August
24, 2013
Holy Rosary Church
344 Sixth Avenue
Jersey City, NJ 07302
www.holyrosarychurch.com
This church is hitting on all
cylinders. Most cylinders, anyway. It’s a good sized church, with bright, if not
a little sissy, colors. The priest, Fr.
Jerzy Zasłona, is energetic and cheery, and he is a good speaker, which is a
real feather in his cap. During his homily, he took the
rarely-used approach – in fact I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before – of
asking the congregation questions that he actually wanted answers to. It was a little
awkward, because everyone was acting like he was asking a rhetorical question, so no one responded. For
example, he asked “who here takes the PATH train to Manhattan?” I thought he would move on from the question, assured his
point had been made that he was going to talk about taking the PATH train, but
he pressed on: “Anyone? Has anyone taken the PATH train to Manhattan?” Of course we have, bro. We all have. He asked four or five questions like
this, and it was a little awkward each time. Truth be told, though, I like the idea of an interactive homily. Sometimes I just want to call a priest out on what they're talking about.
I thought the
Gospel reading was weird. It was about
Jesus saying how narrow the doors to heaven are, and that a lot of you who
think you’re getting in maybe aren’t actually going to get in.
And Fr. Zasłona was taking it pretty literally, saying yeah, we’ve got
to be all in on following God’s teachings to get through those pearly
gates. Like we're putting all our chips in the center of the table. We're leaving everything out on the field because it's the World Series. That kind of "all in." But I was thinking, “why do the
doors to heaven have to be narrow?” If
we’re all good people, even if we’re sinners and don’t do everything we ought
to do all the time, why wouldn't God let us in? But whatever. This is all unknowable.