Church of St. Micheal, New York, NY

August 3, 2013

Church of St. Michael

424 West 34th Street

New York, NY 10001

www.stmichaelnyc.com

I had big expectations for this church.  St. Michael is my namesake and, not surprisingly, a total savage.  He’s an archangel, Prince of the Seraphim, Protector of the Church, he’s in charge of saving souls on Judgment Day, and “Michael” is the battle cry of the angels when they force Satan out of heaven.  Which such high expectations, I have to admit I was a kind of disappointed when I found that the church isn’t particularly eye-catching.  In fact, it’s pretty drab and depressing.  Also, as soon as I entered the church, the greeter promptly ushered me to the tiny chapel in the back where the mass was being held because there evidently are not enough churchgoing Catholics in Midtown Manhattan to hold a legitimate mass.  How embarrassing is that as Catholics, by the way?  Here we have this huge church with vaulted ceilings, stained glass windows, statues of saints and angels all over the place, rows and rows of pews, and we’re cramping a couple dozen people like sardines in this tiny chapel in the back just so we can avoid how few of us there are anymore.  Man, we have got to get people to come back to the Church.

The mass itself was all right.  It wasn’t a terribly comfortable mass to sit through, physically speaking, but the two old-timers I was sitting between were nice.  Both gave real solid handshakes with friendly smiles at peace time.  In fact, it was a solid peace time all around.  That’s one of the benefits of having small, intimate masses.  You feel a lot closer to everyone.  Like you’re in the foxhole together.

The priest had what I am guessing is an African accent.  I may be wrong on that, though, because there is a guy in the copy room at work who I swore had an African accent, and it turns out he is from France.  Frankly, I’m still not sure I buy it, because unless he is from some Podunk town in France with weird accents, he does not sound French at all.  And he is dark as the night.  Amistad all day long.  Anyway, the priest gave what sounded like a solid, heartfelt, thoughtful, and well-delivered homily.  And if not for that African accent, I probably could have understood it.

Bottom line, not a real solid outing for St. Michael’s.  I’ll have to find another St. Michael’s more befitting of the name.

I went to the 5:00 p.m. mass on a Saturday evening.