Extraordinary Faith Episode 5 - Chicago Part 2 of 2

coming up on extraordinary faith in Chicago art to will visit st. Mary of Perpetual health where the priests have added traditional practices and liturgies to an existing parish schedule we'll meet a priest at the shrine of Christ the king who faces an extraordinary challenge to restore his church and we'll visit the historic st. John campus a church founded by Polish immigrants celebrated for its treasures of sacred art and a rich program of sacred music hello I'm Alex vegan welcome to extraordinary faith a program that goes on the road to show you the growing interest in classic Catholic sacred art architecture liturgy and music this is the second of two episodes who are bringing you from Chicago Illinois one of North America's epicenters of impressive church architecture and traditional liturgy we're going to visit three churches that have embraced the traditional Latin Mass and have organized musical cultural and social offerings to surround it our first stop is a parish that decided to add the extraordinary form to their schedule despite being surrounded by some pretty high-profile peers there are many approaches to restoring elements of sacred tradition to a parishes life on the one extreme a parish can celebrate nothing but the extraordinary form this works well when the priests who staff the parish are members of a group whose mission it is to do just that but in reality the more prevalent approach is to add traditional practices and liturgies to an existing parishes schedule one parish that has done just that is st. Mary of Perpetual Help in Chicago with us is father Bart Yun Sur resident here at the parish and the celebrant of many of their extraordinary foreign masses now looking up at the ceiling I see some paintings there what are they around the corners of the domes are the Twelve Apostles so when you go through the entire center aisle of the church you see all twelve and there are multiple domes here too yes the church has the multiple domes and in fact that's one of the items were in the progress of raising funds to restore the church has been repainted restored in phases with the previous pastor in the current pastor father time ashenbrunner and so the next big project is get all the domes painted and we have to do some work on the outside towers so there's constant renovation constant refreshing over the parish not to change anything but just to renovate and this church building was consecrated in 1903 on October 24th so as you can see we're just celebrating our hundred and thirty first year in this magnificent Church you'll notice the church is the same as it was when it was consecrated in 1903 very very minor things have changed the flooring carpeting on the sides but the station's the windows the architecture is all pretty much untouched the side altars the main altar this is what the people worshiped in since 1903 we still have the high pulpit you'll notice the Stations of the Cross are still bearing the Polish inscriptions under Neath the original stations there three dimensional the three dimensional yes so that the figures stand out if you were to take one of those stations off the wall it would probably be as big as a doorway you can see they're quite large and underneath the stations on the plaques and you'll see inscribed in the scrolls and the windows still the names of the people who originally donated these stations with all the emphasis on restoration of the sacred art in here how do you think that sacred art informs the faith of a congregation I think the sacred art is a great catechetical tool and especially for children I remember a one time mother brought her little girl into the church a little toddler and it was wintertime so little girl had her snow suit on and the mother had the girls standing on a bench it was taking off the snow suit and while the mother was doing all of this I saw the little girl just looking around at all the pictures in the windows and then all of a sudden you heard in this little girl voice Wow and that kind of Attraction at that young age is what gets the little children to start to see the Saints to see Jesus to see all the things that pertain to God and then as they grow I think they begin to ask questions who's that and that statue who's that in that window I know when I was a boy we went to church every Sunday as a family and then once grade school started every day we went to Mass before school and I used to look at all the windows look at all the statues Iced ask questions about who are these things who are these images what does this mean so that's how I learned a lot of my faith at a young age and then of course if the children are asking mom and dad who is this the mom and dad have to know their faith they have to know their saints they have to know their traditions so and with the day and age of Google they can do some of their own research and find Catholic resources you never know where awareness of their faith might lead exactly I think these beautiful religious windows they sacred statues the various symbols of the church could inspire young men and women to vocations to either the religious life or the young men to Holy Orders when they begin seeing their faith at a young age I think it certainly could inspire some if they have their disposition to pursue a vocation and even marriage you know you'll see marriage symbols in many churches symbols of the Holy Family look at the crush which is here for Christmas Jesus Mary and Joseph to give young people who might be disposed to a vocation in marriage to be like the Holy Family to bring their faith into their marriage now your parish isn't only committed to tradition in art this parish is committed to tradition and liturgy as well we were interested to know that in this diocese as Archdiocese of Chicago that has so many Latin Mass sites already st. Mary's started its own extraordinary form masked not so long ago how did that come about the