Bulletin Board with News and Events

 Next weekend, October 20 & 21, the Archdiocese of Chicago’s Office for Divine Worship will host With all the Choirs of Angels, a choral music festival at Holy Name Cathedral. Participating in this historic, first-time event will be twenty-four adult, teen and children’s choirs from Archdiocesan parishes across Cook and Lake Counties. Conducting the choral festival will be Rick Gibala, Director of Music at the Cathedral of St. Thomas More in Arlington, VA. Dr. Gibala also serves as Artistic Director of Cathedral Concerts, is Music Coordinator for the Diocese of Arlington and is a charter member of the National Association of Pastoral Musicians Council. Holy Name’s full-time musicians, Dr. Ricardo Ramirez and David Jonies, will participate in the festival. Since September 23, over 300 adult, teen and child choristers from all over Chicago have been rehearsing at various parishes for this grand event. The choristers will have a final rehearsal together at 3:30 p.m. Sunday in preparation for our regularly scheduled 5:15 p.m. Mass which, as always, is open to all.  Father Matthew Compton will be the main celebrant. Please join us. For more information, contact the Office for Divine Worship at 773-486-5153 or odwchi@odw.org.

World Mission Sunday, a celebration for all missions of the world, will include a second, post-Communion collection taken up at all Cathedral Masses next weekend with contributions destined for a common fund of solidarity distributed in Pope Benedict’s name by the Society for the Propagation of the Faith among missions and missionaries of the world. Most of us never will be missionaries. Yet, by making a donation next weekend, we can become spiritual partners with those who serve village missions, small schools, medical outposts, orphanages, refugee camps, and crowded cities across Africa, Asia, the Pacific Islands, and remote parts of South America. Please give next weekend to the World Missions.

Remembered images from the successful The Mission Is Magic, the Cathedral’s 2007 Gala held on October 5 – the unqualified praise of the new venue, the River East Arts Center; the number of young parishioners in attendance and on the committee; the encouragement of our friends at Catholic Charities and the Frances Xavier Warde School, both of whom bought a table and attended; the entertaining action of the live auction; the loveliness of the items at the silent auction; the hard work of co-chairs Mary Carlson and Joanne Harrigan along with the extra effort of staff liaison Pat Still; the smiles on the faces of the Oblate Sisters of Jesus the Priest and our returning guests from the BVM community; Cardinal George’s gracious remarks about the public discipleship obvious at the Cathedral parish; and the generosity realized by the educational ministries of Holy Name Cathedral parish from a wonderful night. I thank all who volunteered time to the event; I thank all who participated.

Are we still taking donations to the parish’s determined attempt to put ten Cathedral kids through Catholic grade school this year? We certainly are. The drawings of our ten fictional friends still hang in our vestibule asking for your help. We have not collected quite enough to cover tuition at the Frances Xavier Warde Catholic School for six students; we would like to have enough for ten. If you have contributed, thank you very much. If you have not joined in this worthy project, mark an envelope “FXW,” drop it in any Cathedral collection basket, deliver it to the Church office, or hand it to me personally in order to get an immediate and sincere THANK YOU. Let’s see if we can put ten Cathedral kids through Catholic school this year!

 October 19 is the annual Feast of the North American Martyrs. The prayers of Friday’s liturgy remember eight heroic Frenchmen who died for the faith in frontier America, what is today upstate New York and eastern Ontario, between 1642 and 1649 while attempting to introduce the Holy Name of Jesus to the New World. They teach us that murder and martyrdom are not the same thing. Murder is a product of violent circumstance. Martyrdom is a vocation, a calling from Christ. All authentic vocation is for the good of the Church. Brave and proud martyrs - St. Isaac Jogues, St. Jean de Brebeuf, St. Anthony Daniel, St. Noel Chabanel, St. Gabriel Lalement, St. Jean de la Lande, St. Charles Garnier, & St. Rene Goupil…pray for us.

My first reference to Holy Name Cathedral may have been through my home pastor, Msgr. Ed Dailey. Msgr. Dailey was pastor of the late St. Veronica Church near the Belmont exit on the outbound Kennedy in the 1950s and early 1960s. Once upon a time, he was editor of the Archdiocesan newspaper, The New World, while residing at Holy Name Cathedral. During his stay at the Cathedral, he was priest to many actors, lawyers, journalists, and characters about whom he wrote in an anthology of short stories, The Pastor’s Cat. This Sunday is the 34^th anniversary of Msgr. Dailey’s death. On the day he died, I remember going to the lake at Mundelein Seminary and praying for the priest who gave me my 1^st Holy Communion, who reviewed and handed me my first report card, who presented my grade school diploma, who signed my high school seminary report card, and who, without realizing it, connected me to Holy Name Cathedral. Pray today for Msgr. Edward Dailey.

The Archdiocese of Chicago (Cook & Lake Counties) is divided into six Vicariates, geographic areas, each governed by an Auxiliary Bishop. The Cathedral is in Bishop Francis Kane’s Vicariate II. Furthermore, Vicariates are divided into Deaneries, parishes of similar demographics. One Deanery Pastor is appointed Dean of that neighborhood. I am Dean of Deanery II-D. From noon Tuesday through noon Wednesday this coming week, the Deans and Vicars are being convened at Mundelein Seminary by Vicar General Father John Canary for a workshop. Therefore, I will be away from Holy Name from lunchtime Tuesday until late afternoon Wednesday. Since I will be losing my regular Wednesday day-off, I’ll also be away on Monday visiting my dad who recently had been transferred to a nursing facility. I apologize if it might be a little difficult to tackle me early this week. 

Fr. Dan Mayall