Bulletin Board with News and Events

Cathedral Christmas will be presented this coming Friday at 7:30PM. Is it a concert, a Mass, a prayer service? No. This 3rd annual Cathedral Christmas uses the artistic elements of good liturgy – color, costume, sound, music, Scripture, movement, and silence in setting the season in the proper context of Advent, Christmas, and the Epiphany. Since it falls on the Feast of Mary’s Immaculate Conception, special tribute will be made to holy women whose praises are sung in the Scriptures. The Holy Name Cathedral Chamber Singers, Gallery Singers, Women’s Schola, and Filipino Choir all will participate with an assist from The Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra. For the first time, Cathedral Christmas will include the St. Ailbe Praise Dancers. Finally, I am very pleased to present at a major Holy Name Cathedral event for the first time the Frances Xavier Warde School Handbell Ensemble. I am grateful to Cathedral Music Director Ricardo Ramirez and the new Associate Director David Jonies for bringing this wonderful presentation together and for continuing a welcome tradition. Look for more ticket information on bulletin page 7. Get your tickets now. The hard-working committee organizing Cathedral Christmas tells me to expect a very big attendance. Cardinal George, Bishop Lyne, and I will look for you Friday, December 8, at 7:30PM.

Next weekend after Communion, a second collection basket will be passed for the Retirement Fund for Religious, established by American Catholics in the 1988 to care for Sisters, Priests, and Brothers in Religious communities, the great majority of whom are in their later years. Consider the facts…of the 696 religious communities that provide data to the national office for Religious, almost 20% have the means to provide less than 20% of retirement costs for their members…of 528 institutes receiving grants from this fund, 91 are monasteries for contemplative prayer – hardly “money makers” – generating earnings less than 50% of expenses…the average Social Security benefit for religious is only one-third the amount paid to the average American beneficiary…over 32,000 nuns and more than 5,200 male religious are past age 70…many religious work beyond age 65 in compensated ministries to help support their elders in the religious order and only “retire” in the sense that the pay check stops, continuing to work as volunteer, model Christians. Meanwhile, the average Catholic family spends more than $12 a year on cookies, more than $21 on potato chips, more than $29 on take-out coffee, and just a little more than $1 per adult on the Retirement Fund for Religious. The collection for Retired Religious is important. It tries to make up for two mistakes. First, we did not foresee the severe drop off in number of active religious from the days when those now retired were entering convents, seminaries, and monasteries. Second there was no retirement plan. Please, open your heart in that second collection next week. The retired Brothers, Sisters, and Priests who staffed hospitals, ran orphanages, administered high schools, and taught many of us in grade school depend on us. Be kind.

Next Friday, December 8, will be the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. A feast called “The Conception of Mary by St. Anne” arose in the Eastern Church in the seventh century and came to the West in the eighth century. In the eleventh century it received its present name, Immaculate Conception. In 1708 the day became special for the whole Church. It took a long time for the doctrine to develop. This is one of the Church teachings that arose more from the piety of the faithful than from the insights of brilliant theologians. Even such champions of Mary as St. Bernard of Clairvaux and St. Thomas Aquinas could not see theological justification for such a teaching. Two Franciscans, William of Ware and Blessed John Duns Scotus, helped establish the theology. They point out that Mary’s Immaculate Conception enhances Jesus’ redemptive work. Other members of the human race are cleansed from original sin shortly after birth. In Mary, Jesus’ work was so powerful as to prevent original sin at the beginning - conception. In 1854 Blessed Pius IX gave the infallible statement: “The most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instant of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin.” In her Holy and Immaculate Conception, Mary is the patroness of Spain, Tazmania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the United States of America (the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception is a great attraction in Washington, D.C.), and our own Archdiocese of Chicago. Six Chicago parishes are named Immaculate Conception; three closed Chicago parishes were titled Immaculate Conception; St. Mary’s in Buffalo Grove considers this day their patronal feast; and the main chapel of the major seminary in Mundelein where five of the Cathedral priests were ordained is dedicated to the Immaculate Conception. Mary is and always was “full of Grace”. On Friday, let’s pray that we will realize how close we are to Christ now and, if we live by that same gift of Grace, forever. The Holy Day Masses will be offered at the Cathedral beginning Thursday afternoon at 5:15pm and continuing on Friday at 6:00, 7:00, 8:00, and 9:00am (the 9:00 will include the Catholic folks of the Frances Xavier Warde School on our campus; their parents also are most welcome); and at 12:10 & 5:15pm Friday.

“What happened to the CD you wrote about in last week’s bulletin, the CD produced by Chicago rock band The Ides of March along with radio dj Dick Biondi for the benefit of the Cathedral’s Thursday Suppers at Catholic Charities?” Hold on. It will be here in our bookstore next weekend. For a $10 donation to the Thursday Suppers, you will own a true Chicago treasure produced exclusively for Holy Name Cathedral. Check the bookstore next weekend. Or go right now to www.theidesofmarch.com if you cannot wait. Under “merchandise”, you’ll find our album – a terrific Christmas gift. Under “news” you’ll find out more about our part in this great project. The Ides and Dick Biondi also will help me celebrate the 6:00pm Mass Christmas Eve.

How many times do I get asked by a Sunday morning visitor to Holy Name, “Where’s a good place to get breakfast?” I’ll have the answer next Sunday! Pancakes will be served in Holy Name’s cafeteria from 9:00am until 12:30pm on Sunday, December 10. For just $6 you’ll get pancakes, sausage, scrambled eggs, juice, and coffee. Thanks to the Parish Life Commission for setting up the morning in cooperation with Griller’s – actually a good breakfast place every morning at Pearson & Wabash. I know where I’ll be eating breakfast next Sunday! I’ll look for you.

Fr. Dan Mayall