Empty Tabernacle Tour of Lower Manhattan

There are many different devotions for the Triduum that take you on a mini-pilgrimage. Some people walk the Stations of the Cross through neighborhood streets. Others spend Holy Thursday night driving around to visit the Eucharist at seven different churches before midnight.

The Southern Baron has introduced me to the New Orleans Good Friday Nine Church Walk custom. If you start early and have a plan you can visit nine empty tabernacles before the 3pm liturgy. Luckily the NYC skyline is crammed with church steeples, so we have plenty of nearby opportunities to make it happen.

This Holy Week we're planning a route through the Upper East Side. Last year we started near Battery Park and worked our way up to Midtown West, traveling from the early days of the American Church to the site of some recent archdiocesan controversy. Besides being an interesting walking tour (who knew there were zero churches in TriBeCa?), it was a beautiful experience of the universality of the Church. Witnessing the once-a-year bare emptiness of parishes is always a favorite of mine too.

You can see the entire itinerary after the jump! No selfie sticks were used or harmed in the making of this field trip.

Being a (Mostly) Shiksa in Brooklyn

A Pedi Sukkah in Downtown
Brooklyn last year

More than any place I've ever worked, New York City is very aware of Jewish holidays. Last month I had to meet deadlines before colleagues took time off for Rosh Hoshanah. During the high holy days parking for the synagogue on my street spilled down the block. Now it's time for Sukkot, and the Pedi Sukkah guys are out in force again. It's really an ingenious setup: they pedal portable booths around Brooklyn and offer passersby the interwoven tree branches and citron for the traditional Sukkot blessing.

"Are you Jewish?" The question is inevitable if I make eye contact, and sometimes even if I don't. I always feel like I'm letting them down when I say no.

I try for an ecumenical encounter instead. "Hey cool, religious devotion in public! I like Psalms too. High five!" But they're interested in member retention, not evangelization. Chabad-Lubavitch groups remind me of Opus Dei at times - well funded, well connected, trying to inspire their coreligionists to embrace traditional devotions. Likewise, the Hasidic schoolgirls I sometimes see on the subway are always clad in the universal homeschooler uniform of long skirts and layered tops.

For the record, I'm not entirely a shiksha. By blood I'm 25% Jewish, but on my Dad's side so it doesn't really count. My paternal grandfather grew up a very secular Jew and then embraced Catholicism when he met my grandmother and her devout Italian parents. Probably the most Jewish things about my LaVigne great-grandparents were that they ate schmaltz as children and eventually retired to Boca Raton. Still, my relatives and I have never completely lost those roots. Our surname looks French because an Ashkenazi ancestor was trying to avoid persecution, so the story goes. We throw around Yiddish expressions and talk loudly with our hands. My grandpa loves lox and keeps his freezer stocked with blintzes. He grew up in his parents' grocery stores, and the family passion for finding good deals is deep in my DNA.

Especially before I took my husband's name, acquaintances have often assumed I'm not a goy. Almost everyone on my dad's side has this problem. When I worked at history camp the teenage boys called me "Jew Hair." There have been awkward moments when someone wishes me L'shanah Tovah or asks what I'm doing for Hanukkah. Last Good Friday I had literally been in Penn Station five minutes when a beaming Orthodox woman told me "Happy Pesach!" (I was wearing sensible black shoes with tights and a modest dress, should have seen that one coming.)

So I can "pass," so what? At the risk of sounding presumptuous, I feel a kinship with the children of Israel that I cannot shake. Perhaps my sadness at declining a Sukkot blessing comes from a desire for unity. I wish I knew the Hebrew alphabet and all the holy day traditions and we could pray together to the God we both believe. We already read the same scriptures.

Even if I'm not really part of the club, the Jewishness of NYC gives me hope. In a cosmopolitan city so often associated with secular excess and iniquity, one of the world's most persecuted religious groups has made a home, flourished, and left an indelible mark. The men in sidelocks and yarmulkes boldly striding down the street remind me I don't have to be ashamed of being a religious person. If New York has room for them, it can welcome a "nice Catholic girl" too, even if her life is far less exciting than Carrie Bradshaw's. You might seem wicked, Gotham, but deep down you are holy.

That Time the Pope Went to the World's Fair

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the 1964 World's Fair in New York City. Not unlike the modern

The Unisphere on my visit in June

Olympics, the Fair didn't turn a profit, but it hosted months of culturally significant spectacles. The Ford Mustang was introduced, Walt Disney launched the It's a Small World ride, Andy Warhol mocked politicians with some controversial pop art, civil rights activists staged protests blocking highway ramps, the Beatles played in Shea Shadium, and Bob Dylan infamously used an amp.