previous pastor father Don Craig and in response to Pope Benedict's warm Pontifical of 2007 he decided that he would offer the Trenton Mass the extraordinary form of the Mass every Sunday at the 8:30 hour and he wanted to do that in fidelity to the Pope to enrich the tradition of the people to enrich their worship and so the 8:30 Mass was offered by him in the extraordinary form a lot of the people that were coming were coming because it was their time for mass that was their custom and they took a liking to the extraordinary form and when I talked to people after mass even today tell me how much they appreciate the Latin Mass father Bart thanks for taking the time to meet with us and making time in your busy schedule good luck here to you and your whole team how about this for a challenge the Archbishop of Chicago offers you a church with no parishioners that's nothing but an empty shell no fixtures remain inside and you are a member of a priestly community that offers nothing but the extraordinary form of Holy Mass but we're in a city where there is already a plethora of Latin Mass communities how would you have responded probably not like the Institute of Christ the King did Canon Matthew Tallarico is a priest of the Institute Kennett Ella Rico congratulations for taking on the challenge of restoring this church let's start off with a history and background on the Institute of Christ the King yes well the Institute of Christ the King sovereign priests were a society of apostolic life founded in 1990 by once an usual vaak and our mother house and Seminary is located in Florence Italy and we're currently serving in 11 countries around the world and here in the United States since 1996 we're currently serving in 12 diocese around the country and our Institute we are a secular canons so I priests live a community life as much as possible in our various Apostles across the country together with oblate brothers and we pray the Divine Office several times a day together in community while at the same time serving people's spiritual needs in a parish setting and we also preach retreats and I conduct missions as well now here in Chicago you have the shrine of Christ the King tell us how you came to be put in charge of this church yes well his Eminence Francis Cardinal George invited our Institute to serve here about 10 years ago and to bring to life this historic landmark Church which had suffered a fire some decades ago and which had been closed and actually got it in meant for the wrecking ball but because of the landmark status it had to be revived and brought back to life and His Eminence invited our community here to do just that are you going to be restoring it to the condition was in originally or to something different well it's not possible for us to really configure it it's exactly as it was because of the fire and because of over time certain things were lost and elements of the church had been been changed but we would like to remain faithful to the original design and intent of the architect Henry slacks who design many churches in Chicago and really slacks meant for this church to be a very Roman Church with its pillars with its vast space and so we want to try to bring back certain aspects that we can for example the placement of a pulpit to how it was years ago but we want to at the same time take various aspects of existing Roman churches in Rome and bring them here to Chicago in our church here as we can adopt making adaptations so that people really get a sense of a Roman Church in the classical style how long do you think it's going to take to complete the job well in God's good time as they say in Italy we have we've been here now for almost 10 years and the church already now has come very far at first it was just an empty shell full of debris and we could not even use the church for the first several years in which we were here at the shrine but we will have our work cut out for us for the next several years because the that the structure is so basic you can only really take big steps million-dollar steps at a time there's not a whole lot of work you can do just in small steps so it will take some millions of dollars and some some big steps but Providence has helped us already very much and we've already accomplished the exterior work on the church and we've begun the interior work so in the next few years I have to ask we've been touring Chicago churches what is it in the water in this city that supports so many Latin Mass sites well I think that Chicago is is very much a a Catholic city very rich in tradition and in type and the diversity of its spirituality there over 2.3 million Catholics in Chicago and so many religious orders are present here so there's a great sense of the Catholic University of the church and so I think that for for Catholics in Chicago the traditional Latin Mass is the extraordinary form of the Roman liturgy or something very organic it's part of really the diversity of the church and very much an integral part of life in this Archdiocese what's different about what you do here at the shrine of Christ that came versus some of those other Latin Mass sites well here at the shrine we do not have a specific territory like a parish so as a shrine anyone who is attracted to our specific spirituality or to the devotion the devotions that we have here at the shrine is welcome to come in to attend and so we have very specific devotions in honor of Christ to the infant King we have a statue of the infant Jesus Christ the infant King from the 18th century which comes to us from Spain and so we have a a blessing of children each month and a special Mass in honor of the infant King on the 25th day of the month we also have devotions to st. Teresa of the Child Jesus because she is a secondary patient of our Institute because this church was meant to be a Carmelite Church was built as such and so we kept up the tradition of devotion to st. Therese as had already existed here since 1924 when