In Troubled Times, They Pray Around the Clock

Alex Anaya, 36, remembers that when he was growing up in Wilmington, children would play outside up until 10 p.m. Those days are no more, he said.

Violent crime and drug abuse now mar the small port community, dotted by refineries and composed mostly of immigrant families. But Anaya and others are hoping that the key to halting these problems is prayer.

Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church members are signing up to pray 24 hours a day at a small Perpetual Adoration chapel where they believe Christ -- or his physical representation -- must never be left alone.

“I’m praying for a Wilmington with lower crime, less graffiti, no gangs, and I want a better Wilmington,” Anaya said.

So he’s signed up for Thursdays from 10 to 11 p.m. and has taken on an additional shift Thursday from 2 to 3 a.m.

“I really do believe that this will help. We all do,” Anaya said.

The church, celebrating its 138th anniversary, is one of the oldest in Los Angeles County.

The chapel was once a room used by the priests for storage, but it has been turned into a space with designs similar to the adjacent church. The host, or consecrated wafer of bread, is contained in a sparkling gold monstrance, encased in a glass cabinet with red velvet curtains.

The marble altar comes from a Wilmington shop. The three wooden pews and the walls were completed by craftsmen from Wilmington.

“It was a labor of love so that the chapel belongs to the people,” said the Rev. Peter Irving.

In the month that the chapel has been open, people have filled shifts at all hours of the night, when the sky is still a deep black and most people are fast asleep. And the unusual hours people must dedicate to keep the vigil constant are actually bringing more people to the chapel, Irving said.

So far, about 110 people have signed up for time slots as part of a rotating schedule of worshippers. There are a dozen Perpetual Adoration chapels open in the Los Angeles Archdiocese, but only a couple hold prayers 24 hours every day like the Sts. Peters and Paul chapel does.

“For a community like this one to have people sacrificing their sleep and their family time when they are already pushed to the maximum, it really means something,” Irving said. “It’s bringing us together.”

Between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., the chapel gates remain locked. Only those with a key can go inside, and women are not allowed to be alone.

Though most of the 5,000 members of the congregation have modest incomes, they have collected enough to pay for nearly a dozen stained-glass windows at $12,000 each for the small chapel.

But the delicate inlaid windows do not depict the usual religious figures.

“We were careful to pick saints that represented the everyday person,” Irving said. So the saints are those who have been recently canonized by Pope John Paul II.

On a recent night, the 4 a.m. to 5 a.m. hour is taken by a man the priest has never met before. He is deep in prayer, and his face shows evidence of tears.

At 5 a.m., like clockwork, comes Tom Sullivan, a middle-aged man who has been attending Sts. Peter and Paul since childhood. But the man whose shift is ending, lost in prayer, remains.

For Irving, the mix of people coming to the chapel is encouraging. Some are regular churchgoers, others are people who haven’t gone in years.

Joey Stamper, 20, has a 2 a.m. shift on Mondays. He thinks that signing up for prayer may be keeping him out of trouble.

“I might be going and looking to see if there’s something to get into,” he said. “It’s a safe place of refuge.”

Many participants say they feel the opportunity for middle-of-the-night spirituality is giving them a sense of peace and a connection to their faith they haven’t felt before.

Frank Leon, 30, the father of three young children, said that the unusual hour he spends in church -- 4 to 5 a.m. on Tuesdays -- is restorative meditation.

“It’s basically a time for me to examine my conscience alone,” said Leon, a lifelong resident of Wilmington.

Although initial response is strong, the process of keeping a project like this going can be difficult, Irving said. Still, those involved believe that the enthusiasm for the project will continue.

“People are going to come here and pray because they will start to see God working his ways,” Gloria Hernandez said.

Others are hoping the chapel will attract people who might not want to come to one of the church’s eight Sunday Masses.

“Maybe some gang member will come and experience this and leave with the peace I feel when I leave the chapel,” said Christina Magdaleno, who comes on the weekends.