Most people are familiar with churches and their elegant services, but many of us may not be familiar with much smaller and quieter settings within some churches, called adoration chapels. There is an adoration chapel at St. Joseph St. Patrick's Catholic Church on Columbia Street in Utica, only this chapel is called the Perpetual Adoration Chapel. Perpetual, because there is always at least one person there praying, no matter what time or day. The Perpetual Adoration Chapel at St. Joseph St. Patrick's celebrated its 20th anniversary on Sunday.
It all began back in August of 1991when Father Antone Kandrac, Pastor of St. Joseph's St. Patrick's at the time, and Betty Frank, a church official attended the Sacred Heart Conference in Syracuse. They both received the call back then from the Holy Spirit to begin perpetual adoration in the church. It began on March 4th, 1992 and it has been going ever since.
Roberts says she spends a few hours herself each week in the chapel, "we realize God is with us all over, and we can pray anyplace, but there's something extra special about being in the presence of the Lord and being able to be right there."
Current Pastor of St. Joseph St. Patrick's, Father Richard Dellos says it's the dedication of about 330 people from 20 parishes in the Greater Utica which keeps this longstanding Catholic tradition going here in the Mohawk Valley, "different people take responsibility to pray before the Blessed Sacrament. The Blessed Sacrament is the extension of the mass, and people can pray in the presence of our Lord's body and blood, which is exposed in monstrance." A monstrance is the vessel used to display the consecrated Eucharistic host during Eucharistic adoration or Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.
Roberts says the time spent in the chapel is a very important time for each person who comes to pray, "there's so many difficulties and struggles that we all face in the world, being able to go into that chapel and spend some quality time with the Lord and being able to meditate, the relief and the faith and hope that you feel, I can't even describe it, it just gives peace to a person and gives you the opportunity to go out and face whatever you have to deal with in the world."
It's the role of Roberts and several other coordinators of the Perpetual Adoration Chapel to make sure even one second doesn't go by without someone there, and sometimes, she herself serves as a fill-in, "a medical emergency or someone can't make it and we get a call and we try to have subs prepared or two people in each hour, but there are times when I may need to go down and cover it myself and I am prepared to do that, but, we've never left it uncovered."
