The Feast of Our Lady: A Special Mass

On Sunday morning the metal pillars supporting the basement ceiling were bedecked with woven sashes and lillies in honor of Our Lady. The hall was overflowing as Mass was said in celebration of the feast of Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn.

We were graced by the presence of a children's choir which sang the liturgy in Lithuanian with great care, poise and sweetness.

In his homily Father Eugene told us to remain aware of the mystery of God around us, to be mindful of His presence and His communication with us.

At this gathering it was easy to feel His presence among us in the care and tenderness with which the children sang, the effort put into cleaning and decorating the hall, the smiles, kisses and handshakes during the sign of peace. Two of my friends from St. Stanislaus Kostka in Hastings drove down on impulse and I was so happy to see their faces and share this occasion with them. I was also glad to be in the company of a longstanding parishioner whose attendance at this Mass was a reunion of sorts. She has been telling me about some of those who are now gone, like Dalia Bulvicius and Aldona Kepalaite, making them real to me when I had only known them as references in old bulletins, programs and pictures. My thoughts traveled to my grandparents, my father and my aunts who had all attended this church, the other Lithuanian friends and relatives that surrounded me as a child and all the others who had attended Mass here over the years.

Immersed in the mystery, it was a reunion for us all.

November Pilgrimage, NYC: Sunday, November 19 at 11:15 AM

"Please continue to pray that Our Lady Of the "Dawn Gate" remains open to serve all who need her shelter.........including her Beloved Son!"

This is how Pat of Annunciation "Zinios" fame prefaced her e-vite to our celebration of the Feast of Our Lady of Vilnius on Broome Street. We welcome you to join us this Sunday in prayer and festivity.

You are cordially invited to participate in the feast day celebration of Our Lady of Vilnius
Sunday, November 19th, 11:15 AM

Our Lady of Vilnius Lithuanian RC Church

Bring your rosaries, holy pictures of Our Lady of Vilnius, Lithuanian flags. After the celebration, a concert and refreshments will follow in the church hall.

Jūs esate maloniai kviečiami dalyvauti
Aušros Vartų atlaiduose
Sekmadienį, lapkričio 19 d., 11.15 v.r.

Niujorko Aušros Vartų bažnyčioje

Atsineškite savo rožančius, Aušros Vartų Marijos paveikslus, vėliavas
Po atlaidų, vyks koncertas ir pietūs parapijos salėje

November Pilgrimage: Vilnius

Every year in the middle of November, tens of thousands of believers gather in Vilnius for the annual pilgrimage to honor Our Lady of Vilnius in the Gates of Dawn.

The streets are covered with wood, and kept especially clean, as many pilgrims approach the chapel and climb the stairwell to the icon on their knees. For eight days, Masses, prayer services, recitations of the rosary, and communal meditations occur around the clock.

The culmination of the pilgrimage is November 16th , the Feast of the Protection of the Merciful Mother of God.

November 16th , the Feast of the Protection of the Merciful Mother of God

HISTORY OF OUR LADY OF VILNIUS AND THE GATES OF DAWN

Pray to Our Lady for the protection of Our Lady of Vilnius Parish, NYC. May her presence be a comfort and inspiration to us all.

1522 – Responding to fears of attack from Crimean Tartars, Grand Duke Aleksandras of Lithuania fortifies the city of Vilnius with a wall with five gates. The present Gates of Dawn was the easternmost, and most dangerous access to the city.

1626 – Carmelite monks establish a monastery next to the Gates, and began to care for the icon of Our Lady of Vilnius.

1671 - A wooden chapel was erected atop the Gates to house the icon. At least 17 miracles were recorded around this time.

1655-1661 – Our Lady frequently appears in the city’s night time sky to residents praying for her intercession, while defending the Gates from Russian attack.

1671 – The icon is “clothed” in fine metallic robes, the work of Vilnius goldsmiths.