the church was first built and so there's a very specific devotional life here but I think there's also because of our spirituality st. Francis DeSales and Institute there's a very specific message that people receive either in homilies in the confessional we also offer spiritual direction in the spirit of st. Francis DeSales so we priests try to be very accessible to the people people feel a great sense of welcome here in that Silesian spirit they don't feel that what we do here has a price tag they feel that what we do here really is is really a spiritual home and a family where people from all different backgrounds and ages can really feel very much at home and close one of the interesting aspects in the world of sacred tradition is that the young generation is driving its resurgence here at the shrine of Christ the King there is a chapter of a young adults group called sursum Corda we're joined by Dolores Weber and Jessica Hanners two members of the group let's start with the basics Dolores what is the appeal of Catholic tradition to the young generation well I think that young people are really interested in the extraordinary form of mass because it's just a beautiful language Latin they say it's a dead language but it's really the universal language of the church and even here at the shrine we have people of all different diverse cultures coming we have Filipinos Mexicans Hispanics coming and we're all praying as one so I think that's a really cool aspect of Latin Mass in the liturgy something about it being very solemn on the way to reverence God shows it's really powerful sursum Corda what does that name mean it translates to lift up your hearts yes it's a beautiful meaning well we like to say that we're all friends in the group I guess and it really builds friendship names sursum Corda looking our hearts to God we're really united as one as we all have the same treasure which is God you are all acting and trying to live out our Catholic faith as best as we can and it's just a unifying like a communion of the faith yes way to share it uplift each other definitely especially in these times and it's hard to find good Catholic camaraderie culture of death sursum Corda is a sort of house brand of the Institute of Christ the King how does your chapter collaborate with other chapters we've had different groups travel to different parts the country there was a trip in September that the Chicago apostolate traveled down to st. louis's or some kurta and we went on a cave tour and read over an encyclical with the Canon new ADA down there is the purpose of sursum Corda to create marriages to pray the rosary to discuss theology or something else I will have to say Kenan who were felled didn't mail that last stone at the seminary when we had our national he said it's about vocations it is about marriage it's about discerning vocations I mean there's spiritual direction the whole time you're there whether you're discerning a religious vocation priestly vocation or marriage I mean it would be a great place to find your your spouse for life are you among a lot of like-minded people attending Mass praying together yourself yes I did I'm engaged I did meet my fiance at the shrine here but more specifically a truce or some quartet ooh and I like to add so what about formation face formation the canons are always ready to offer spiritual direction or confession to us just filled our faith sort of hard to live a Catholic faith in these times and the canons are always really ready to do what they can to help us answer any other questions yeah let's cover some basics for people who might be interested in joining your group first of all what age range do the members have to be between 18 and 35 so it's very wide range and how would a person join how would they find your group we have a Facebook page it's always in the bulletin and we try to keep our events very regular toys the third Saturday of the month definitely through the shrine you find that out but it's on the website that's right yeah Christ King Moriya shrine Christ King Delores and Jessica thank you so much for joining us and may God bless you in this venture thank you much thirty years ago the Archdiocese of Chicago was considering closing an old Polish Church st. John Cantus the neighborhood no longer provided the parishioners to support the parish they sent in father Frank Phillips as pastor but something entirely else happened father Phillips tell us what things were like here at st. John Cantus when you arrived when I first came to st. John conscious 1988 then he wrote it was all rundown the church was rundown and mass attendance on any given Sunday was maybe 20 to 30 people so being sent here by my provincial and council I stated right from day one that what I would like to do is rebuild the parish and the way I would do that is by restoring the Latin high-mass at that time we did not have permission to do what is called know the extraordinary form of the mass but we did the ordinary form in Latin it say like st. Peter's in Rome would do very frequently and many times while I was directing the choir in the top loft there would be more members in the choir there were in the congregation but by word of mouth that's how everything is spread very quickly but the word of mouth more and more people started coming to st. John's and what did they would I think drew them here was first of all even though the churches of the state of disrepair you know deferred and maintenance of 40 50 years takes a toll on any building but there's still the beauty of the architecture of the altars the church itself but then you add the the great tradition of sacred music and it was a win-win situation I had two great teachers one was in st. Louis Monsignor Martin Haller eagle and people say well who is that well if we ever sink to him to Jesus Christ are a sovereign king he's responsible for that him I worked in his parish on my seminary and he taught me the beginning of chant he taught me