Church Review and a Trip to Whole Foods

Today begins my review of any and all new Roman Catholic churches that I am able to visit, whilst being "between parishes" or traveling. The Young Adult Ministry of the Archdiocese of Chicago has a mass held the first Sunday of every month at Old St. Pat's Church in the West Loop/Greektown area (I think). I have wanted to become more involved in the YAM, but have a few reservations. Namely, in that I think my views as a young Catholic are rather unique. I'm a combination of conservative tradition and, dare I say, hip progression. Example, I like my mass in Latin and things like tambourines and hand-holding make me uncomfortable. Girls should be allowed to be altar servers and foreign language masses should become more prevalent for the ever-evolving American Catholic population. If you do that as part of your service, that's fine. But the Mass is not a service. It is a ritual, which is why I really don't like when people try to turn it into a party in order to attract a larger audience.

Off the soap box I step and into the beautifully designed interior of Old St. Pat's. The interior of the church has been in a process of renovation for some time, and it is beautiful now. The whole church is covered in Celtic knot work, whilst the stained glass windows featured lesser known Irish saints. It was very "light" right down to the light oak pews, which were in an interesting curved shape.



And the music was top-notch. Good, yet simple harmonies abounded. Catholics aren't traditionally known for their music, but it has improved over the last decade or so. Sometimes it gets a little too new-agey for me, but I didn't experience that at OSP. I heard some new stuff, and some classics from my youth (a little "We Are Called" anybody?) which set me in the right frame of mind to meditate and worship.

Unfortunately, due to a community festival that the church was sponsoring, the YAM Mass (I love how that sounds) was moved to the basement church, which was kinda cool because it felt all catacomb-ish and shit. The celebrant was a Father John Cusick. Right away, I could tell that he was not going to bore me. My father is of the opinion that all Catholic priests need to go to Baptist Sunday services to see how to really preach effectively. Even if your homily is amazing, if you can't effectively communicate it, the congregation takes away nothing. Cusick was lively, intelligent, and his homily had a huge impact on me, which I'll elaborate on a bit later.

The music downstairs was simple: a piano and two cantors, both of which were well trained and wonderful to listen to and sing along with. Apparently, one of the cantors is also an author of some baseball history books. That's cool man.

I start to squirm at the start of the mass because they did the whole "before we begin, let's stand and introduce yourself to your neighbor" because right away, everyone is all chatty rather than contemplative. I don't want to hold your hand, I just want to praaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! Once again, a little too touchy-feely for me.

Things did settle down. Fr. Cusick liked to "improvise" on the liturgy a little bit, which i don't necessarily like either. You've got a homily to do that, leave the mass rites alone. However, he was so charismatic that I almost didn't notice. Fr. Cusick's homily was wonderful. Once again...elaborate later. The mass ended with announcements. The marathon was brought up because it goes right by OSP. Apparently, this is a bit of a challenge for the parishioners who are not running the marathon. The Church actually has a cheering section for the marathon! The pastor, Father Hurley, runs the marathon frequently and was apparently fast enough to finish last year. Father Cusick himself ran the marathon back in the late 1970's. He spoke about how, when he finished his first Chicago marathon, he cried. He mentioned that, back in the day, the motto for the Chicago Marathon was something along the lines of "to finish it is to win it", so that day, he won his race.

I really felt like at that moment, God had me in the right place at the right time. So when next Sunday's race rolls around, and I'm hoping still running strong past Old St. Pat's, I will for sure say an extra prayer in thanksgiving for all of the good things in my life, especially for the ability to run.

To wrap this post up, here's a few words on the homily. Father Cusick spoke about the disconnect that happens when we ignore each other. We end up not being the people of God when we disengage completely from our brothers and sisters. He was relating a story of how he had an ethical dilemma in a cab, when the cab driver kept using the bus lanes, or driving through the turn only lanes when he wasn't turning. On the one hand, this benefited the priest because he was getting to where he needed to be faster and cheaper, but in the end, he realized that it suddenly became all about him. Everything we do , no matter how small, changes our relationship to the community of which we are a part. By separating himself, by ignoring what the cabbie was doing, he was effectively denying communion, which is really what Jesus preached. He went on to explain that the actual "definition" of sin, in biblical terms, was not simply an act of evil, but actively separating yourself from the community by your actions. Father Cusick ended by saying that when we walk up the aisle to receive Communion, by saying "Amen" we are no longer allowed to be blind or deaf to the world around us.

Wow. Powerful words from a good man. I wish I had a transcript of it for all of you!


So, on my way home...I went grocery shopping at Whole Foods instead. Because it would be better for the community. A priest guilted me into shopping at Whole Foods. It certainly was an interesting day.

6 Days, 14 hours until the Chicago marathon.