1702 – Sweden captures Vilnius, and outlaws public worship of the icon. The icon gets hit with a bullet during a battle at the Gates.

1715 – The wooden chapel burns in a fire. The icon is saved and put into a new cement chapel.

1799-1802 – Although the wall around the city is demolished, the Gates are spared because of the miracles that occurred here.

1927 – The icon undergoes restoration, and is crowned in an elaborate ceremony.

1945-1991 – Scores of pilgrims from Byelorussia come to worship at the chapel, as most of their churches have been closed by the Soviet Union.

1993 – His Holy Father Pope John Paul II prays the rosary in the chapel, fulfilling a dream he first had while praying in the chapel of Our Lady of Vilnius in the Vatican when he first become Pope.

1997 – The Orthodox Patriarch Aleksei II and the Archbishop of Vilnius Audrys Bačkis pray together for peace in the chapel, as thousands in the streets below kneel in prayer.

The Gates of Dawn

The icon of our Lady of Vilnius is housed in a chapel situated atop the eastern gates of the wall that once surrounded the entire city of Vilnius. It was here that she often appeared to the residents of the city as they defended the gates from the attack of foreign armies. While the wall was ultimately demolished, the eastern gates remained standing, and during the Lithuanian national renaissance in the late 1800s, came to be known as the Gates of Dawn. As the city of Vilnius has grown, the chapel is now actually in the heart of the old town, situated between the Catholic Church of St. Theresa, and the Orthodox Monastery of the Holy Spirit.

The Miraculous Picture of Our Lady of Vilnius

The miraculous picture of Our Lady of Vilnius is the most revered icon in all of Lithuania. She is venerated by both Catholic and Orthodox believers not only in Lithuania, but throughout Latvia, Poland, Russia and Byelorussia as well. Numerous miracles through her intercession have been documented through the ages.

Mary is Not Missing At Our Lady of Vilnius

As the feast day of Our Lady of Vilnius approaches, my new collaborator, who wishes to be known as "Someone Else" for the time being, contributes the following:

"In "Missing Mary," Charlene Spretnak laments the marginilization, the absence, the "disappearing" of Our Lady since the Second Vatican Council.

In the forty years time since then a political battle has ensued with the Catholic right claiming Mary as their own and the leftist, progressive side reducing her to a model of the obedient Nazarene village woman. Spretnak clearly states that her book is for neither the right nor the left but for the "large, nonideological middle range of the spectrum of Roman Catholics."

Since Vatican II, Mary's cosmological presence has been diminished. Statues of her have disappeared from our churches or been removed to less prominent places. Prayers to Mary at the end of the Mass were eliminated in the 1960s. Marian processions in the month of May when statues were crowned with wreaths of flowers have long been gone from our modernized cultures.

Spretnak does find some hope however for Mary's return as the Queen of Heaven and her re-emergence in the church. Mary's full spiritual presence is alive and well and thriving in many ethnic parishes.

Surely Our Lady of Vilnius on Broome Street in New York City is one of those places! That is just one more reason why we should work to save the church from being closed.

More about the book can be found at www.missingmary.com."

Upcoming Event in Our Lady of Vilnius Church Hall

New Yorkers With Us (Niu Jorkieciai Salia Musu) invites you to the premiere screening of a film by Saulius Siuksta about New York and New York's art galleries. The event begins at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, November 18th, at the parish hall.

Click here to see event flyer (PDF)

Feast Day Celebration of Our Lady of Vilnius

You are cordially invited to participate in the feast day celebration of Our Lady of Vilnius
Sunday, November 19th, 11:15 AM

Our Lady of Vilnius Lithuanian RC Church

Bring your rosaries, holy pictures of Our Lady of Vilnius, Lithuanian flags. After the celebration, a concert and refreshments will follow in the church hall.

Jūs esate maloniai kviečiami dalyvauti
Aušros Vartų atlaiduose
Sekmadienį, lapkričio 19 d., 11.15 v.r.

