Last Sunday, I spent the day at St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral . It’s called “Old” not because it has been around for 200 years, but because it was the cathedral of the diocese (later archdiocese), until it was replaced by the “new” St. Patrick’s Cathedral on 50th Street. Since then, it has been a parish church. And just this weekend, we found out that it will soon be a basilica! (YAY! YAY!)
If you look at my photos page for this location—which you totally should, because there are some awesome pictures there—you’ll read that this church has a special place in my heart. When I lived in New York, I taught CCD here and used to come to Mass here as much as I could. Since then, I have to say my recent experiences with the people connected to this church have made it even more special.
After I contacted the rector, Monsignor Donald Sakano, to request permission to include Old St Patrick’s in Season One of The Faithful Traveler, I then met some of the many fabulous, loving, and hard-working people who help Monsignor make Old St. Patrick’s a truly special parish.
I met Chris Flatz, the parish manager, who always has a smile on his face and is willing to do whatever he can to help show others the glories of Old St Patrick’s. I met Rosa Jimenez and Jacqueline Rodriguez, the beautiful and friendly secretaries who just lit up whenever anyone came by, never bothered by the seemingly constant interruptions to their days. I learned that Rosa (short, her proud mother told me, for Rosario, or rosary in español) and her family have devoted their lives to this parish, and are just a few of the people who, over the years, have done the same. I met John Grodzki and Eddie Rowe, the gentlemen in charge of operations at the parish, who did whatever they could to help us on our shoot. I met Father Andrew Thi, who lovingly ministers to the ginormous and unbelievably faithful Chinese community. And, of course, Monsignor Sakano, who is one of the most wonderful leaders and delegators. Who could say no to his smile? St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral is blessed to have him as pastor, and I thanked God for allowing me to meet such a wonderful priest who leads such a fantastic team.
I also met two people with whom I shared no less than 500 emails and phone calls over the course of 3 months—Jim Garrity and Virginia (Gina) Dell’Olio. It feels weird not to be sending or receiving emails from them now, we’ve been in such constant contact. Jim and Gina were part of the team planning the festivities for the June 7th celebration of the 200th anniversary of the laying of the cornerstone at St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral. And shortly after I first contacted Monsignor about filming at the cathedral, I was invited to attend a meeting of this group. It still makes me laugh to think about it.
I walked in on the meeting already in progress and sat down. The group was discussing how they needed to find someone who would not only be able to create a visual presentation for this celebration, but who would be willing to do so for as little as possible, as quickly as possible. As they continued to throw out ideas of how this could be done, I looked over at Jim and mouthed, “Do they know why I’m here?” He shook his head, cleared his throat, and introduced me. As I explained the concept of The Faithful Traveler to them, I could see their eyes light up. As part of my work on the show, I have to find historic photographs or images to help tell the stories of these locations, many of which, like St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral, are centuries old. I had been in contact with Jim to see if he could help me with this task. It soon became clear to me that the best way to access these photographs would be to create the presentation they needed for the celebration. In essence, that’s all they wanted—a photographic montage of the history and people of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral. At the end of the meeting, we were all glad that I had been invited.
Weeks went by, and jim and Gina killed themselves, trying to get old photographs and images from various and sundry people and organizations. I wasn’t too worried, given that I had planned to use iMovie, instead of Final Cut Pro, which I use for the show. iMovie is nowhere near as complicated as Final Cut, and I knew it would automatically do a lot of the things I would have to do manually in FCP. When I tested it out, it proved to be very simple.
Of course, as things go, it ended up being a mad rush toward the end, with Jim and Gina and I running all around Manhattan, delivering and redelivering and correcting and recorrecting DVDs. It was actually pretty funny. At one point, I had stayed up until 4:30 AM in a hotel in NYC. I was just about done and ready to burn the disc, when the fire alarm went off in the hotel! I stood there, looking at my equipment and thinking, “Should I stay or should I go?” Of course, I had to go. I shut the computer down (praying it would save—it didn’t), packed it in my bag, and stepped out into the hallway to find a concierge telling everyone it was a false alarm.
Ah, funny.
In the end, the big day went off perfectly (check out my photos of the event here). The weather was ideal—sunny but not too hot. The Archbishop was awesome, and announced at the end of Mass that he was going to ask the Vatican to make Old St Patrick’s a Basilica (very cool). And people loved the presentations I did, which was awesome. It was so nice to sit in the audience and watch people respond. I ended up creating two presentations: one of the history of Old St. Patrick’s and another of the people. I’m going to try to put them up on the website soon. I want to make them Flash files first, and I have to learn how to do that. Otherwise, the files are huge, and they would take forever to load.
At the end of the day, I relaxed with Monsignor and a few other parishioners in front of the school as I waited for my friend Mike and his wife Jessica to come meet me to partake in my new obsession: Pho. (We went here. It was FAB.) And then I was off, back to PA to get ready for the next big thing. It feels weird that it’s over, but it was such a joy to be a part—albeit very small. God is good for bringing us all together.