The Solemn Blessing of the Church of Our Saviour

The Solemn Blessing of our parish church by Cardinal Spellman took place exactly fifty years ago on September 27. By happy circumstance that date this year is a Sunday. The church could not be consecrated to the Lord at that time, since construction debts still obtained. In recent times the mortgage was paid, and Cardinal Egan was able to dedicate it officially to our Saviour as a gift of the faithful. So now we are entrusted with the care of this beautiful building, remembering that the structure is only stones, but the mystical church is made up of the faithful who gather here to pray in union with the saints and angels who attend every Mass. The visible witness of the church building is, nonetheless, a sign of Christ’s presence here in the middle of Manhattan. “The stones of the wall will cry out, and the beams of the woodwork will echo it.” (Habbakuk 2:1) Those words were brought to the highest pitch when our Saviour entered Jerusalem to die for us (Luke 19:40).

   Christ loved the temple in Jerusalem and regularly returned to His Father’s House. He drove out those who were defiling it, and predicted that it would be destroyed and rebuilt. The latter promise, of course, referred to Himself, for the earthly structure is a symbol of Christ’s own body. Faithful Christians must constantly purify God’s House spiritually through honest prayer and true worship, just as they have to keep it in repair physically. Recent years, as so often in history, have seen abuses of true religion. Those challenges have elicited the noble words of modern Popes calling for a renewal and strengthening of the faith once delivered to the saints. “Zeal for my Father’s house has consumed me.” (John 2:17)

   The ongoing work of preserving and adding to the art in our church, for which we thank so many of our own talented parishioners who are giving of their time so generously, is an outward sign of the constant renovation of our souls by the Holy Spirit who makes all things new (Rev. 21:5). Our God does not make all new things, which would be mere novelty, but he renews the life first endowed to us, in preparation for eternal life. This is why the church is a holy house and not a museum.

   While the ongoing celebration of our fiftieth anniversary will include Solemn Vespers and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament on Thursday October 8, we will make a special act of thanksgiving this Sunday, recalling the words of the seventh-century hymn “Angularis fundamentum”:

    To this temple, where we call thee, Come O Lord of Hosts today;
    With thy wonted loving kindness, Hear thy servants as they pray.
    And thy fullest benediction, Shed within its walls alway.

                                                                  Fr. George W. Rutler