Resurrecting Chicago

Immaculate Conception Church, Morris, Il. Typical parish church constructed in the early 20th century for Latin liturgies.

As a Boomer Catholic, I remember the Latin Mass well and loved it. Growing up and going to Mass was a daily religious ritual at my grade school. Sundays my family attended Mass at our huge parish church.  We never missed a Sunday.

The Latin Mass was rich in color (even when the vestments were black) and the sound of Latin was comforting and became a refuge from the vernacular.  I didn’t know what “Dominus vobiscum” meant but I did know to answer “Et cum spiritu tuo.” I thought it was quite holy.

My parish church sanctuary was ornate with beautifully carved rich dark-brown wooden altars, one at either side of the main altar which were built by German craftsmen.  The main altar was even more impressive with its ornate carvings. Life-sized statues of Our Lord and His mother were placed as focal points at each side altar. A striking corpus hung from the large cross over the tabernacle above the main altar.

Mass started when the priest wearing a biretta (a black boxy hat with three fringes topped off with a round tuft) and a cape-like colorful chasuble  entered the sanctuary with two boys dressed in black cassocks and white surplices leading him in. Those boys –acolytes– represented the Catholic community and assisted at the Mass.

When they arrived at the altar all three genuflected to the presence of Jesus in the tabernacle in the center of the main altar.  After the prayers at the foot of the altar and with much bowing, the priest went up the three stairs to the altar and bent over, kissing the table-like altar and then beginning prayers with his back to us in silence.  The entire service was in Latin –sotto voce–except for the scriptural readings.  We watched Mass rather than heard it.

The focus of the Mass was the separate consecration of the bread and wine. The priest with his back to the congregation lifted the bread and wine separately for adoration as the Body and Blood of the Lord.  Bells rang brightly in a fixed pattern to alert us to the moment of consecration.

Latin was the only liturgical language used in the Western part of the Church. That was about to change as the reforms of Vatican II set in in 1962.

As Latin was carefully and slowly replaced by English, I began to realize that I was not watching a Mass but was part of it. The II Vatican Council’s document on Liturgical reform stressed that the celebration of the Holy Eucharist should include “full, active and conscious participation” of the congregation. To achieve this, the priest would move to the other side of the altar  and face the community. And, he would speak to us and we to him in our own language.

I began to love this new form of the Mass.  it was a development of my understanding of the Holy Eucharist and a sanctifying of the language that I spoke everyday of my life. It was the language, too, of my personal prayers, those I had prayed in my heart for my entire life. I still revere the Latin Mass but I am grateful for the blessings of our English Mass, beautiful, too, in its own way.

My backyard looks kind of peppy this morning. Even though we have close to drought conditions here in Morris, my lawn looks green and healthy.  Dawn finds the sparrows flittering around the birdfeeder while robins hop here and there occasionally pulling hidden nightcrawlers out of the grass. Even St. Francis over there, caught in the act of preaching to the birds, seems brighter  — and I think I know why.

Mary Kay’s Flowers

Near the white fence that encloses my yard, bright yellow lilies cluster around the statue of the saint and set it off as if they were decorating both sides of an altar with Francis as the santo.  This feature is the work of Mary Kay Golimowski who is the gardener for my yard and the nun’s yard which is next door to my home.  I can still see her kneeling next to Francis and carefully pulling weeds that had grown among the lilies. She died unexpectedly a few days ago.

Mary Kay, the gardener, brought quiet and kindness to those who knew her.  When you were around her you felt a sense of peace and order, a kind of gentleness that would set that moment apart from the untidiness and noise that adorns most of our days.

Those lilies that seem so warm and joyful this morning were not yet blooming when I last saw Mary Kay down on her knees tending to them. The buds began opening last Thursday when she entered the hospital for a somewhat routine valve replacement. Three days later she passed away  there and my lilies began to blossom

Each year when I again see the creamy yellow flowers around St. Francis, I will remember the woman who graced my garden and my life.

In 1963 I attended the first Mass celebrated in English in the U.S. The occasion was the Catholic Church’s National Liturgical Convention held at Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis. I heard expressed in my own language the words of the Mass that I had known so well in Latin. The celebrant was Monsignor Martin Hellriegel, a Bavarian immigrant, and pastor of a church in St. Louis. He had been a guiding light for the liturgical movement in the U.S.

When this church was built the Mass was celebrated in Latin.

As I remember, some fourteen thousand Catholic representatives of the dioceses throughout the U.S. were present.  I was a twenty-two-year-old seminarian and one of the members of the huge choir assembled for this event.

We sang English liturgical songs that had been specially composed for the event since there were no other musical compositions suited to a Mass in the vernacular.

