to go to Confession. As always, I misjudged my time allowance and ended up arriving too late for Confession, but right in time for Mass. This church is small and decorated beautifully. It (seems to me) shares Eastern and Gothic decor - but I may be very wrong. The choir and music were also very beautiful - remember how I spoke of churches sometimes carrying me off into that Narnian feeling? The music here accomplished that verily - there was something medieval about it.


I'm not sure how much wisdom or truth or anything of the sort exists in this blog - it's basically a record I keep for myself of churches visited (as well as Mass times, logistics, etc.) and I use it quite often on the go to determine where nearby churches are and when I can attend. I'm not sure who out there is reading my often mediocre writings and dribblings about my typical NYC existence and the base fact that I attend Mass each week - or my slow journey towards peace. I realize though that the best part of this blog is for me - and it does not happen when writing these entries or uploading any of these photos - it happens each time I enter one of these churches and discover a new place of peace, palace of sanctuary. That is the time that is best - and whatever my writing skills are, they suffer from not being able to detail to you, the virtual reader, what I really felt or went through upon entering and hearing the music; or the emotion I sometimes feel during the Eucharist; or the peace that falls over me towards the end of each Mass. These are the truths and wisdoms and beauties I obtain from this entire experience - and I wish I could somehow share that across this blog all the better than I do.


And I highly suggest you do the same. If you live in the city - visit some of these grand and majestic places (no matter what the actual size.) And if you live elsewhere, visit the different houses of God in your own village, town, city, metropolis, country. Sometimes, if you feel yourself spiritually stagnant - a new place of worship - even for one weekend - is enough to revitalize oneself and help you remember the fundamentals of why you go in the first place.

All that said, I realize over my time going to these various churches (these magnificent places and I love them and they offer me welcome and a kind of sustenance I can't describe) I have missed out on that community aspect of faith - of belonging to a church and a parish and a people. This is an excercise in faith and discovery, and lately I have discovered it is a lonely one. There are so many great places I travel to in this city, up and down the subway lines, through tunnels, trains under water, buses across the cityscape - and so often so many of all these activities are so lonesome. New York is a great city, a friendly city, a magnificent and crazy and wonderful and terrible place. But New York can be a lonely city.

30. St. Joseph (Greenwich Village & NYU)

(mass times & church info last updated 04/24/2016)

Address: 371 Sixth Avenue
Phone: 212-741-1274
Weekend Mass Times: 
Sat: 5:30pm (English)
Sun: 9am, 11:30am, 6pm (NYU Student Mass) (all English)
Weekday Mass Times: 
Mon-Sat: 12:10pm (English)
Mon-Fri: 5:15pm (English, during the Academic year at the John Henry Cardinal Newman Chapel)
Confession: Sat: 4:30pm-5:15pm
Rosary: 2nd Mondays after the 12:10pm Mass
Links:
Official Website
Wikipedia Entry about the Church
Various NY Times articles
About St. Joseph
St. Joseph (Battery Park City)
St. Joseph (Chinatown)
St. Joseph (Yorkville)
St. Joseph of the Holy Family (Harlem)
- - -
This church is small, pristine, easy to sit in and pay attention to the readings and Eucharist. They have a small rooftop area where they often throw receptions or events. It is a place where it is easy to pray and a church I assume to be an asset to the people in the area, to New York University and to New York City in general.

I enjoyed my time here today, yet after Mass I grew so solemn and despondent - there was a lonesomeness growing within, something which amasses in size day to day, something I really can't help prevent, just something that is. It's forlorn, it's stress, it's despair. All those words mean is lack of faith, strength, lack of memory, lack of thankfulness, lack of wisdom; the loss of something bigger than me and all of us within me and growing.

I've gone to confession a couple times already, and need to go again soon, because something I am just now beginning to realize I need to confess to is my judgmental attitude, my weakness in forgiving, the fact I hold grudges - and everything else that falls somewhere in between.

- - -
I just recently went to go see Prince Caspian with friends. I have always been a huge fan of these C.S. Lewis books and when I saw the first film, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, I have to admit I was a little dissapointed - I considered the acting to be a bit weak, some story changes abhorent and overall it was trying to be just too Lord of the Rings. Fortunately, enough time had passed from the last time I read through the books so I was not so miffed when watching Caspian the other day, I was actually quite pleased. (All the crazy battles added and characters not included didn't bother me at all.)

If you know of the movie or the book then you know that one of the many themes of this story is the coming of age into adulthood denies one further entrance into the world of Narnia. As I watched the film, this theme played over and over again in my head. At the end of the story, Aslan the great Lion tells Peter and Susan that they can no longer come back to Narnia, as they are too old. Isn't it so true that with all the "good" adulthood brings, it too brings with it loss of innocence, (often) lack of imagination and despair in faith. Faith, imagination and innocence are all very necessary traits one should carry with them throughout life, tools that can assist during life, things which lead us to live good lives and ultimately meet the ending of our lives gracefully and with meaning.

