The 2026 Central Harlem Catholic Revival was celebrated Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon, March 7 and 8, at St. Mark the Evangelist Church, West 138th Street, with the lead celebrant, Father Kareem Smith, asserting on Sunday: 

“The plan of God is constantly unfolding before our eyes. If you cling tightly to your life, your plans, your control, you will miss what God wants to do through you. You will miss your blessing…The path to glory is surrender.” 

Several hundred people attended each two-hour gathering, for a total that exceeded 1,000, with a choir that provided lively, faith-filled vocal and instrumental sounds, revival style. The event theme was “Lift Us Up, Lord. For the Hour Has Come.” 

Father Smith is pastor of The Church of the Blessed Sacrament in New Rochelle. He is also president of the National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus (NBCCC), board member of the National Black Catholic Congress (NBCC), and chaplain for Black Catholics in the Archdiocese of New York. 

A call to be game changers 

“Yes, life is filled with mountains. But we don’t have to be expert mountain climbers, because our help cometh from the Lord. In the time of our trials, we need to simply remember that help is on the way, Church, that Jesus is coming…Lift us up, Lord. For the hour has come,” Father Smith preached early in his Sunday sermon. 

“The Lord calls us right here, and right now, to be game changers, to bring a message of hope. Isaiah said: God lifts a people, and he says, ‘Arise, shine.’ You remember from yesterday, Jesus said: Stand and lift up your heads, because your redemption is at hand…Revival begins when the people of God stop looking down in despair and begin looking up in faith. Revival begins when you and I are sent back into the world to be revivalists, to revive a world that is filled with despair, to be the one who comes to bring the Good News by the essence of your life.” 

He added, “Church, we have not been called to live in vain, but rather we have been called to help somebody, that is the Christian life. And the best way to help somebody is the manner in which we live, the manner in which we choose to love…The people of God must surrender to the rule of God. You see, sometimes we want to do things in our time. But our time is not always according to God’s time.” And Father Smith noted it is important “to be in a posture of expectation…Amen, Church?” 

“Amen,” was the response.  

Of the Lord Jesus Christ, Father Kareem noted, “He took death on the cross, Church, and he turned it into salvation for the world!” 

Gary Dubuisson, 68, was among the attendees on Sunday. He is a longtime parishioner of St. Charles Borromeo Church, also in Harlem (West 141st Street); he was volunteering as an usher for the revival on Sunday. 

“This has been very nice, very inspiring,” Dubuisson, a retired engineer, said of Father Smith’s homily, the choir music, and the fellowship among the faithful. He said he particularly liked the message about not looking down with despair, but “to look up to God with faith, pure faith…I was born and raised Catholic. It means everything to us. My faith in God never dies.” 

St. Mark the Evangelist Church was founded in April 1907. Its website notes that the parish is: “The first Catholic church in Harlem to welcome people of African descent from the southern parts of the United States and from the Caribbean.”