Like the New York's first World's Fair in 1939, this was the brainchild of infamous urban planner Robert Moses. (Cue chorus of boos from historic preservation fans.) Fading from political power towards the end of his career, he hoped hosting another World's Fair and turning Queens garbage dumps into the Flushing Meadows fairgrounds and park would cement his legacy.

Even though Moses was a jerk to tear down the old Penn station, I'll admit Flushing Meadows is a great park. Some of the fair buildings are still open as museums. The '64 Fair also gave Queens the amazingly topographic Unisphere, which has become an icon of the borough. It's a great example of space age public art that can belong to everyone, not unlike my old boyfriend the St. Louis arch. Plus, you can buy the world a Coke and keep it company while you're there. 

Vatican Pavilion at Flushing Meadows.
Collection of the NYPL. 

For Catholics, the '64 fair has special significance because it brought the United States its first papal visit ever! We have Robert Moses' ambition to thank for it. The Vatican had a pavilion at the Fair, and even shipped over Michaelangelo's Pieta to display there. Moses hoped his friend Cardinal Spellman could convince the Pope to stop by in a clutch PR move for the World's Fair.

And so on October 5, 1965, Pope Paul VI became the first pope to set foot on American soil. He spent only fourteen hours in NYC, establishing the usual cathedral-stadium-political arena template for future papal visits. After landing at the new JFK Airport in Queens, he spent most of his time in Manhattan at a mixture of modern and old-school locations. He visited St. Patrick's Cathedral and met with President Johnson at the Waldorf Astoria hotel. The Holy Father also addressed the United Nations, warning that "Politics do not suffice to sustain a durable peace." Later he said Mass at Yankee Stadium, not Moses' brainchild Shea Stadium (ooh burn!).Finally, on his way out of town, Paul VI did stop at the Flushing Meadows fairgrounds. Today a marble bench marks where he stood.

Pope Paul VI's whirlwind tour wasn't as substantial as later papal visits, but it was surely a landmark moment

Pope Paul VI window in St. Philomena church,
Livingston, NJ.

for American Catholics. Only a few years before, John F.Kennedy had become the first Catholic president and a beloved political figure. Seeing the Church's leader welcomed as an international dignitary must have cemented the fact that "papists' had been accepted as true Americans, not a dangerous superstitious group swearing loyalty to a foreign power. Also, American Catholicism was no longer just mission territory; it was a major wing of the Church garnering Vatican attention! Eleven years later Paul VI would canonize New Yorker Elizabeth Ann Seton as the first American-born saint, further establishing the United States' role in Catholic history.

I found evidence of this papal euphoria in a parish near me in New Jersey. With its simple yet vaguely colonial style, St. Philomena was probably built in the early 1970s before post-Vatican II modernism had really caught on. The ample stained glass windows depict mysteries of the rosary, local bishops, and ... Pope Paul VI's NYC visit. The window is amazing and bordering on souvenir-store kitch: Paul VI raises his hands in blessing amidst the Stars and Stripes, St. Patrick's, the UN, the Empire State Building, and the Statue of Liberty. (Sadly, the Unisphere did not make the cut.) A panel at the bottom notes the date of the pontiff's visit. Perhaps some parishioners fondly remembered attending the Mass in Yankee Stadium and donated the window? I'll be on the lookout for more Paul VI commemorations in the area. American Catholicism: if it can make it here, it can make it anywhere.

If you want to learn more about the 1964 World's Fair, I highly recommend Joseph Tirella's new book Tomorrow-Land: The 1964-65 World's Fair and the Transformation of America, from which I got much of the information in the post. If you find yourself in Grand Central this fall, you should also check out this free exhibit.

People of Costco

Today I'm guest posting for Bonnie at A Knotted Life, talking about religious identity and how I secretly want to make friends with people who follow super-religious dress codes. Her blog is honest, funny, and faith-filled; definitely check it out!

Magnetic cart escalator to heaven?

It's funny how just after I finalized my post for Bonnie, I ran into the very same experiences that inspired it in the first place. We need snacks for a big museum event this weekend, so I was dispatched to Costco, that haven of bulk provisions for large religious families. Most of the time working in Brooklyn I feel like my suburban upbringing is a liability, but not today, hipsters! I knew this place back when it was still Price Club.

The Sunset Park Costco's industrial setting is pretty different from the strip malls of NoVA, but inside it smells just like a Costco. The signs and price tags are the same and the layout is familiar once you realize this store has two levels. The sheet cake order form is unchanged since my 1998 sugar-coma of graduations  and Confirmation receptions.