the beauty of the Sacred Liturgy he taught me the importance of a liturgical art you know it draws people into the mystery of the mass and the sacraments the other priest was a Monsignor Schuler from the st. Agnes Church in Saint Paul Minnesota and he would do at regular Sunday Mass in the great tradition of the V knees masses masses of Mozart Schubert Hyden and his church was packed so I thought if I take both things which I learned from both my seniors and put them together I'd have a win-win situation and all of a sudden more and more people started to attend and our pressure and lists began to grow so that's basically how dad started father Scott what is the Sunday Mass schedule like here now well on Saturday evening there is an anticipated Mass in English on Sunday morning there's a forum extraordinary form low-mass at 7:30 there's an English Mass which we might call a high mass because it's sung with all the chant propers and ordinary and then at 11:00 there's the ordinary form in Latin with all of the Gregorian chant and sacred music 12:30 there is the extraordinary form high mass music is a strong focus of this parish tell us about the music program that's offered here well there are several Flyers here it's an important way for people in the parish but also people in the community to be involved in the restoration of the sacred which is very much at the heart of what we're doing and this happens an especial way through the ministry of sacred music this past october we have been able to install a refurbished Casavant organ from a Methodist Church on the south side of Chicago this is a very historic instrument at a very lush romantic type of instrument which has all the beautiful stops of an instrument almost replicating an entire symphonic orchestra the gas on that organ which was built in 1926 as the primary organist in the West choir loft our choir lofts are a Big Mac sandwich third two decks and so there's an organ in the upper deck and that's the Casa fat the organ which had been there before from 1907 was a killed in organ and weighed three tons and when we removed that we had to study the structural capacity of that loft and because the new organ coming was 23 tons so as an additional 20 tons that's a big instrument there's over 4,000 pipes father Phillips we understand that you have restored much of this church in fact apparently the room that we're in right now didn't used to be this special I don't know if you can see the altarpiece behind me but this is a replica of the altarpiece of the it's called of each Dolph's altarpiece from Saint Mary's Church in Krakow Poland and I had this commission many years ago as a actually as a votive offering for all the people who built this church with their nickels and dimes because this altarpiece may have been the last thing that they saw before they left Poland and they may have seen how many masses at this altar and I thought this would be a fitting tribute to the memory of all those individuals I think what happens in many parishes we forget the roots of these parishes and everything begins just now I've tried to instill in all our parishioners an idea that we have a fun day from the Polish heritage and this is a very beautiful and historic heritage a very artistic heritage part of our charism in the restoration of the sacred is not only preserving refurbishing restoring older things but also commissioning works of art in preparation for the Millennium we had a chalice designed by one of our parishioners the floor in the main church was a it's a timeline of our lord jesus' life from birth to death to the glory of the resurrection we had commissioned the Millennium monstrance crowns for our Blessed lady of Our Lady of Czestochowa that all these were done with the votive offerings so you know people themselves would give like old goals like gold teeth broken wedding bands broken golden chains and so on and when I collected enough of the gold and the silver I would turn it over to the artisans and they would make these sacred vessels which not only Hughes now but will be used for the future so sacred art is so important because with our eyes we see the beauty which it artists can give to the world sacred music is important as we hear this is the treasury of the sacred music which Saints heard and we are participating in this great mystery of the restoring the sacred and what happens is when people hear sacred music when they see the sacred art their hearts and minds are lifted up our good Lord father Phillips and father Scott thank you for making us welcome here at st. John can't yes coming up on extraordinary faith we'll take you into the world of traditional sacred art architecture liturgy and music in the bustling city of Miami where a thriving environment for classic Catholic practices have been rising in recent years will visit with Archbishop Thomas Winsky about the breakthrough Tritton teen Mass he celebrated in 2012 and will drop in on a Miami seminary where the young men's education includes exposure to liturgical traditions all this and more an extraordinary faith there's more information about every place we visit on the episodes pages of our web site extraordinary faith TV we also hope you'll like us on Facebook where we'll keep you up to date with the very latest news about our program thanks for traveling with us through Chicago and join us next time as we continue our journey through the wonders of Catholic tradition here on extraordinary faith you

Channel: Extraordinary Faith

Views: 12,085

Rating: 4.9400001 out of 5

Keywords: Extraordinary Faith, Latin Mass, Tridentine Mass, Roman Catholic Archdiocese Of Chicago (Religious Jurisdiction), St. John Cantius Church (Building), Shrine of Christ the King, Institute of Christ the King, Sursum Corda, St. Mary of Perpetual Help, Extraordinary Form, EWTN, Eternal Word Television Network (TV Network)

Id: boYUIEvG6Eg

Length: 28min 34sec (1714 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 20 2015