New York's first Perpetual Adoration chapel: a place of 'encounter with Christ'
By Edoardo Giribaldi
The New York City's Parish of St. Joseph in Greenwich Village has installed Manhattan's first perpetual adoration chapel.
Fr. Boniface Endorf, Dominican Pastor at St. Joseph, spoke with Vatican News about the inauguration that took place in July in the presence of New York's Archbishop Cardinal Timothy Dolan.
“A joyful occasion”
"He celebrated one of our Sunday masses," Fr. Boniface recalled, and at the end, "we all processed out of the church and into the chapel," where Cardinal Dolan gave the blessing.
The event represented a "joyful occasion," with people "excited to have the chapel that we've been talking about for years as a reality."
Vast and diverse attendance
In a previous interview, while the works for the chapel construction were still in progress, Fr. Boniface spoke about the challenges encountered throughout the whole process, especially the difficulty in raising funds and the unexpected rush of donations from people that, according to the Pastor, he had "never met."
Now that the chapel is open to the public, Fr. Boniface underlined the vast and diverse attendance flowing under his eyes daily. "We've had over 300 people signing up already in the first week of operations," he said.
They are "mostly non parishioners. We have people from all over Manhattan, even from New Jersey and Brooklyn."
Security measures
People who come to the chapel have the most various backgrounds; that's why a translation of all the material provided by the Parish in Spanish was needed. This diversity has been "a great gift for the whole Archdiocese," according to Fr. Boniface.
To grant security and comfort to its visitors, the Parish came up with an innovative process in which people sign up online for a specific time of adoration, and once they get to St. Joseph's church, the parish office provides them a key card to let them into the chapel.
Encounter Christ
Speaking about the foreseeable future, Fr. Boniface noted the intention to hold special events at the chapel while "right now we've been focused on just getting the basic operations running smoothly."
The Pastor highlighted how he understood the value of the work carried on by the Parish by listening to people "talking about how they've encountered Christ through the chapel."
That's why we built it, so that people could spend time with Jesus Christ
"There are going to be many graces," he assured, related to "priesthood, religious life, and people who are wounded finding healing and just being able to grow in the holiness we're all called to."
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