#4 Church of the Blessed Sacrament (152 W 71st St)

Thought we'd try the other side of the park this week.  Beautiful Saturday afternoon, walked across Central Park, stopped for an late lunch/early dinner at Harry's Burritos (Columbus and 72nd).  Very Yummy and relatively reasonable-- and nothing starts off a Saturday night mass like a beer and fish tacos (Jesus was a fisherman, people!) Pleasantly full, we trotted down the street for Mass. The church reminds me of a church we went to for Easter Sunday in Madrid. Big, with huge stone columns (columns which had giant speakers mounted on each one. Which made me wonder how they get the color to match perfectly -- I have seen other churches have the same speakers that almost blend into the columns -- is there a church catalog that has marble and stone colored speakers or maybe the speaker catalogs have a church section).      

                                                                                                                                                                  

I like this church...it is definitely old school. I asked where the restrooms were and one of the ushers took us behind the altar, through the sacristies where the priests were getting ready for mass (side note: the priests were negotiating about mass schedules...one of the priest agreed to trade masses with the other priest but he also got the guy to also promise to make dinner twice this week). It was fun to be back behind the scenes, reminded me of growing up and running around in church while my parents were setting up for bingo, ushering...etc...

The crowd was pretty mixed, lots of young couples with babies.The music was good, priest was funny, all in all a good mass. I also appreciated the second collection for the soup kitchen (Blessed Sacrament runs the shelter next door). And the priest's reminder "that just because you went away for the weekend, doesn't means the church's bills went away too".

Then, the treat to end all treats. Levain Bakery (www.levainbakery.com). Remember that name. Seriously, if you don't believe in God, you will after eating this cookie.  It really is that good. It is basically a small bowl of cookie dough cooked just enough to kill the salmonella.  It is heavenly.  You know a bakery knows what they are doing when then is a line outside the door, and not a one of them a tourist.  They have four kinds, Walnut Chocolate Chip, Oatmeal Raisin, Double Chocolate and one more kind that I can't even tell you because I had tunnel vision as soon as I saw my soul cookie. Feast your eyes on this baby....

I realize that you probably aren't reading this anymore because you can't tear your eyes away from that cookie. Just put yourself out of your misery and go get one!