Immaculate Conception — Local services in New York

Since I'm on my way to the Y for Hannukah services, why not a stop at Immaculate Conception for a moment of meditation? The cathedral made for a perfect place to withdraw from the Manhattan street. I walked the cloisters. I perused merchandise set out on flea market tables by migrant merchants, happy for a place to purvey, out of the wind. The market spilled out on the sidewalk, vinyl records to shoes set out on blankets, awaiting a buyer. This church has remembered an ancient mission to protect the poor. No one dares to bother these marketers seeking vital dollars in the shadow of this edifice.

I stepped inside and entered the grotto. I always take pictures of religious statues. I know my family loves them. I once inadvertantly took a picture of that Polish saint, Maximilian Kolbe. In the #AlphaCourse, I learned he offered to be executed in the place of a married man. The married man survived the consecration camp and lived to be old. He lived to testify to Kolbe's sacrifice.

Delving into the story, I learned that Kolbe survived for two weeks in the chamber of hunger and thirst. The guards found him kneeling and praying, showing nothing of death inside him. The chamber was required for more inmates. An injection stopped the life that extraordinary deprivation could not.

I walked the stations of the cross. Usually the inscriptions make for difficult reading. Jesus fell not once but thrice on his way up the Hill of Skulls. I remembered that Matthew, my mother and all the Catholic women on my mother's side prayed at the stations that I walked as a tourist. Matthew had an access to ecstasy through religion that I have never kenned.

I often say "I believe in people who believe in God". I do not say a single iconoclastic word anymore. I settle down in Manhattan and let the days up to Christmas enact the mystery of faith, a passion play for...

Fresh back from an Italy and Spain trip where you can pop into random churches and see some of the most beautiful frescos and paintings, I am making it a point to be more of a tourist in my own city. So when I walked by this church fresh out of Trader Joes, I decided to pop in.

Although I am not religious in the traditional sense, I am very spiritual and find the energy in churches to be calm and stoic, a place where you can take a deep breath in the madness of day to day life while beautiful stain glass windows watch over you. I also find it beautiful how others are in here in the pews by themselves at 10am on a Tuesday, just closing their eyes and saying a prayer.

My baba recently passed away, so I lit a candle for her and said a little variation of a "thank you for everything" type of prayer. Some nice closure on a...

Church and state should be divided. The Priest nor state should not be in your financial affairs as a member. People ARE allowed to pray to God for their finance; it’s not a crime. But to assume that is the only reason one goes to church is unconstitutional and hypocritical. Church is a public place where they can go to God for anything. Stop putting people’s moral down for going to God. If God decided to bless someone it’s not your business to stop God. Stop counting what people have or don’t have. Leave it God. God is a God of comfort, peace, joy, abundance; etc. But most importantly- a God of free will! It is a violation of privacy and our constitutional rights to control...