That Mass opened the floodgates of liturgical experimentation in the United States. The Latin Mass began to recede in popularity. Plus, the celebrant’s face was no longer turned away from the congregation. The priest faced us and spoke in words we understood.  It was in our own language and the words began to resonate with meanings that had never reached my heart before. When I was growing up, I often sat in church and prayed that the priest would say something that I could understand.   In those days, the sermons were in English but they might as well have been in Latin, too.

Now, though, somehow the ritual words heard in my own language engaged my heart in a deeper experience of what I had known as a youth.

Here we are, over fifty years later, and the celebration of the Holy Eucharist in the vernacular is taken for granted. Latin somehow had made the ritual of the Mass mysterious. English somehow makes the Mass more welcoming while the sacred mystery remains.

I was fifteen years old and waiting after school at a corner for a bus. When it arrived, I got on it and sat down across from a man who sat with his eyes closed, smiling, with his hands resting on his cane. I could see by his white cane that he was blind. He was a big man, dressed neatly, maybe in his forties. Then I noticed a badge on his coat pocket. In large letters, it said: “I am blind and deaf.”

My fifteen-year-old mind grappled with the question of how could someone be blind and deaf. How could this man be taking a bus without a companion to guide him? Most of all I thought: How could this man be smiling? I only had a few blocks to go. When I got off, the blind and deaf man was still sitting there, smiling.

I’m a very old man now but I have never forgotten the blind-deaf man who so profoundly affected me as a young man.

In my twenties, I learned American Sign Language (ASL) and worked with the deaf and hard of hearing. I spent quite a bit of time teaching that language to a blind man who was going deaf. His wife had asked me to teach him. “He’s blind and now he is going deaf. How will we be able to communicate?” The manual alphabet and “signs” he could feel in his coupled hands, gave them a way to manage the rest of their lives together.

I retain an image of the blind and deaf man who I saw sitting across from me on the bus when I was fifteen. His silence spoke to me, and his blindness opened my eyes. His serene smile left me changed for the better. I have never been the same and I have never shared this story with anyone until now, Ash Wednesday 2023.

As I got out of my car in the church parking lot this morning, I was thinking how much lighter it is at 6:30 AM than it was at the same time a month ago.  A red bird was singing a bright melody close by.  As I entered the church to prepare to offer the Eucharist I thought about those signs that alert me to the meaning of this day.  A blind and deaf person has to feel for the signs that will reveal meaning.  My sense of touch will search for Lent, too, in the movement of the priest’s thumb as he marks me with black dust in the form of a cross.

The cold war has never ended, no matter how many military leaders still deny that that war exists.  China, The USA, Israel, and other nuclear nations continue to preserve and build up arsenals of annihilation.  Recently, the dictator of North Korea in  a formal declaration told his military leaders to prepare for war and his state department issued a chilling response to the increased military exercises in South Korea in which the U.S. participates: (This kind of activity) “will be met with the most overwhelming nuclear force.”

We should never give up the Christian crusade to bring peace to our world. That’s why we must continue to bring justice through peaceful means wherever there is an opportunity.

There’s one thing that everyone can do and that is to pray for peace in our world. Passionately, and urgently we should make our prayers to the Prince of Peace. We should never give up.  If all of us in our world were praying for peace, there would be no opportunity to plan for war.

Over fifty years ago, Pope Paul VI prayed at the United Nations for peace in our world. He ended his address with these words: “No more war, war never again!”

Amen.

Snow rescues dullness in my neighborhood.

It’s amazing how fresh snow highlights everything.  This morning the dawn revealed a wooly-looking blanket of white outlining everything: rooftops, naked trees, asphalt streets, and a tricycle in my neighbor’s front yard.

The tricycle irritates me because the only reason it still sits cluttering up the scene is that the adults in the house no longer notice it when they come in and out their front door. Other trash also in the front yard is highlighted by the two inches of white that reveal the junk. This, too, is cause for another “Bless the Lord.” Yes! Bless the Lord, O trash and junk!”

I thank God today as the psalms encourage me to do. “Bless the Lord, O you works of the Lord, bless the Lord.”  Sun and moon, dew and frost, ice and snow –yes, bless the Lord! The naked trees now wear a frosty dressing and for that, bless the Lord! The cars, too, show snow on their hoods and windows as they meander with more care than usual down the street in front of my house. The same people drive the same cars on the same days to work each morning at the same times. But, today there’s surprise snow.

My heart lifts all of this to the Lord and with the Church in every place and time, I, too, bless the Lord. But, today is a different kind of morning because dawn is not soaked up in shadows.  The snow diffuses the light and lifts everything out of the shadows and the whole world is lighter and brighter because of God’s glorious invention of snow. “Bless the Lord, O you works of the Lord!”

It’s the season of awakening light.  Every Advent the prophet Isaiah instructs, cajoles, and inspires us as the gathering light of Advent stirs the faith that gives us the energy to live.  His words sanctify the season.

