Celebrating Lithuanian American Heritage

.... and letting my freak flag fly!

It is a beautiful clear day in the suburbs of western Westchester as Lithuania prepares to square off against Argentina for the Bronze Medal in Olympic basketball on the other side of the world, Beijing, China.

My 1992 Lithuanian Bronze Medal T-Shirt is one of my most prized possessions. In 1992 my father, afflicted with metastatic cancer but nonetheless capable of having a good time (I think that this toughness and resilience is a Lithuanian thing) sat in his living room and witnessed this extraordinary event in Barcelona.

Lithuania itself was newly independent, their basketball team took the country out media obscurity in America and stood on the medal podium respendent in tie-dye courtesy of Jerry Garcia.

It was Lithuanian, it was American, it was funky, jubilant and elevating: in short, it was very "Our Lady of Vilnius."

I have requested the intercession of Our Lady to influence the outcome of basketball before without good outcomes, but that was for Irish Christian Brothers schools. I am going to pray that this team that symbolizes my heritage, in the same way as Our Lady of Vilnius parish does, triumphs once again for the bronze, stands on the international stage and brings to the attention of all the merit of small nations. May we do the same for our parish and all small parishes. Amen!

Lithuanian-American Mariel Žagunis Wins Gold in Women's Sabre!

This picture is from Athens, not Biejing, but I like it because Mariel looks like she's decked out for Jonines, very Lithuanian.

Thank you, Mariel, for once more bringing my sport and my ethnicity onto the podium !

All of us at Our Lady of Vilnius are with you in spirit and will keep you in our prayers when we gather tomorrow in front of the church.

Really worth archiving...really

This photo is from Frank Lynch's blog,Really not worth archiving...really. I do not know Mr. Lynch and I have not yet explored his site to the extent that I would like to, but I thank him very much for strolling down our dead end block and noticing our plight.

Because our Lithuanian flags are flying and mostly Lithuanians are gathering in public to pray and spread the word, it is easy for the public to perceive the loss of our church as very circumscribed, but it is not. Like ripples from a stone plunked into a still pond, the consequences of loss spread out to affect many, even those who we think are anonymous and impervious, walking down Varick Street or sitting in their cars waiting to enter the Holland Tunnel.

Thanks again to Frank Lynch. Let's get to know him by visiting his site.

A Reflection on the Price of the Pearl

A reader commented on my post from last Sunday. I thought it was well worth bringing to the fore:

"Way, way back in first grade Sister Mary Alacquoe was answering the questions of a classmate who told how every Wednesday afternoon he answered the door and there was a very polite lady from Jehovah's Witnesses. The woman always carried a Bible and would stand at the doorway reading and quoting scripture in an effort to convert this little six year old parochial school student.

I'm reminded of Sister's response - "anyone can quote scripture to their own advantage" - when I read here about Cardinal Egan's talk about the "pearl of great price." It's a powerful image - to think of a precious, luminescent, lustrous pearl embodied in the tapestry, the altar, the crucifix. We are transfixed by the beauty before us and so is Cardinal Egan. However, we all should focus on the part of that lovely phrase which is not so easy to understand or visualize - the "great price."All of these items were purchased at an economic price - they did not materialize out of thin air. They were paid for by long hours of immigrant work, some of it surely rewarding and much of it simply gruelling labor to raise and support a Catholic family. Out of the currency gained by this labor further sacrifices were made by these working class people for their church, for the glory of God, to honor St. Stanislaus Kostka, to remember Our Lady of Vilnius. What item of clothing was not purchased? what toys were not bought? what entertainment was passed up? what vacations were shortened or not even taken? so these good people would have a church worthy of their aspirations and a place to meet and be a community of God's people.

The Cardinal can talk all he wants about the altar of sacrifice. The real altar of sacrifice in this matter is labor of the people who actually purchased these "pearls of great price."

Cardinal Egan Gazes on a Pearl of Great Price

Update: 4/28/2025 - I always seem faced with decisions to take the high road or the low road.  Whichever my choice, I regret the road not taken.  When Cardinal Egan asked, "Why is this parish a pearl of great price?" it wasn't a rhetorical question.  He scanned the church for raised hands.  At the time, the rejoinder that occurred to me was "Because of the 7 buildable lots on the corner of Warburton and Washington.  Now I regret not standing up and saying it, though a lot of people in the church and my good Catholic ancestors would have been mortified. -

In the image to the left St. Stanislaus Kostka gazes upon the child Jesus. This textile art of embroidery and applique was once the standard of St. Stanislaus Kostka parish, borne aloft in parades. When the parading days were done, this work adorned the wall between the sacristy and the altar of the church. This morning it hung on the southern wall of the Church of St. Matthew. The church of St. Stanislaus Kostka was closed in 2005, more than a year before its official suppression as part of the archdiocesan realignment. The altar, some statues, some sacramentals and some stained glass now reside in the Church of St. Matthew, the larger parish that once shared the same geographical boundaries.