It brought back so many memories I almost wept with homesickness. I felt like I should be wearing a school uniform and making sure my little brothers didn't wander off in the frozen foods. Bulk grocery shopping is my heritage, dangit.

The crowd of giggling hijab-clad schoolgirls in long black dresses on the R train platform should have tipped me off. Of course this place would be packed with various descendants of Abraham. There were Jewish men in black hats and their wives in wigs. There were more hijabs and long skirts, including one Muslim mom pushing a double stroller while wrangling two other kids.

For once, I didn't feel like I needed to explain to these people that I am sorta kinda one of them. I've logged enough hours in my life traipsing the Kirkland Signature aisles in a plaid skirt to be certain of my identity. I come from a Big Catholic Family, and my people can feed a crowd with the best of them.

An Open Letter to the Archdiocese of New York About Holy Innocents

Dear Cardinal Dolan,

Greetings in Christ! Like you, I am a transplant to the NYC area with Midwestern roots. It was an honor to attend the young adult Mass you celebrated at St. Patrick's Cathedral last December. Your joyful witness to our Catholic faith is such an inspiration.

It's come to my attention that the Archdiocese of New York is considering closing several churches. It's always a shame to see a parish go, but I get it. Neighborhood demographics change, and we're no longer in an era where multiple ethnic parishes need to co-exist within blocks of each other. Urban dioceses now find themselves with more real estate than they can handle. New York is an old city full of historic buildings, but it's also constantly evolving.

Among the parishes under consideration for closure is Holy Innocents on West 37th Street. Its closure would be a great loss to the spiritual life of the this city and a regrettable mistake.

The parish entrance on West 37th. 

I've gotten to know the parishes of Midtown West because of my daily commute from New Jersey to Brooklyn through Penn Station. Once Penn was a magnificent landmark, a beautiful space carefully designed by a famous architect. But Manhattan changed, as it always does, and the old Penn was deemed unnecessary. You know the rest - good design was demolished and replaced with a smaller dungeon. Today that unnecessary, beautiful old station is sorely missed and needed. The new Penn is too overcrowded to meet commuters' needs, let alone elevate their daily lives.

When I get weary from spending two hours a day in crowded underground metal boxes, I know there are refuges of peace and grace not far away. At first glance, consolidating the parishes of Midtown West might seem like an obvious practical move. There are three churches within five blocks of Penn Station, an embarrassment of religious riches. The largest of these, St. Francis, offers an impressive array of sacrament times and ministries, seemingly enough to serve the area. Both St. Francis and Holy Innocents have been godsends on bad days. St. Francis is like the department store of sacraments - it's big, convenient, and offers a wide selection to suit your needs. Mass, adoration, and confession happen nonstop during rush hour. I'm eternally grateful for the kind wisdom offered by Franciscan friars willing to get up early so we can sleepily stare each other down in a confessional at 8am.

If St. Francis is Macy's, Holy Innocents is an independent boutique. Its building is smaller and more intimate, marked by a small neon cross peeking out between wholesale clothing shops and a kosher falafel/shwarma place. It has fewer Mass times, but what it does offer is superb. The reverent liturgies there are exquisite and even better, accessible. Attend any of their Latin masses, and you'll see everyone from commuters in business attire to the kid in a plastic vest who was hawking tour bus tickets outside. Getting to know the extraordinary form of the Mass can be challenging. To us born after Vatican II, this part of our Catholic heritage feels like a foreign country. Holy Innocents makes our liturgical patrimony feel one of the rich cultural experiences available here in NYC, ready for new explorers to dive right in. At other homes of the EF I've felt like an outsider, but at Holy Innocents I've only found a warm welcome with humility, not snobbery. 

The Constantino Brumidi mural at Holy Innocents

The EF Mass could happen at any parish, but there are two more reasons not to close this gem of a church.

1. Closing Holy Innocents would mean the loss of an important artist's work. The mural behind the altar is an historic fresco by Constantino Brumidi, the same Italian immigrant who decorated the rotunda of the US Capitol building in the 1860s. Brumidi is so significant, he posthumously received the Congressional Medal of Honor in 2012. He left Italy because he was on the outs with Pope Gregory XVI, so a painting he did for the Church is an ironic rarity. Much as I love the Apotheosis of Washington, the sacrifice of Calvary is even more valuable. The parish has already invested a good deal of time and money to restore the mural's original brilliance. The scaffolding currently surrounding St. Patrick's Cathedral demonstrates the Archdiocese's commitment to historic preservation, so I know the Church can continue to keep up with the federal government in promotion of great art.