Niujorko Aušros Vartų bažnyčioje

Atsineškite savo rožančius, Aušros Vartų Marijos paveikslus, vėliavas
Po atlaidų, vyks koncertas ir pietūs parapijos salėje

Our Lady of Vilnius

"Within the large dome above the altar, an icon of Our Lady of Vilnius glows with her golden halo of sunrays as she rests upon a sliver of the moon. She graces this New York church as she does Dawn's Gate in Vilnius.

The painting of the icon was made possible by the generosity of Dr. Grazina Austin. She commissioned the artist Tadas Sviderskis to create the image of the Madonna of Dawn's Gate, an important spiritual center in Vilnius. Grazina, her mother and many others have a powerful response to this icon which affirms their Lithuanian identity within the Catholic Church."

-Aukse Trojanas, in Bridges: Lithuanian American News Journal, July/August 1995

Light

"She appreciated the indomitable spirit of the small community: it was like a community of the first Christians, fighting against all odds. Aldona is often the first to arrive and the last to leave. She says that when the church is empty, it glows in its own light."

-Aukse Trojanas, in Bridges: Lithuanian American News Journal, July/August 1995

St. Stanislaus Kostka Parish Lives Again, Briefly, at Noon on Sunday

On Sunday, November 12, 2006, the parishioners of St. Stanislaus Kostka will celebrate the feast of its Patron with a 12:00 PM Mass at the Church of St. Matthew on Warburton Avenue in Hastings-on-Hudson.

A descendant of the man who called a meeting in 1914 to discuss the founding of the church will carry the icon of St. Stanislaus down the center aisle. The members of the disbanded choir have reassembled to sing Polish hymns honoring its patron and petitioning Our Lord for protection and fortitude.

"Marija, Marija" will be played as an Offertory meditation and I will pray for the survival of my two parishes, so similar and so rare.

St. Stanislaus Kostka, Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y.

My Other Endangered Parish

Before I began attending Our Lady of Vilnius regularly, I attended Mass at St. Stanislaus Kostka. It is a small church, a Polish analog of Our Lady of Vilnius. It was built on the wages of Polish workers when Hastings was a factory town. Over time, as Hastings evolved into a suburb, St. Stanislaus became smaller and more diverse as the descendants of Eastern European immigrants consolidated and were joined by people of other backgrounds who enjoyed the small scale and strong feeling of community among parishioners.

On Palm Sunday of 2005 our Administrator informed us of the realignment and implied that, due to our small size, low "sacramental viability" statistics and assimilation (Polish language Mass no longer a necessity), we were likely to close.

In September, 2005, the church was closed due to water damage related to a roof leak. Repairs were made to the extent that they were covered by insurance. The repairs included a roof patch, moisture control, mold abatement and rewiring of the sacristy.

Due to a decision made by our Administrator, our parish has not had its own Mass despite the apparent feasibility of holding Mass in the intact church basement, the rectory or the Church of St. Matthew.

When St. Stanislaus Kostka was placed on the list of churches designated for closure under the Archdiocesan realignment in April of this year, all repair work ceased, even repairs that would have been covered by insurance.

At the time that the parish was placed on the list for closure it was debt-free and had cash assets. A major asset is a large brick rectory with Hudson River views on a large corner lot.

In December of 2005, the parish was lauded in the centerfold of Catholic New York for being the #6 parish in the Archdiocese for the percent of parishioners participating in the Cardinal's Annual Appeal.

At present all that remains of the parish are the Holy Rosary Society, coffee social held in St. Matthew's Rectory Meeting Room after the 9:00 AM "Family Mass" for St. Matthew parish and the "envelopes".

Though not officially closed, the parish has diminished from a small but thriving community to a historical footnote with an occasional reunion.