“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light.” (Is 9:2) I’m aware that when I get up early it is still dark outside. I’m sitting on my enclosed porch, all windows now revealing shades of darkness out there. I look forward to the next hour when I can see the first light of day and then the sun reveals itself to me and the world around me. I’m waiting for that great light.  Meanwhile, reading Isaiah comforts me.This time of year I yearn for more light and I appreciate its absence.

The house sparrows are mute as they awake at first light searching for something to eat.  The robins, too, are scurrying around.  This morning it’s a crisp 19 degrees outside and the robins won’t find squiggling  worms or luscious insects as they hop here and there in search for food. They have to scrimp and try to crush seeds with their narrow pointed beaks. The sparrows, though,  have beaks that crack and extract the protein within seeds so the sparrows get along better in the unending search for the scraps of the past summer. Every winged thing has to tough out the winter here in Northern Illinois. I, too, have to tough things out and I am hungry, not for food but for light.

The Church uses Advent to tell me that the world waited in darkness and gloom until the Savior, He who is the Light of the World. came among us.  The winter solstice will occur in late December, coinciding with the traditional day of the Savior’s birth. Then, the days will extend slowly into full-blown Spring.  Meanwhile, there is a long winter ahead of us –and it will be dark. But, then, Isaiah startles me again: ” Arise, shine, for your light has come and the glory of the Lord rises upon you…..” (Is 60: 1-2)

Living through Advent with Isaiah makes me yearn for the moment when I will see a brilliance that will never go out.

The cross of Jesus Christ is a powerful symbol and its monument is sacred to His followers. (author’s collection)

I just watched a video of Bishop Robert Barron,  chief pastor of the diocese of Rochester-Winona in Minnesota as he re-consecrated a desecrated Catholic Catholic cemetery in Rochester. Over last Halloween evening, vandals entered Calvary cemetery and spray painted obscenities and hateful graffiti on the headstones and other structures there.

“This is holy ground,” the Bishop says. He is vested in white cope and miter with acolytes and seminarians assisting him and a large number of lay people present. His informal words of gathering are spoken in sadness at the desecration of the holy ground containing so many family members — men, women, and children who have gone before us in the Faith.

Cemetery workers stripped and scrubbed away the graffiti so that most of the monuments are now cleansed and restored. Bishop Barron thanks the workers and then offers official prayers that the Catholic Church recommends for re-consecrating a cemetery. He is somewhat hunched over as he walks down the main road among the tombstones casting showers of holy water toward the monuments and the ground.  It is a baptism, a re-birth of this hallowed ground where loved ones lie awaiting the Resurrection.

We have just passed through an ugly, political campaign. It was often vicious and profoundly disrespectful.  However, demeaning and hateful attacks do work, says Chris Christie, a seasoned politician and recent guest on WGN’s The John Williams Show. Even lies and false statements about the character of opponents are now standard by those who want to lead us in government. After months of this type of hateful speech, do we expect that anyone would care about graffiti defacing and dirtying our holy images and sacred spaces?

Was the desecration of a cemetery just a juvenile prank for Halloween? The act of spray painting sacred images and monuments with vicious slogans and the name of the evil one seem more intentionally hurtful to me, not the work of children or even young people.

We Catholics are going to have to react to hateful actions against our buildings and against ourselves. We have a right to practice our faith and a right to expect respect from those who disagree with us. However, it looks as if not only our statues and monuments are going to be attacked. We Catholics are going to have to stand up for our Faith or be pulled down off our pedestals at the hands of iconoclasts who hold nothing sacred but their own opinions.

I was thinking this morning that the Creator must have warmed to the joy of fashioning nature. Look around and see His art and listen to His tunes. All of nature is so varied and interesting. And, it’s beautiful.

This morning I’m outside in my backyard on my birthday watching and listening. Suddenly I’m thinking: “What bird is that?” The song was new and complex, coming from two backyards away. It continued for some minutes. At first, I thought it was cardinal because the sound was flute-like and regularly melodic. But then it changed the melody and didn’t sound at all like a cardinal song.

I was surprised when the bird landed in a bush fifteen feet from me and began his song again.  What’s he doing (assuming it is a he) singing in late summer? Bird song belongs to setting up territory and nest building, doesn’t it?

This bird is sparrow-sized and similarly colored –kind of tawny– but with a prominent and long tail and with an elongated dark beak, curved slightly downward. Is it a Brown Thrasher? Too small. Nuthatch? The beak is not that prominent. Uncommon sparrow? Not with that beak!

I concluded it was a house wren. I am not certain because I didn’t notice the prominent upward position of the tail with its distinctive bands. Maybe this bird didn’t read its description in the latest guide to America’s birds. He was hidden most of the time by the leaves so he wasn’t easy to see but he hopped around in the bush, just like a wren.

So, I heard a new song as I began a new year.

If I continue to listen to the life around me, nature will likely continue to teach me new things. Maybe it will even teach me a new song of my own to sing.

I could use some new melodies and some fresh lyrics as I begin another year.