Today Cardinal Egan came to visit the parish of St. Matthew and gaze upon the remnants of St. Stanislaus, the artifacts and the people as well.

At 10:00 AM Father Fernan stood at the foot of the driveway awaiting the Cardinal's arrival. The St. Stanislaus "Society" as we are now called, was having our weekly coffee social in the rectory meeting room giving us a bird's eye view as the sleek black minivan rolled up and turned into the driveway.

Cardinal Egan and his retinue alit and, after greeting Father Fernan and joshing with Father Smyth, they all piled back in and visited St. Stanislaus at the Cardinal's request. I wished that I could have been a fly on the wall at that event, but sanity prevailed and I stayed with my friends at coffee instead of tearing down Whitman Street to head them off at the pass.

I went over to the church early to get a good seat. Some journalists were roaming around taking photos of the St. Stanislaus patrimony, so I decided to do the same thing myself. This is a photo of the altar of St. Stanislaus, now ensconced in an alcove that once housed Father Smyth's confessional.

The Cardinal gave a very smooth homily, beginning with the rhetorical question of why the parish was a pearl of great price. Of course cynicism led my mind to wander to the minivan's ride to the church of St. Stanislaus on Main Street with a possible side trip to the spacious lot housing the rectory on the corner of Washington and Warburton, but I opened my heart to the Cardinal's message as he went on to explain the importance of the pulpit, where the Word is preached, the altar where the Sacrifice is offered and the front door by which we leave to do His work as members of the Mystical Body of Christ. I held my small icon of Our Lady of Vilnius in my hand, the same one that accompanied me to two courtrooms and the Pope's Mass at Yankee Stadium. Danielle, to my left, pointed to the icon and said, "Maybe that's your sacrifice." Well maybe it is. The parishes of Our Lady of Vilnius and St. Stanislaus Kostka are my sacrifice.

No one could doubt the value of the Cardinal's words, but he spoke in generalities, from a perspective where all parishes are pearls of great price for the same reason. Those of us who are very up close and personal see pearls of even greater price than the Cardinal can behold. I wish the Cardinal would ask us real questions, not rhetorical questions. I wish he had come before the closings, not after, to examine all of these pearls born of a grain of sand each with their spectacular beauties and their unique flaws. I wish that one of these luminiscent gems could still live and glow and kindle fire in hearts. Cardinal Egan gestured towards the altar and stained glass from St. Stanislaus, referring to them as "remembrances"

Can we save Our Lady of Vilnius from becoming a remembrance? Can the Cardinal come to see the beauty of this tiny pearl?

Vermont Pharmacy: The "Our Lady of Vilnius" of the Apothecary World

Yesterday's New York Times Metro Section featured an article by Kareem Fahim, Filling in a Few Blanks in an Old Brooklyn Real Estate Mystery. The store in many ways reminded me of Our Lady of Vilnius. I actually felt a pang when I saw that wood framed screen door because it was so much like the one on the back of our rectory. Even the title resonates. I suspect our church and the rectory harbor some real estate mysteries of their own. Here are some quotes:

"Dust has settled on a generation of clutter",

"The shuttered pharmacy could be a location in a film about some mysterious cataclysm — killer spores? aliens? — that emptied a 1950s town, or it could be a scene from a blighted city, the commercial casualty of a Main Street abandoned by shoppers and hope.

Instead, it is a curiosity. The longtimers seem to know more about the place than they let on, about the eccentric homeopath, Mark Stein, who owns the building and is still seen visiting. The new residents peer into the windows and move on, knowing little about the puppeteers who helped run the place; or the gunrunner who worked as a clerk in a pharmacy that occupied the space before; or, in much earlier days, the British gentleman-thief with a taste for diamonds who lived upstairs. No one seems to know exactly why it shut down.

It’s frozen in time,” said Franco Ficili, the president of La Societa di Pozzallo, a cultural club for natives of a Sicilian town that sits across the street from the pharmacy. “I’m here 30 years. He just closed his door. What he does in there, I have no idea.”"