Brumidi's Apotheosis of Washington mural in the Capitol rotunda
(Via Architect of the Capitol)

2.  On a more practical note, Midtown West is just too crowded for just one parish. The soon-to-open 7 subway line extension and Hudson Yards redevelopment are only going to bring more traffic to the West Side. (My job involves transit news, so I have subway construction on the brain.) If there's a Duane Reade every ten feet in this town, surely one busy neighborhood can handle multiple churches.

For example, on Good Friday my husband and I initially planned to attend the 3 pm liturgy at St. Francis since it was earlier than other nearby offerings. Arriving at 2:45, we found It was already standing room only with packed aisles. So we walked up six blocks to the 3:30 at Holy Innocents, which was also well attended. If St. Francis is that busy now, imagine the crowds with two more parishes' worth of attendees. 

Please, don't make the same mistake the railroads did with Penn Station. Holy Innocents is cherished now and elevates the lives of many New Yorkers. It may be even more needed in the future.

God bless,
Sarah D. 

7 Christmas Season Quick Takes

Happy New Year! And Merry Christmas too - if you want to get super traditional about it the Christmas season doesn't end until Candlemas on February 2. So don't feel bad if you don't get around to taking the tree down for a couple weeks. 

1. I've mentioned before how Christmas and I sometimes don't get along. Repetitive sappy music makes me stabby, and I'm weary of drumming up outrage for the annual  tradition of freaking out over the content of public decorations.
   Little did I know Christmas is my husband's favorite holiday. He's listened to annual my holiday rants without a peep, focusing on the Incarnation and patiently suggesting a few new festive activities each year. And it worked! As we spent our first December together, I found myself actually looking forward to firing up our Advent playlist and seeing all the decorations in the city.
   
2. That being said, Christmas caught us a little off guard. Oh shoot, we don't own stockings. Or lights. Don't you need a stand for a live tree? I really should have started gift shopping earlier. Fortunately buying a few strands of lights and a 3 foot artificial tree was enough to make our apartment look festive. Then my best friend surprised me with personalized stockings from Etsy!






Working in the development world means the December end-of-year fundraising push is about as busy as the finals season that stands between college students and Christmas break. I have new empathy for the employees of different charities who have filled my email account and mail box with their own donation appeals. Still, I am grateful that I work with a great team of people.  Especially when we take breaks by discussing how Queen Victoria basically invented the modern Christmas.

Even though we held back on full-out Christmas until Gaudete Sunday, I was very grateful for the onslaught of decorations in New York City that started even before Thanksgiving. Leaving work in the dark and cold is always depressing, so it was wonderful to have colorful lights greeting me everywhere. Even ugly old Penn Station. I really liked my friend Kelly's insightful post about how early festivity shouldn't trouble us too much - even the Blessed Mother celebrated Jesus' arrival before He was actually born! 

Outside the Stock Exchange after some frantic gift shopping at the Wall Street TJ Maxx
Christmas shopping crowds in the city were another story. While we didn't try to cram into Rockefeller Center for the tree lighting, we ended up tangled in the road closures and packed sidewalks anyway. But we survived, and it was worth it to attend a young adult mass at St. Patrick's celebrated by Cardinal Dolan himself! Seeing New York's archbishop in person has been on my bucket list for a  long time, and his down-to-earth preaching about St. Augustine did not disappoint.

Fun fact: my old Nicest Boss in the World in St. Louis was once a seminary classmate with "Tim." (Nicest Boss went on to be a happily married social worker instead of a priest.) I was pleased to note that you can still detect a hint of the STL in the Cardinal Archbishop's accent - his "Lord" sounds a little like "Laaard." Southern Baron noted Dolan's active personality - at one point he was actually fidgeting with his pectoral cross. Adorbs.



This was my first Christmas I haven't spent with my parents and siblings, but it was still joyful in my little apartment with only two people unwrapping gifts. The Southern Baron and I enjoyed actually celebrating traditions like Midnight Mass together. We also continued older ones, like buying Christmas cards on sale from museum gift shops.


The parish down the street on Christmas Day
For now, 2014 looks less eventful than last year, and that is fine with me. Starting a new job, moving to a new state, planning a wedding, and starting married life all in 6 months was an exhausting whirlwind. My goal this year is to get the most out of where I am right now, before the next big transition hits.
Our resolution as a couple is to pray together more - grace before meals doesn't count too much. Right now we're figuring out how to use the copy of Shorter Christian Prayer we got for Christmas. The Magnificat Magazine training wheels have been removed, and it's confusing.