Our Lady of Vilnius: Nurturing the"face-to-face ties that build social trust"

As "Nobody's Wife" I took special interest in today's New York Times Op-Ed piece by Stephanie Coontz. Too Close for Comfort, captioned "We are placing too many burdens on the fragile institution of marriage, making social life poorer in the process."

Ms. Coontz goes on to say, "As Americans lose the wider face-to-face ties that build social trust, they become more dependent on romantic relationships for intimacy and deep communication, and more vulnerable to isolation if a relationship breaks down. In some cases we even cause the breakdown by loading the relationship with too many expectations. Marriage is generally based on more equality and deeper friendship than in the past, but even so, it is hard for it to compensate for the way that work has devoured time once spent cultivating friendships.

Happy Birthday to Father Eugene Sawicki

Cultural Event: Gytis Luksas Film Festival on November 12 at Kaufman Studios

THE LITHUANIAN CONSULATE IN NEW YORK

AND

AMBERWINGS PRODUCTIONS

PRESENT

A FILM FESTIVAL OF THE FAMOUS LITHUANIAN FILM DIRECTOR

GYTIS LUKSAS

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2006

KAUFMAN Studios
36-45 37th Street
Astoria, NY 11106

12:30 Doors open

1:00 Presentation and first film: “Virto azuolai” (“The Oaks Fell”) 1:28 min.

2:30 Intermission and coffee

3:00 Second film: “Zalcio svilgsnis” (“The Gaze of the Grass-snake”) 1:39 min.

After the showing, wine reception and a chance to meet and talk with the
director Gytis Luksas

Tickets for both sessions: $15.

You may reserve and order tickets by calling 1-718 776-1687
Or by e-mail: amberwings@mac.com

P.S. The films are not subtitled

Sainthood Revisited:Thoughts from a Fellow Parishioner

About All Saints' Day-

I like to think of the idea of "saint" as it was first used by early Christians. It meant allthose who had received the grace of Christ through baptism. It includes the living and the dead, the known and the unknown, a community of believers transcending time. It is really the beginning of the idea of the communion of saints to which all are called.

Anyway, those are my thoughts

On All Saint's Day: An Outsider's Perspective

What is A Saint?

"What is a saint? A saint is someone who has achieved a remote human possibility. It is impossible to say what that possibility is. I think it has something to do with the energy of love. Contact with this energy results in the exercise of a kind of balance in the chaos of existence. A saint does not dissolve the chaos; if he did the world would have changed long ago. I do not think that a saint dissolves the chaos even for himself, for there is something arrogant and warlike in the notion of a man setting the universe in order. It is a kind of balance that is his glory. He rides the drifts like an escaped ski. His course is the caress of the hill. His track is a drawing of the snow in a moment of its particular arrangement with wind and rock. Something in him so loves the world that he gives himself to the laws of gravity and chance. Far from flying with the angels, he traces with the fidelity of a seismograph needle the state of the solid bloody landscape. His house is dangerous and finite, but he is at home in the world. He can love the shape of human beings, the fine and twisted shapes of the heart. It is good to have among us such men, such balancing monsters of love. "

Leonard Cohen, from his novel, Beautiful Losers (1966)

Visit and Revisit the On-line Petition - and please sign if you haven't already signed

I have been checking out the on-line petition daily. It seems to have taken on a life of its own and shows signs of becoming a community in itself. I enjoy seeing the names and reading the comments. Please visit, revisit and SIGN!

Save Our Lady of Vilnius

Words of Encouragement on All Saints Day

The New York Times provides us with inspiration in the form of Father James Martin's Op-Ed piece Saints That Weren't. He takes the story of the recently canonized Mother Theodore Guerin as a point of departure. He mines history for further examples, then goes on to say:

"The church's long history of "faithful dissent" offers both hope and perspective to Catholics in our time. It echoes the call of the Second Vatical Council, which, in 1964, declared that expressing opinions "on matters concerning the good of the church" is sometimes an obligation for the faithful."