I am thinking about all of this in the context of my own life. After my years wandering (slightly), traveling, heading to Africa - I have landed here in NYC and my main goal was to obtain adulthood, a five year plan which would bring me wealth, status, a wife, insurance - all of the very adult and very responsible things we "need" to live our lives. And none of these are bad things inherently, in fact, they are obviously all good things. But I realize that I, in my pursuit of these things, and probably others too, maybe even you, have lost other things that are important along the way. Faith, imagination and innocence. These are things I should cling to, things we should never let go of, lose touch of, let slip our grasp.

Immediately after the film ended and the credits began rolling I sat in deep thought on childlikeness versus my adultness and what I have lost and what I have failed to keep important. I am lucky enough that I have witnessed in me, over the past year, a serious return to faith. If you know anything of the Narnian world, you know the human characters that get the chance to travel there love and appreciate every single moment they have there. And if you, like me, have read the books with an open heart, you too feel a joy about Narnia and even a slight (imagination!) desire to go there yourself. As I sat during the credit roll I reflected on last week's church experience - St. Vincent Ferrer - and thought to myself that at that moment last week, sitting inside this brilliant church, that is the most recent occasion in which I have felt some kind of "magic" - possibly the kind of magic one finds in Narnia.

And I determined right then and there, with credits rolling and my friends sitting nearby, to rid myself of as much "adultness" as safely possible and again open myself to the childlikeness that gets you into Narnia, that opens up the kingdom of heaven to you.

And I began trying to compile a list of my adult-like atrocities, and I realized it is quite difficult to do, because so many of these adult-like things are so pragmatic here and "seemingly" necessary - I have to develop and use a kind of filter to determine the differences. For instance:

1) My job is necessary, but any kind of love or obsession with money that comes with it, the acquisition and accumulation of wealth and status and fortune could very well border on an "adultness" trait,

2) Relationships - my intense desire right now to find the "right" girl to be with and to marry is not in itself "adult" or wrong, but it's all about how I go about it. I mentioned that I have begun online dating - this is the very definition of pragmatic "adultness" Where is the adventure, where is the fun? When an online-instigated date finally happens - both parties have come to it with so much intention and built up expectation that there is no naturalness to it. You are both looking for someone, you both have traits that you each find attractive - but when meeting in person there is no chemistry. I'm somewhat outgoing, personally, and when I meet a stranger conversation comes naturally, and laughter and some fun, but where is the chemistry? Where are the pheromones? The internet removes these from the dating/mating act completely. Not to mention that online dating opens one up to so many chances and possibilities that I, in my bad habit of a way, cannot stop thinking about all the other possibilities I may be losing out on when I begin "chatting" with or seeing one of the girls. Also, none of them are what I expect or hope for or similar to the idea I have of them in my head when I meet them. They're all a bit older looking than their pictures show; they're all a little bit spastic or mental as the years creep by and they haven't found the person they want to marry. After a short experience with the whole thing, I feel I'm not cut out for online dating - and it's all only made me realize that these "Catholics" I'm looking for are no better and no worse than any of the other non-Catholic girls I've been dating. Then why is it so important to me?

3) Alcohol - why is it that we all need such quantities and regular amounts of alcohol to get on with our lives? Children abound in energy, never needing or desiring to poison themselves with these substances to "alter" their moods and their minds. We are a community of people gathering and poisoning ourselves in order to celebrate - celebrate what?

4) Clothing - I get so caught up in how I look, how I am reflected in other people's eyes, how I look compared to these other people. Truly something "adult" and decadent and misleading and wrong. Of course, one has to look nice - but being in this city - along with all the regular, humble, plain and wonderful folk, there are those who are so pompous, so into their image and their stance and status - and why is it that I fall into this trap, as well as the many others, which lead me to follow everything material that has so little to do with grace?

These are just some of the few of the "adult-like" traps that "get" me from day to day.

My friend and I began discussing the other Narnia books in detail after we left the theater. We spoke about the final book, The Last Battle, and the fate of one of the characters, Susan. We couldn't remember what happens to her in the end - we knew she suffers some kind of loss of belief in Narnia and she may or may not enter Narnia or "heaven" in the end, but the book leaves it very ambiguous - and this whole concept of what happens to Susan fits right in with the overall theme I walked away with from Prince Caspian.

From the Wikipedia entry on The Last Battle:

Some would also claim that Susan is excluded from Narnia simply because she doesn't believe in Narnia any longer: Lewis is alluding to loss of faith, and of imagination, when we fail to retain "childlike" simplicity. This could be said to lend negative connotations to faith, suggesting that to believe, one's mind must remain childish and simplistic. It could also be said that Susan's attitude is the opposite of Jesus' teachings, "Truly I say to you, unless you repent (change, turn about) and become like little children [trusting, lowly, loving, forgiving], you can never enter the kingdom of heaven." [Matt 18:2-4]. The 'growing up' mentioned is saying that Susan doesn't have the right attitude in respects to Narnia and as such cannot go there.

And what of my attitudes, my respects, my beliefs? Am I too far gone adult? Have I lost enough of the innocence there ever was in me to prevent ever traveling to that Narnian otherworld, that heaven which I most dearly hope awaits us all, even the sorriest sinner out there, one who continually lapses and falls and fails and disappoints?