Bulletin Board with News and Events

Cathedral pews will return on Monday to be bolted atop the newly-polished terrazzo floor by Mass-time next weekend. This project’s efficiency is getting a lot of attention. I promise to run the names attached to contractors, architects, and sub-contractors in addition to the staff and volunteers who organized this terrific improvement in the Cathedral. For now, we look forward to next weekend when the recently Humpty-Dumptylike Cathedral will get put back together again; and Humpty will look beautiful!

Next Sunday afternoon, the first of the Rites of Election will take place in the Cathedral with Cardinal George as the officiating bishop. A Rite of Election is a prayer that admits adult candidates for the Easter Sacraments – Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist – into the final, intense stages of their study, formation, and prayer. They are on the way to full participation as Catholics, one of us. Our parish RCIA group – numbering more than 60 – will be taught next Sunday morning by the Cardinal; then they will join others from dozens of Chicago Churches in the afternoon’s powerful prayer during which they will begin that final approach to full communion with the Catholic Church. That’s exciting. Two more ceremonies, at 2:30pm and at 7:30pm, will be held on each of the following two Sundays – February 24 and March 4. All five ceremonies will feature a Cathedral-full of Chicagoland adults proud to be joining the Catholic Church. Unquestionably, the magic moment comes when hundreds of eager catechumens and candidates stand with the bishop, a successor of the Apostles, in the Cathedral sanctuary. The Church looks strong at that proud moment; the Church is strong at that mighty moment. Pray for those in the RCIA. They are getting ready to renew the face of our Church.

Thanks to the Parish Life Commission for hosting last Sunday’s Super Bowl/French Toast breakfast. It was the best breakfast in the neighborhood, it was fun, and it was right across the courtyard. The tie-in with the game was great. I understand that the Parish Life crew is going out ice fishing this week in anticipation of the Lent Friday Fish Fry Dinners. Too bad they were not able complete any third downs for all of us last Sunday.

Thanks to the Parish Council, to the staff who braved the cold, to the extra volunteers, and to the 50+ newcomers who gathered last Saturday after Mass at a new parishioners’ party. The PPC hosted. I was happy to meet new friends excited to be one of us.

A second basket is being passed today for the Annual Catholic Appeal. If you missed the basket or if you did not bring your checkbook, it’s not too late. Every Catholic household in Chicago should be very generous to this Appeal. It helps all of us. This fund supports training of lay ministers and deacons, leaders in the pastoral work of so many parishes including ours; grants for parishes and schools in tough neighborhoods; emergency contributions to Catholic Relief Services across the USA; family ministries life Project Rachel (for women suffering the aftermath of abortion), Natural Family Planning seminars and information for the engaged, programs promoting the virtue of chastity among the young; unique ministries to firefighters and their families, to airport workers and travelers, to the developmentally disabled, and to the deaf. This is not a dumping of an extra $2 in an extra basket. A commitment is asked. Please, contribute. All Catholics in our Archdiocese benefit from the Annual Catholic Appeal. All 366 parishes benefit. Holy Name Cathedral benefits. Those contributing $1,000 or more will be enrolled in Cardinal’s Lumen Cordium Society with as many Holy Name Cathedral parishioners enrolled as those listed from any other parish. Contribute $2,500 or more and be invited to special events at the Cardinal’s residence. As a Lumen Cordium giver or as one doing just what she or he can, join in the Annual Catholic Appeal. I sent my $250 check last week. Please offer your gift in today’s collection; or take the brochure and envelope at the door. If you return it to any future collection, if you drop it at the Church office, or if you give it to me personally, I’ll be sure to guide it to the right pocket. With pledge or check, support the Annual Catholic Appeal.

On the last three days of this month, Holy Name Cathedral will present a Lenten parish Mission featuring Father Frank DiSiano, a Paulist priest from that community’s leadership group in New York City, an expert in the field of Evangelization, and our former neighbor when he was pastor of Old St. Mary’s in the South Loop. I will be there every night. I will look for you. Our friends in the Evangelization and Spiritual Life Commission have organized the Mission talks. I am grateful to them. See the ad elsewhere in this bulletin with a listing of the talks. Please, come to the Cathedral’s Lenten Mission February 26, 27, 28. It’s for you.

I am happy; and I am sad. I am happy for one of the Cathedral’s fulltime Associate Pastors, Father Paul Stein. This past week, Cardinal George named Father Stein as the future pastor of St. Sylvester’s Church in the Logan Square community on the near northwest side of Chicago. He will begin his work there on July 1 and will be ending his term at the Cathedral where he excellently has served as Liturgy Director and as one of the four priests who cover the kaleidoscope that is Holy Name Cathedral parish since he was assigned in mid-2005. I am sad to see Father Paul go. If there is a more cheerful, cooperative, obedient, and consistently joyful priest in our Chicago Church, I don’t know him. We have until late June to say our farewells, to extend our thanks; I promise there will be a formal good-bye scheduled on a June Sunday. For now, we congratulate Father Paul and St. Sylvester’s. Their large Hispanic community as well as the new-comers who are renewing Logan Square all will benefit from Father Stein’s many gifts. Let’s congratulate Father Paul Stein and wish him the best along with our grateful and happy/sad prayers. Watch for more news on this big change later.

The Bears lost. Too bad. Cheer up. I hear the voice of Spring! This Wednesday, Valentine’s Day, the most beautiful words in the English language will be pronounced over the Arizona desert – “Pitchers and Catchers, report!”

Fr. Dan Mayall