Station of the Cross: Meeting God in the City

I sit at the Church of St. Agnes, images of the Holy Family all around. It is an oasis of quietness and reflection on East 43rd Street near New York’s Grand Central Station. Candles create soft light, as they burn placed in neat rows on tables set against the walls and near the door to the Confessional. Artful images of the Stations of the Cross, Stations near the Station, so to speak, surround me. The image of the Cross is here, too.

People sit near me, some kneel, pilgrims from the streets of Manhattan. Why they entered through St. Agnes’ large wooden doors, I do not know and would not intrude upon their searching or reverence or reverent searching to ask. How I got here I know. I was walking by on my busy way to catch a train. I saw the doors of St. Agnes, noticeably different from those of office buildings and shops. I looked up to see where I was and read “The Church of St. Agnes” engraved in stone high on the building’s face before me. The structure’s size – diminutive next to skyscrapers – and contrast – ecclesiastical rather than economic – imposed itself upon my preoccupied mind.

I entered because I like churches. No, not like. I want to enter places where men and women have found or go to find some experience of God. Some people visit places consecrated as sacred spaces. Other places besides church buildings hold holy promise, I know. Yes, and some church buildings hold nothing of the experience of God. I know that, too. Hilltops and mangers can be places of meeting God. The streets of Manhattan can be places of holy visitation. Hearts of God’s people can be touched by the sacred in these spaces, too.

I sit at the Church of St. Agnes, a Baptist Christian wondering whom this saint of Catholic Christians might be. I discover she was a young woman from the late third or early fourth century of our Christian Era. No single story defines her. From the narratives and legends that arose to tell of her, the kernel of truth seems to be that Agnes was persecuted and martyred because she promised her heart and soul only to Christ. Other suitors came calling. Powerful suitors who could threaten and take her life came calling. She was chaste and faithful to the end, so complete was her love for Christ, so taken was she by Christ’s love.

I sit at the Church of St. Agnes, yet I am not in a place so much as in an oasis that transcends human constructs. Rather, in my mind and heart, I have been brought to a new place, an interior place, a space beckoning me to enter, not the sanctuary of a building but the place of the cross, the heart of God, the Holy of Holies. Here people with hearts and minds preoccupied by the grandeur and gratuitousness of the City might find their lives intruded upon by the Love of the Savior and discover their lives may be changed for eternity.

Grace and peace,

Bob Guffey