Mr. Fahim's imaginative and poetic take on this pharmacy could well be applied to our church and rectory. I wish that he would turn his gaze here and plumb our mysteries, too.

Encouragement from the Traffic Jam!

This morning at work I received a business e-mail from a colleague. After the business part, there was a postscript:

"I saw the vigil in front of Our Lady of Vilnius on Sunday afternoon as I was driving into the Holland Tunnel - very pretty, with all the bright yellow, red & green flags! Best of luck to you all!"

- John

We Need Heroes. We have Them.

Today MSN.com" brought my attention to a review of the new Batman flick "Dark Knight." In this review Justin Chang of Variety.com states:

"Using five strongly developed characters to anchor a drama with life-or-death implications for the entire metropolis, the Nolans have taken Bob Kane's comic book template and crafted an anguished, eloquent meditation on ideas of justice and power, corruption and anarchy, and, of course, the need for heroes like Batman -- -"

...or Jesus Christ or anyone who is moved to action in the name of justice and compassion. I am happy to stand with my family of heroes as we continue to struggle against all odds to preserve our piece of Gotham's past, present and future. Feel free to join us.

Idoneus per Cardinal Egan

The Latin Mass is receiving a lot of discussion in Catholic forums online. A piece titled "Summorum Pontificum" One Year Later (Part 1) addresses many of the issues raised, among them competence to say the Latin Mass, as below:

"For example, "Summorum Pontificum" says priests must be idoneus, "capable, competent" to say Mass with the older book. Idoneus, a technical term, refers to the minimum requirements for competence, not to expertise.

Cardinal Edward Egan of New York, a distinguished canonist in his day, correctly stated that idoneus, as far as the Latin language is concerned, means that the priest must be able to pronounce the words properly. That is the minimum."

Cardinal Egan is quoted in the media as stating that Father Sawicki was not fluent Lithuanian. This statement is, at times, listed among the reasons for closing Our Lady of Vilnius.

Is "idoneus" different for a priest saying Mass in a vernacular that is not his native tongue? Is fluency required? Why should that case be any different from the Latin Mass.

Please discuss. Inquiring minds want to know.

Another Friend in the Blogosphere

We have another friend in the blogosphere, Suzannah B. Troy, artist and cat lover. Suzannah is a prolific blogger who documents her life in the city in an exuberant and open manner. Her blog first came to my attention on May 11 when she commented on the "stolen church" story in her post Church "stolen" sold and it evokes feeling for me of Cardinal Egan selling the Churches like a bake sale, feels like a crime, read on. It kind of evoked that feeling for me as well.

A Friend in the Blogosphere

Our story, complete with pictures is featured in BrianC's blog, "My Tears Spoiled My Aim." Friday's post, titled Our Lady of Vilnius tells our whole story complete with pictures.

Salient quote:
"One of my favorites in the category of "small parish churches" is Our Lady of Vilnius, founded in 1905 to minister to the city's Lithuanian population. Like so many small churches throughout the five boroughs, this parish serves as a focal point for the neighborhood, even long after much of the local Lithuanian population has moved elsewhere. Located on Dominick Street in Soho, it sits just opposite the entrance to the Holland Tunnel, and for years I've noticed it with curiosity as we've left the city for destinations far afield."

Though not gone, we are close to forgotten by the media and by those who do not believe in miracles. Thanks BrianC for noticing and valuing what we, too, hold dear. Now I have another blog to visit when I feel like my sensibility is going extinct.

Sanne

Sanne Spetter, my friend and colleague for 20+ years passed away last Sunday after holding a mucosal melanoma at bay for 2 years with surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, sheer will and love for her family and friends.

Born a Jew, hidden in a Christian household in Holland and subsequently reunited with her father, an Ethical Culturist, in the United States, Sanne was well educated regarding the world's religions and endorsed the best in all of them while belonging to none. Nonetheless, while enjoying a period of remission and recovery, she accompanied me to Our Lady of Vilnius on February 18, 2007, the next to last Sunday Mass before our closure. She sat by my side during Mass and later shook the hand of Father Eugene Sawicki who had kept both of us in his prayers throughout her illness. She witnessed first hand the place that had become so important to me and saw the people I had described in anecdotes.

Though she did not attend our church I see her as very much present there: in the prayers of the parishioners during Masses that I requested, in the constant prayers and support extended to me by Father Eugene and Joy McAleer during her illness, in the old and worn little building that symbolized many of the values that she upheld. Sanne had an uncanny ability to "tell it like it is" articulating views that were true, descriptive, crisp, live and often screamingly funny. What I will miss most is the good laughs that we shared, laughs that I doubt anyone else will ever provide.

