A Chicago Retreat

 

Hello and welcome to this short reflection on the recent Catholic Unscripted Chicago roadshow. Gavin, Katherine and I were all very fortunate to be invited to visit Chicago for a series of meetings, talks and interviews.

When was the last time you heard anyone recommend Chicago, Illinois, for a Catholic retreat or pilgrimage? 

I'm guessing the answer is never.

Well, when my friends heard I was going to visit with my Catholic Unscripted friends Katherine and Gavin, I received quite a few troubled looks and messages of concern. 

Perhaps this is because Chicago is, after all, somewhat synonymous with gun violence. It regularly attracts attention from the press, politicians, and, especially advocates on both sides of the firearms debate in the United States. 

The New York Times recently ran a series of articles on shootings in the city where the Reverend Michael Pfleger, a prominent anti-violence activist and pastor on the city’s South Side, described Chicago as “the poster boy of violence in America.” 

This was born out upon our arrival at Chicago's O'Hare airport, where, immediately, all the news was of riots downtown — news which brought on a flurry of worried phonecalls from home.

No one needed to fret, we were actually based in Mundelein, which is a rather pleasant suburb about an hour or so outside of the city and the site of the famous St Mary of the Lake Seminary, whose former rector in 2012 was none other than Bishop Robert Barron. This is the major seminary and graduate school of theology for the Archdiocese of Chicago. The students here will go on to serve as priests of the Archdiocese of Chicago as well as for nearly 30 other dioceses across the country.

It was founded by the first bishop of Chicago, Bishop William J. Quarter, and was granted a charter in 1844 by the State of Illinois, with power “to confer…such academical or honorary degrees as are usually conferred by similar institutions.” Chicago welcomed it as the first institution of higher learning in the city, and it flourished. 

In 1921, Archbishop George Mundelein opened the schools of philosophy and theology as St. Mary of the Lake Seminary under the original 1844 charter. Archbishop Mundelein had a grand vision for the impact of the new seminary, and he was proud to dedicate it on May 25, 1924, and show it off in 1926 when it was used as a site for the International Eucharistic Congress.





In September 1929, Cardinal Mundelein obtained a five-year grant from the Sacred Congregation of Seminaries and Universities in Rome to establish a Pontifical Faculty of Theology at Mundelein, with the power to confer the international degrees of the Catholic Church, the baccalaureate, the licentiate and doctorate in theology. In September 1934, this temporary grant was made permanent, and the seminary became the first American institution to be honoured as a Pontifical Theological Faculty under the new Apostolic Constitution Deus Scientarium Dominus.

This is a video I took of the beautiful Palladian chapel at the Seminary, a quick guided tour from Fr Chris:

The town was beautiful and felt very friendly, we were frequent visitors to Emil's pub for vittels and discussion, the pizza and chicken wings were excellent and the Guinness was pretty decent too!

A pint at Emil's!

Preparing a talk at the pub

The seminary is set in beautiful ground where wild deer roam amongst the various buildings, they caught us quite by surprise the first time we saw them returning in the dark one evening. I even saw a wild beaver!

Just as Chicago itself was immediately far more benign that it's reputation, the communities we visited similarly defied expectations...or perhaps I should say REPUTATIONS...in a rather spectacular way. At one early meeting we had, a wonderful devoted lady explained how, when moving to Chicago from, I think it was from Texas, a friend told her "you'll love Chicago, everyone is Catholic" this lady was puzzled and was sure her friend had made a mistake. When she arrived, however, she found the doctor was Catholic, the dentist, the people who owned the store, everyone!! We soon found that just starting a conversation in the pub led to Catholic revelations. It seemed everyone was indeed Catholic!

Each of the communities we met and worshipped with revealed a different side of the Catholic faith in Chicago. 

One of our first stops was the town of Volo where we found an absolutely exquisite Parish Church, St. Peter's, serving a thriving Catholic community who had recently started their own Catholic school: The Chesterton Academy.

We met with an inspiration lady: Mai Wilson who serves as the Executive Director as well as Dan Janeiro the Head Teacher. Dan had taken a pay cut to teach at a proper Catholic School with an amazing ethos and curriculum. The academy is small, but utterly brilliant.

They follow the Socratic method of teaching, with a rigorous focus on classic literature, philosophy, science, mathematics, history and Latin. Students begin every day with Mass and additionally participate in a fine arts program which includes art, choir, drama, and ballroom dance. At the beginning of every school year, the faculty and staff take an oath of fidelity to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church. We had a very fruitful meeting which gave us lots of ideas we felt were transferable to our work with DICE and Catholic education in this country. Katherine and Dan were brainstorming at the white board. We were very impressed and enthused by the way the Academy had taken on the challenge of educating the next generation of Catholics. There was an immediate meeting of minds.

Our next visit was Mass at Marytown, which is the National Shrine of St, Maximillian Kolbe. It is a large complex with a beautiful Church rivalling any in Europe and featuring marble facades and stunning side chapels a coffered ceiling, Corinthian capitals and with perpetual eucharistic adoration (which you can experience for yourself through live stream). Even the week day Masses are packed with worshippers and after the liturgy, there are still lots of people moving around the chapels, lighting candles and saying prayers. It really reminded me of visiting the great shrines of Europe, except those Churches are full of tourists chatting and taking pictures whereas everyone at Marytown was a devout Catholic engaged in prayer, adoration and worship. There is also a very moving museum to the horrors experienced in the concentration camp by St. Maximillian.

