Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart

(This spectacular church is located in my boyhood home city of Newark, New Jersey. It sits majestically on a rise across the street from where I attended high school. My sister was married here more than fifty years ago. It is world renowned as both an architectural and ecclesiastical jewel. It’s always had a special place in my heart.)

 

Clerestory windows
Admit into transepts
Heaven’s own light
With agnostic rays
Refracted by doubts

 

Flying buttresses thrust
From chancel and nave
Transmuting gravity
Through high gothic vaults
Into repentance

 

Three stained-glass rose panes
Compelling in scale
Adorn forceful façades
Carved from granite quartz stone
Dressed to tolerate sin

 

Baldacchino and pulpit
Fine-sculpted white marble
Pronounce sacred words
Steeped in mystery’s echo
Profane ears can hear

 

The Christ and His altar
Pink-born of Carrara
Host the Eucharist
Rapture that ruptures
What evil may linger

 

Eleven side chapels
Accommodate worship
Of indigenous ethnic
Eminent figures in the
Catholic pantheon

 

Limestone-clad narthex
Envelopes in welcome
Those hesitant hearts
Or incomplete souls
To share in the rites

 

Two magnificent towers
Evoke fourteenth-century
Pealing their calls
Across urban miles
Distracted by toil

 

Huge Roman bronze doors
Usher in thousands
To worship and pray
In this hallmark of art
In this landmark to faith