Praying Well at the End of the World

Early in the book, Fr. Donald Haggerty complains about the summertime crowds of tourists who pass through cathedrals and never notice the purpose of the places. They “enter and depart . . . without a single phrase of personal prayer whispered within those walls.” Knowing that Haggerty preaches at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, it is easy to call to mind the scene. Every day of the year, great crowds of exurban tourists circumnavigate St. Patrick’s nave, stopping to read the printed biographies of the saints in the cathedral’s side chapels. They bring with them iced coffees and shopping bags from the Rockefeller Center across Fifth Avenue. They chat and snap photos. There are, as Haggerty points out, men and women bent in prayer, but it would be dishonest to pretend that knowledge of Christ’s presence in the tabernacle is universally acknowledged. As he says, “God [is] dishonored inside his own house.”