In the city that never sleeps, Christ brings a peaceful respite.
“This is a 24/7 city, and it needs 24/7 prayer,” says Dominican Father Boniface Endorf, the pastor of St. Joseph Catholic Church in the heart of Manhattan.
Until mid-2023, however, Manhattan didn’t have a perpetual adoration chapel. Now, it does, the Divine Mercy Adoration Chapel, located in the rectory.
Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen, who will be beatified in September, filmed his popular television show in Midtown Manhattan. For more than 60 years, he spent an hour in Eucharistic adoration every day, calling it an “oxygen tank” for the soul.
“Looking at the Eucharistic Lord for an hour transforms the heart in a mysterious way,” he wrote.
And it has profoundly transformed St. Joseph’s. The main Sunday Masses are standing-room-only. After COVID, attendance at the weekly young-adult get-together averaged 20 to 25; now, 250 regularly attend. Confession lines are out the door, and more confessionals had to be installed. In 2026, confirmations hit record highs; 2027 projections are even higher.
“I think it’s no accident that this picked up about two to three years ago, and that’s right when we put the chapel in,” says Father Endorf.