Without the support of Our Lady of Vilnius, I doubt that I could have stood by my friend and witness the severe ravages of her illness. Without Sanne's support, I doubt that I could have sustained my efforts on behalf of Our Lady of Vilnius. Sanne will remain in our prayers and I hope that she will continue to help us and our parish.

A Voice from the Past, or is it the Present?

Last month a box of what others considered detritus was salvaged from Our Lady of Vilnius Church. Many voices speak and sing from these clippings, manuscripts and bulletins. This is one of them, speaking on Sunday, July 27, 1997:

"Instead of raising your voice in the newspapers, raise it before the Tabernacle"
-Council on Unnecessary Letters to the Press; St. John Marie Vianney.

"But I would say, after rasing your voice to the Lord in the Tabernacle it would do no hurt to raise your voice in the letters to the newspapers on behalf of the people of God and against the injustices imposed upon them by the City Fathers. A voice raised on behalf of the people is itself a beautiful prayer. It goes straight to the Heart of God.

The Lord says: "Pray Always." When you walk the streets pray for the people. When you wait a half hour for a bus and feel sick from the heat (because the rich and powerful have last week decided to cut bus service still further while giving more money to the Real Estate and Wall Street types) pray for the sick...all need your healing prayer.

St. John Vianney continues:

"I often think that when we come to adore Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, we should obtain everything we want, if we would ask for it with a very lively faith and a pure heart."

Bulletin: The summer is here arranged for our enjoyment. Despite all the surrounding nonsense we can rely on the promise of God that, in the long run, all will be well. If we are breathing and complaining, that's a good sign. We are still sharing in the greatest of God's gift, the gift of life. So make the best of it. Like the design says on my T shirt: "Dont worry, Be Happy." The Lord is always with us. We are always in His Heart."

Cheers!"

Update your resumes!

Employment Opportunity in the Archdiocese of New York

Found on CatholicJobs.com:

The Archdiocese needs an assistant to the director of the Development Office.

Lost and "Lost": The Sacred and Profane

Is ABC's "Lost" Our Lady of Vilnius' parallel universe? Can I learn from watching it, or will it just make me unhinged?

As I was scanning the front page of today's New York Times Arts section, Gina Bellafantes's article, Philosophy, Mystery, Anarchy: All Is ‘Lost’ caught my eye. What with Our Lady of Vilnius and all, I watch very little TV. Despite the show's being ABC's blockbuster hit for 4 years, I never even heard of it, but "Philosphy, Mystery, Anarchy?". The shoe seems to fit.

"Lost,” ... denies us the satisfaction of ever feeling that we might confidently explain, to the person sitting next to us at dinner, that we have a true grasp of what is going on — of who among the characters is merely bad and who is verifiably satanic. To watch “Lost” is to feel like a high school grind, studying and analyzing and never making it to Yale. Good dramas confound our expectations, but “Lost,” about a factionalized group of plane crash survivors on a cartographically indeterminate island not anything like Aruba, pushes further, destabilizing the ground on which those expectations might be built. It is an opiate, and like all opiates, it produces its own masochistic delirium."

Replacing a some of the author's words can give us something like this:

"Lost on Broome Street” ... denies us the satisfaction of ever feeling that we might confidently explain, to the person sitting next to us at dinner, that we have a true grasp of what is going on — of who among the characters is merely bad and who is verifiably satanic. To watch the Save Our Lady of Vilnius Committee try to save the parish is to feel like a high school grind, studying and analyzing and never making it to Yale. Good dramas confound our expectations, but “Lost on Broome Street” about a factionalized group of parishioners in a culturally indeterminate archdiocese nothing like the archbishopric of Bing Crosby's "St. Mary's", pushes further, destabilizing the ground on which those expectations might be built. It is an opiate, and like all opiates, it produces its own masochistic delirium. "

Calling anyone in a masochistic delirium: Wake up, smell the Starbucks and please help us preserve our heritage as New Yorkers, Roman Catholics and lovers of humanity!

A Deu$ ex Machina Descends for St. Brigids

After a long fight, after numerous press releases enumerating the reasons for closing the parish and demolishing the church, after an hour's worth of wrecking ball that destroyed much beloved stained glass, apparently all is forgotten by the archdiocese as an anonymous donor steps forward with a $20 million endowment for the parish and the school.

