5 /5 John Lockman: This church came to my mind after my Scoutmasters wife passed away who grew up in Cutchogue and was a fine violinist and music teacher in the old school tradition. She embodied that American immigrant hard working spirit that I always felt the church symbolized. Probably the most beautiful RC church on Long Island, it gives off a quaint other land feeling of being in the mid west yet inside you felt as if you were in Europe. The hard scrabble Polish farmers wanted something to be proud of and they built this adorable church in the middle of the potato farms. We were Irish who ate their potatoes but when I was young we also attended mass there because of this old priest who they said was injured in WW II celebrated the mass with words you could barely understand yet my father was willing to drive all the way from Southold because he gave no homily--you could be in and out within a half hour he boasted to the neighbors. He wouldnt admit it, but it was more because of that quaint feeling you got from the entire experience. I personally aint the religious type but if there is any benefit to the whole affair it comes in that intangible form of community that just leeches from the walls and buttresses. If I was ever to go to that place they say you can never go back to I would certainly attend mass at Our Lady of Ostrabrama and revel in the nostalgia of a bygone era. You might try it too and see what you think.
