Bulletin Board with News and Events

When will Christmas Masses be celebrated at Holy Name Cathedral? We begin Sunday afternoon at 4:00pm when we expect a full Cathedral for the liturgy offered by Father John Boivin with music by the Chamber Singers. I will say the usually well-attended 6:00pm Mass on Sunday with the Women’s Schola handling the liturgical music. My friends the Ides of March will assist with some of the music, and Chicago radio legend Dick Biondi also will give me a hand with a special homily. (Note - no 5:15pm Sunday, Christmas Eve.) The Cathedral doors will be locked from 7:30pm until 11:00pm Sunday so that the TV folks can prepare for the international broadcast of the midnight Mass on WGN-TV. Doors will open at 11:00pm Sunday for those with tickets. The tickets were sent out on a first come-first served basis beginning in late November. Seats unclaimed by 11:15pm will be available to all others who want to attend this grand liturgy. The experience of the past five years has told us that we will have room for you at the Midnight Mass. The Cathedral Choirs will begin Christmas Carols at 11:30pm. At 12:00am sharp, the bells will chime and Deacon Mike McCloskey will begin the singing of the Christmas Proclamation that opens the most solemn celebration of the Christmas Eucharist with Francis Cardinal George as main celebrant and homilist accompanied by most of the Cathedral priests. On Monday morning, Christmas Day, Masses will be offered at 8:15 (Father Michael Boland), 9:30 (Bishop Timothy Lyne), and 11:00 (Father Bill Moriarity). Note that there will be no 7:00am Mass on Christmas Day. Monday afternoon’s Masses are scheduled for 12:30 (Father Mike Novick) and 5:15 (Father Paul Stein). The parish offices will be closed at 1:00pm on Christmas Day. Parish receptionist Godie DeKeersmaecker will be back at the parish desk and phone on Tuesday, December 26, at 8:30am.
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How about Mass obligations next weekend? The regular weekend schedule will resume next Saturday and Sunday, December 30 & 31, the Feast of the Holy Family. Father Eugene Durkin will say next Saturday’s 5:15pm Mass; Father Bill Moriarity will take the 7:30pm. On Sunday, New Year’s Eve, I will celebrate at 7:00am; Bishop Lyne has the 8:15; Father Lagges, the 9:30; Father Novick, the 11:00; Father Boivin, the 12:30; and Father Stein, the last Mass of 2006 at 5:15pm. Confessions will be heard on Saturday at the usual hours – 3:00-5:00pm in the Reconciliation Room on the lower level; 6:15-7:15pm in the confessional equipped for the disabled on the north side of the Cathedral.
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Monday, January 1, the Feast of Mary, Mother of God, is not a Holy Day of Mass obligation this year. When certain Holy Days fall on a day next to a weekend, the American bishops often dispense us from the obligation to participate in Mass. This New Year’s Day is one of those days. However, we will offer three Cathedral Masses on New Year’s Day at 8:00am, 12:10pm, and 5:15pm. Open 2007 at Mass. No confessions will be scheduled on New Year’s Day. The parish office will close at 1:00pm.
Then, on January 2, we will tear up the Cathedral and will use it only for the main weekend Masses through February 11. Construction will begin on a new terrazzo floor replacing all of the Cathedral’s present carpeting. Pews will be removed, refinished, and repaired. A ramp making the sanctuary accessible to the wheel-chair bound will zigzag the area in front of the pulpit. We will use folding chairs for Sunday Mass and will have the use of only half the Cathedral – the north side on the first three weekends, the south half on the next three weekends. During construction, all Daily Masses will be held in the Club Room (not the Chapel). There will be no scheduled weekday confessions during construction; and the book store will open only on weekends. Most funerals can be accommodated in the Chapel. Any large funerals will have to be relocated. St. Michael’s Church in Old Town has offered to help. The construction time will be challenging. However, the completed project will leave us with a new and cleaner look along with a more resonant sound. Say prayers all goes as scheduled.
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An interfaith prayer service is scheduled for New Year’s Eve, Sunday, December 31, at 7:30pm at the Fourth Presbyterian Church on Michigan Avenue between Chestnut and Delaware. Members of Holy Name Cathedral, the Chicago Sinai Congregation, and Fourth Church will ask God’s blessings on 2007. Please join me and our Jewish and Presbyterian friends next Sunday, New Year’s Eve.
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Well over 500 copies of SHARING CHRISTMAS were sold at the Cathedral last weekend. SHARING CHRISTMAS is the CD produced by The Ides of March with an assist from radio great Dick Biondi as a benefit for the Thursday Suppers served every week by Cathedral volunteers to the hungry at Catholic Charities. The money raised last weekend will fund about six Thursday meals. I would like to sell another 500 this weekend. For just $10, you can get 20 minutes of pretty lively music from a very popular Chicago band along with a Christmas poem written by me and read by Dick Biondi. You also help us feed the hungry. Everybody wins. A Chicago treasure, SHARING CHRISTMAS makes a great last-minute Christmas gift. SHARING CHRISTMAS will be sold after most Masses at the State Street doors, in the Holy Name Cathedral Books and Gifts Store on the Cathedral’s lower level, and at www.theidesofmarch.com. If you bought your copy, thanks. If you have not picked up yours yet, don’t wait.
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“By the power of the Holy Spirit, He was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man.” That line from the Nicene Creed which we recite at every Sunday Mass is a succinct version of the Christmas proclamation. The liturgy books tell us that as we recite this line, we should bow our heads in reverence for the miracle of the Incarnation. I will admit that I sometimes forget to bow. I cannot make this weekend one of those forgetful times. Let’s all resolve to remember to show respect for the miracle within that powerful line of words. Christmas Day and every day, bow when you consider Christ’s birth. Jesus Christ is divine and human. He lifts our humanity to a dignity it could never achieve on its own. He is one like us, but so much more. Conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, yet born of the woman Mary. I think I will bow every time I hear that magic line.

Fr. Dan Mayall