I read all about it in the New York Times article Donor Gives $20 Million to Revive a Historic Church by Sewell Chan. Salient quote:

"In July 2006, a day after demolition work began, a State Supreme Court justice issued a temporary restraining order halting the work. But in February 2007, the lawsuit was dismissed, a ruling that was affirmed on appeal. In January of this year, the plaintiffs, appealing yet again, got permission to bring the case to the Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court.

Marisa A. Marinelli, a partner at the law firm of Holland & Knight who has been representing the Committee to Save St. Brigid’s since 2006, described Wednesday’s announcement as a “very positive development,” but said that the committee members had to learn more details and have a discussion before deciding whether to drop their pending appeal."

Seven other news outlets have picked up this story. Students of spin, or those who are seeking pronouncements not uttered by Joseph Zwilling, might want to read them all:

Anonymous donor saves NYC's St Brigid's Church

St. Brigid's Church Saved by Anonymous Donor by Junia Mink at "eNews 2.0."

Donation Saves Church (Update) at "Gotham Gazette"

St. Brigid's saved from wrecking ball by anonymous $20M donation by "New York Daily News" writers Christina Boyle and Corky Siemaszko

St. Brigid's Church Saved by Anonymous Donor at Gothamist

Manhattan Parish, School Saved by Multi-Million Dollar Donation at NY1

St. Brigid's Church is saved at "The Irish Echo"

The blogosphere has begun to weigh in with a post on "Shrine of the Holy Whapping." The post, $20 Million Later, St. Brigid's (NYC) Saved mentions Our Lady of Vilnius, saying "Whether or not the organ, or anything else, is still in place is uncertain, since the archdiocese had already begun to disassemble the building, and the Archdiocese of New York did some pretty serious pre-demolition work to other parishes slatted for controversial closures, such as Our Lady of Vilnius."

The post also has links to the history of St. Brigid's and its contents.

dotCommonweal has picked up on this story with David Gibson's post, Saving St. Brigid. At this point the forum is focussed on Cardinal Egan's sudden transfer of many pastors throughout the archdiocese. I hope that some of the regulars can bring some observations back to the point at hand. I also wonder if this development will cause any whispering in the loggia.

Stay tuned.

Dalia: Celebrating a Life

Dalia's life was celebrated by her fellow parishioners on the steps of Our Lady of Vilnius yesterday. The picture, taken when Dale was about 20, displays all the beauty of her spirit.

In Remembrance of Dalia Bulgaris

Last night I received the sad news that Dalia Bulgaris had passed away earlier in the day. I knew that, within the past week, she had become gravely ill, but I always hope for the best, at least the best from my perspective. I always expected her to recover and once again be in our midst. After I got the phone call from Rita, I got an announcement and a call for prayers that Mindaugas had sent out to all of us.

Saulius Simoliunas left the following comment on a previous post to this blog:

"Dalia Bulgaris died before noon on May 3, 2008, leaving us and her numerous grateful students, who later became accomplished scientists. We will aiways honor and cherish her memory."

I was not able to attend the gatherings today at St. Patrick's Cathedral and on the steps of Our Lady of Vilnius and I am sorry that I missed the opportunity to stand among my fellow parishioners and pray that Dalia's soul be at rest in God.

Though her illness prevented her from being present with us over the last few months, she was always with us in spirit. She expressed her sorrow at the closure of Our Lady of Vilnius, saying that she felt like an oddball in the mainstream parishes but felt at home at Our Lady of Vilnius. She had expressed something that many of us felt. I was proud to be her fellow oddball. She was intelligent, sensitive, kind and genuinely good.

As we pray for her soul, let us also ask her to keep helping us and our parish as she did in life.

My kind of Pope!

"Benedict’s kindness toward the strays of Rome is already the stuff of Vatican legend. His house in Germany, its garden guarded by a cat statue, was filled with cats when Benedict lived there full time before he was posted to the Vatican in 1982. "

This is a quote from today's "New York Times" article titled Cat Lovers Appreciate Soul Mate in Vatican. Normally I will curl up on top of the Times for a nap or bat a paw at it while it's being read, but today I nearly shredded the paper in my enthusiasm for this article. Please read the rest of this inspiring story.

Papal Blessing

A miniature reproduction of the Our Lady of Vilnius altar icon attended Pope Benedict XVI's Mass at Yankee Stadium and received the papal blessing offered at the end of the Mass.

Our Lithuanian-American chorister held up the little icon as the Holy Father paused briefly before the choir in his popemobile.

The archdiocese closed our church but we are still present, still hopeful, still faithful and still part of the Mystical Body of Christ.