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Frances Xavier Warde School is a Catholic elementary school in downtown Chicago that provides an academically excellent, values-oriented education to students of all ethnic, religious, cultural and socio-economic backgrounds in a child-centered urban environment. To maintain this diverse community, FXW provides need-based scholarships to thirty percent of its students. FXW uses a rigorous curriculum and enables students to grow by clarifying their values, developing skills in decision making and fostering a sense of responsibility for themselves and the world they will inherit. By partnering with its families, FXW nurtures Catholic faith development and teaches its students to learn about and respect other faith traditions. Frances Xavier Warde School is the way that Holy Name Cathedral parish supports Catholic education in Chicago. Next weekend at all Masses, a second basket will be passed for the financial assistance that assures FXW’s diversity, its famous and fundamental characteristic. We take up this critical collection every fall. Some Holy Name parishioners are among FXW’s most generous benefactors. Will you join us in supporting FXW School?
Next Sunday at the 11:00 Mass, the catechists of Holy Name Cathedral will be blessed and commissioned. These are great people who volunteer Sunday mornings to pass on the truths of our faith and to model a Christian life for the elementary age people in our program. Under the leadership of Children’s Religious Education Director Sharon Kinsley, these catechists will begin another year of Sunday School next weekend. Pray for them, applaud them, and join them at 11:00 Mass next Sunday. Thanks again to the Parish Life Commission for organizing another successful season of Coffee-in-the-Courtyard. Thanks, too, to the various parish organizations and Commissions that each took a Sunday of hospitality. Very sincere and successful was last weekend’s Parish Pastoral Council welcome to our new neighbors at Casa Jesus, the house of formation for potential seminarians from Latin America who are discerning vocations to the priesthood in Chicago. Eighteen young men live in the building on the northeast end of our campus and have begun their studies and their formation in becoming American priests. We certainly will have more to write about Casa Jesus in future bulletins. For now, welcome! Get ready for the September 17 Taste Sensations, a new parish event that should be a lot of fun. See the ad elsewhere in this copy of the bulletin for details. But keep the afternoon of Sunday, September 17 open. I’ll look for you at Taste Sensations. I was sad to hear of the death of Cathedral parishioner Arnell Chaney. Arnell served cheerfully and faithfully for many years as an 11:00AM Mass usher before he was befallen by a stroke that prevented him from participation in parish activity. Arnell always had a camera nearby. The pictures of my first days at the Cathedral (and a lot of other days) were generously provided by Arnell. May God welcome him to Heaven as he welcomed others to our parish. Rest in the peace of Christ, Arnell. On Monday America will celebrate Labor Day. Labor unions themselves established the first labor days in the United States. Historians credit Peter McGuire, a leader of the carpenters’ union, with the original idea of a day for workers to show their solidarity. The first Labor Day parade occurred Sept. 5, 1882, in New York City. The workers' unions chose the first Monday in September not because it was the last summer weekend, but because it was halfway between Independence Day and Thanksgiving. President Grover Cleveland signed a law designating the first Monday in September as Labor Day nationwide in 1894. It is interesting to note that Cleveland was not a labor union supporter. In fact, by sponsoring the national holiday, he was trying to repair some political damage that he suffered earlier that year when he sent federal troops to put down a strike by the American Railway Union at the Pullman Company in Chicago. That action resulted in the deaths of 34 workers. The Catholic Church has had much to say about labor especially in the years since the advance of the industrialist society. The Papacy has been eloquent. Leo XIII, Pius XI, John XXIII, Paul VI, and John Paul II in encyclicals and in common teaching consistently outlined and articulated the connection between the Church and labor. The Catechism teaches us still. Human work proceeds directly from persons created in the image of God and called to prolong the work of creation by subduing the earth, both with and for one another. Hence work is a duty: "If any one will not work, let him not eat." Work honors the Creator's gifts and the talents received from him. It can also be redemptive. By enduring the hardship of work in union with Jesus, the carpenter of Nazareth and the one crucified on Calvary, man collaborates in a certain fashion with the Son of God in his redemptive work. He shows himself to be a disciple of Christ by carrying the cross, daily, in the work he is called to accomplish. Work can be a means of sanctification and a way of animating earthly realities with the Spirit of Christ. In work, the person exercises and fulfills in part the potential inscribed in his nature. The primordial value of labor stems from man himself, its author and its beneficiary. Work is for man, not man for work. Everyone should be able to draw from work the means of providing for his life and that of his family, and of serving the human community. Everyone has the right of economic initiative; everyone should make legitimate use of his talents to contribute to the abundance that will benefit all and to harvest the just fruits of his labor. He should seek to observe regulations issued by legitimate authority for the sake of the common good. On Monday, pray for those who work. Pray for all who work in the service of others. Pray for those who work in management. Pray for those who are retired. Pray for those out of work and for those who depend on them. Pray for those disabled and unable to work. Pray for all volunteers. Pray for those blessed in working for God’s people. Masses on the holiday will be offered in the Cathedral at 8:00am, 12:10pm, and 5:15pm. There will be no scheduled confession on Monday (Labor Day). Fr. Dan Mayall |