Visit Jen Fulweiler at Conversion Diary for more quick takes! 

Changing Popes

Losing a Vicar of Christ feels like a kick in the gut, a punch in the chest. It's like saying a final goodbye to a grandfather or your favorite teacher/mentor. It makes the Bark of Peter feel like a rickety canoe in a hurricane. It makes you want to call your family, and hug your friends. You can't help feeling a little abandoned. Suddenly, the symbol of your identity is gone, and you don't know how to go forward. 

The day Pope Benedict announced his retirement all I wanted to do was run into every church in New York City. "I need to be with my people!" my heart cried. On my way to the office I stopped at St. Peter's at 22 Barclay in lower Manhattan. (Greek revival 1834, oldest parish in New York.) I couldn't find the words to pray, so I just sat there with Jesus and pondered the papal tiara above the altar. Christ is the One who put it there, and He's the only man who will ever need to be the Church's savior.

St. Peter, St. Paul, and a crucifix painting that St. Elizabeth Seton prayed before

The departure of a pope is also exciting. This only happens a few times in a century. If the Easter Vigil is the Super Bowl of Catholicism, a conclave is the World Cup. Better start gearing up on your College of Cardinal stats. If you are as enterprising as my friend Steve, you can make a bracket. Nothing beats the absolute thrill of hearing "Habemus Papam!"

 It's eerie how The Betrothed and I just spent an evening sorting through his box of World Youth Day mementos. (We were both at Toronto 2012, but sadly there is no secretly prophetic photo where one of us obliviously walks past the other.) As we decided which things to keep in our future home, we talked about what it was like going to see the Pope, and how we had changed since then. Pope John Paul II was the pope of my childhood.  For us kids of the 80s and 90s, he and Mother Teresa were Catholicism. During his papacy I was baptized, received my first communion, and was confirmed (in the Year of the Holy Spirit for an added bonus). I attended Catholic school for 8 years.  I traveled to see him at World Youth Day, the longest and farthest I had ever been away from my family at that point. John Paul II told my generation that the Church loved us, that Christ needed us for His epic plan, and we leaped to the task. His love, joy, and compassion made me proud to be Catholic.

When JPII died, my own health came crashing down with him. I spent the sede vacante period going through medical tests trying to decipher the chronic illness that eventually forced me to drop out of college for a year. The day Benedict XVI was elected, I ran campus errands until a parish staffer found me collapsed from exhaustion in the campus ministry office. My life would never be the same, and that period of suffering would prove to be one of the best things that ever happened to me. Pope Benedict XVI was the pope of my transition to adulthood. During his papacy I bounced from one temporary stage to another - homebound invalid days, finishing college, a volunteer year, graduate school, long underemployment, and finally a real job. I met my future husband and prepared for marriage.

Through these changes, I often felt restless, rootless, and unsure of God's plan. Attending two public universities gave me lots of opportunities to wrestle with how the Church could relate to the questioning modern world. Luckily the Church's leader turned out to be not an attack dog, but a gentle nerd with an amazing analytical mind and stellar footnotes. His writings are always a revelation of eloquent clarity. Pope Benedict has urged my generation to reconsider our religious heritage, and we realized we were hungry for symbolic meaning, not just youth group catch phrases. If you had told my 17-year-old self that the "new springtime" of the Church would involve a revival of the Pre-Vatican II mass, I would not have believed it. The scandals and trials of recent years sometimes make it painful to be Catholic, but Benedict XVI has reminded us how true joy comes from the deep truths of the faith. As The Betrothed often says about him, "What a boss!"

Now this next pontiff will be the pope of my adult married life. Once again, I'll spend the sede vacante period adjusting to major new realities - I just moved 250 miles away from my hometown to start a job in a New York and am living out of boxes in a bare apartment. I don't know what the coming years will bring for me and the Church, but I know God will be with us.

The changing of popes is a reminder that Jesus is all that matters. No one person is the Church. She already found the man who meets all her many needs - the One who redeemed her. All the other vicars are just taking care of the place for a while until He gets back. Was Jesus like all of these men at once? Was He the perfect combination of Peter's passion, John XXIII's kindness, and Pius V's tenacity? He knows the right person for the right time, including this next conclave. 

So godspeed, dear Papa Benny. Thank you for your generous service, your great humility, your deep wisdom, and for putting the papacy on social media. I'll be reading one of your books on the subway today. Stopping in one of New York's many churches sounds like a good idea too.