The liturgy was excellent. It was novus ordo with really solid preaching, a very reverent liturgy of the Eucharist and, interestingly, two Prie-dieu placed out for Holy Communion, making it easy for communicants to kneel to receive the blessed sacrament. This is a small and simple innovation which seems to me to welcome greater reverence and in response lots of people were kneeling, I would say the vast majority. It was great to see so much genuine reverence on display.

St. Mary of the Angels was the venue for our first talk. We had a sing song of our favourite hymns as we drove into town. We were met in the carpark by Father Ryan Brady. It was freezing cold and Fr Ryan sported a fedora and a stylish overcoat — we all thought he looked just like a gangster!

Fr Ryan gave us a tour of the Church building with a little of the history of the place. 

Father Ryan Brady later spoke to Gavin in his podcast about being a priest in Chicago which I highly recommend, it's well worth a listen. 

St Mary of the Angels is an enormous and spectacular an example of the Polish Cathedral style of churches modelled on St. Peter's Basililca in Rome. It is one of a number monumental Polish churches visible from the Kennedy Expressway a tangible landmark, sign and witness to the faith. 

The parish was originally founded to serve the large number of Poles who had settled in Bucktown, which was a part of Chicago's Polish Downtown. The archdiocese purchased two city blocks totalling 96 lots at the corner of Hermitage and Cortland (formerly Clybourn Place) for $60,000. 

One block was subdivided for residences while the other became the site of the parish. The first pastor, Reverend Francis Gordon, laid the cornerstone of the first building at 1810 North Hermitage Avenue, now used as the school (which we also toured while we were there), on July 2, 1899. 

The Church contained everything for the parishioners spiritual and social life. The basement housed meeting rooms, a gymnasium, and an auditorium. The main floor contained twelve classrooms and convent quarters while the second floor held the sanctuary with living quarters for the priests in the attic.

After the tour we attended Mass and then went downstairs to give our talk to a lively audience which included the parish RCIA group. The feedback was excellent and we had lots of very interesting questions which kept us engaged for several hours. It was a brilliant way to start our time in Chicago as we felt immediately part of the Catholic community. This is a real Catholic thing for me; wherever I am in the world, once I get to Mass and get my Catholic bearings, I feel I am comfortable, I am at home: With my international family. I think that is something unique to being Catholic and really important because it is demonstrative of the way the Catholic faith embraces all people wherever you are in the world.

The next day we were interviewed for a Catholic radio station called WFSI and, once again, were shocked by the intimacy and familial welcome we received. The integrity and honesty of the faithful Catholics we encountered everywhere we visited was extremely moving and the very real and none more than the audience at this venue. They asked very interesting questions and asked if we could pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet together at the end — what a privilege! 

Again at Santa María del Popolo, a Parish with a 60% Mexican congregation, we were struck by the authenticity and engagement. The genuine interest and concern about the faith and, most interestingly and affirming: We are all on the same page. At both of these venues and prompted somewhat by the cares and concerns expressed in the questions we were asked, I kept thinking of John 10:27: "My sheep hear my voice, I know them, and they follow me.". Wherever you go in the world, the faithful recognise the faith, we share it in such a powerful and glorious way!

Later in the week we were taken to Saint John Cantius, a Church community famous for its unique and sumptuous Baroque interior, spectacular liturgy and affiliation with the Canons Regular of Saint John Cantius whose special charism is the restoration of the sacred. To that end, they have gathered a quite extraordinary treasure trove of beautiful sacred objects, artefacts and relics to rival anything I have ever seen. We had experienced a week of wonderful fellowship, of open and honest witness to the faith, of sharing our own very personal testimonies and at this point in our journey, we were all on a real spiritual high, we felt full of the Holy Spirit, and, as one beautiful religious treasure after another was revealed to us, Katherine in particular was quite literally overwhelmed by the beauty of it! 

As well as exquisite uplifting worship, the wonderful Canons welcomed us, fed us and plied us with a wonderful home made limoncello. 

The fellowship was superb and the whole community is just immersed in Catholicism and they have built an extraordinary parish community with nearly forty new Catholics received into the Church last Easter and sixteen already signed up for RCIA this year. They are thriving and in demand and so it is difficult to reconcile with the current antipathy of Rome to our wonderful heritage and Tradition. When you see Traditionally minded parishes drawing in huge numbers, growing and bringing large numbers to Christ, you have to recognise that the Holy Spirit is the HOLY Spirit who will lead us away from Sin and towards a holy life. That as the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth, He will lead us to the Truth – and not into Doctrinal or Moral Error. In other words the complete opposite of the “discernment” arising from a Meeting/Seminar/Synod of people pushing sinful and heretical ideas!

There were a lot of really special moments on this trip. Perhaps for me one of the most poignant experience was sharing Mass in the small chapel at Santa María del Popolo in Mundelein which served as our base parish. It was just the three of us, Gavin, Katherine and myself, and our priest. I was asked to read the Psalm and it turned out that the psalm of the day was Psalm 34 which is very special to my wife and I, and is engraved on our daughter Ruth's grave. I couldn't believe it, after a week of telling my story, which, can be quite painful and wasn't something I had really planned to do, this was very clearly, God reaching out to me in an extremely intimate way, touching my heart and consoling me. 

At Holy Communion, we all knelt and Father gave us both species of the Eucharist. After the Mass, Gavin revealed to us that this was the first time he had ever received Holy Communion under both species as a Catholic. We had been discussing Eucharistic reverence and all these issues all week and then, in this little chapel, at a quiet shared Mass, there was so much divine providence which spoke so deeply to each one of us and our own personal experiences.

I never thought I would have enjoyed so much spiritual fruit from a trip to the USA but I could not recommend it highly enough. I came home saying to people "don't go on retreat to Rome, try Chicago!"