THOUGHTS FROM THE PASTOR

My sense is that most of us can not see Memorial Day come fast enough. Memorial Day signifies the true beginning of summer, vacations and family outings, warm days with swimming, camping, hiking, biking, walking along the Lake, visiting family and friends, etc. It begins a season that we look forward to, especially after the cold months of winter and this year the almost absence of spring. For many students it signifies time away from school and many opportunities to engage in alternative methods of learning. It means the gradual demise of basketball and hockey and the rise of the real American sport of baseball (even the Cubs and White Sox seem to be responding more positively to the warmer temperatures these days). The smell of barbeque, hamburgers and hotdogs on the grill permeates the air in our neighborhoods and parks.

However, we don’t want to forget that Memorial Day began as a day to remember our beloved dead, especially those who have died giving their lives at home and abroad by defending our freedom in military service. For a while this day was called Decoration Day because of decorating the graves of military personnel in our national cemeteries. All too many men and women have given their lives throughout the relatively short time of our nation’s history and right down to the present day. We honor them and we give thanks for their dedication and their service. In addition, let’s remember our deceased mothers, fathers, extended family members, relatives and friends, for they too have played a most important part in our memory and in our personal history. May they all rest in the peace of Christ!

On this national holiday St. Peter’s will be closed except for our one Mass which we will celebrate at 10:00 A.M. on Monday. The church will be open from 9:00-11:00 so that anyone wishing to celebrate Eucharist with us may do so. All are invited.

But Memorial Day also brings memories of all kinds to mind, and I would like to share one that you might not know about that has direct relationship with St. Peter’s here in the Loop. Up until a few weeks ago, the only thing I knew about the property on which our church was built was that the LaSalle Theater had previously occupied this site and had closed several years before we bought the lot at 110 West Madison. But this property had a much longer and storied history than just a movie theater.

John J. Coughlin was the proprietor of a bathhouse in the basement of the Brevoort Hotel at 143 W. Madison (now 118 W. Madison) in the 1880s. Just a few years later in 1892, with powerful backing from Chicago gambling king Mike McDonald, “Bathhouse” John became Alderman for the richest single district in the world, Chicago’s First Ward, a position he held for 46 years until his death in 1938. During that time, he was not only the city’s most famous politician, but he presided over—and profited from—the greatest red light district in American history, the Chicago Levee.

Coughlin was born in 1860 in Connelly’s Patch, an Irish neighborhood on the west side of downtown, between Madison and Adams Streets. With only a few mediocre years of schooling, he began working at the age of 11 as a rubber in a Turkish bathhouse, learning the trade and saving fastidiously. By 1887, he had earned enough to buy the bathhouse in the basement of the recently refurbished Brevoort House hotel on Madison Street. The Brevoort, one of Chicago’s oldest inns and always one of the best furnished (it was the first in Chicago to offer an elevator), was rebuilt after the Great Fire as an eight-story high premier European-style hotel and offered its visitors what was at the time considered a true luxury—the opportunity to take a bath.

Though he never lost an election, Bathhouse John was not exactly the model of efficient politics, but he was a flamboyant character who knew how to get his name in the newspapers and endear himself to voters. There seems to have been no end to his eccentricities. At one time or another, he ran a baseball team, opened his own zoo and amusement park in Colorado, challenged his neighbors to a footrace, acted as his own attorney in defense of a charge of assault on a newspaper reporter, offered a $50.00 reward to the first Chicagoan to see a spring robin, learned to play the guitar, called on the police to regulate the length of women’s skirts, released a list of the city’s top ten most handsome men, and ran a stable of race horses in suburban St. Charles.

On one occasion, Ald. Coughlin waited patiently outside the Mayor’s office for over an hour to pester him about adjourning a city council meeting early so that all the council members could see the premier of his newest poetic work, “Dear Midnight of Love,” which was to be performed at the Chicago Opera house that afternoon.

Together with Alderman Michael “Hinky Dink” Kenna, he ruled the First Ward, selling protection to the brothels, gambling houses, drug dens, white slave operations, and saloons of the Levee for over forty years. He was part owner of Frieberg’s Dance Hall and employed his business partner, Ike Bloom, as the official collector of tribute. Later, Bloom’s position was taken by “Big Jim” Colosimo, the founder of the Chicago Outfit, which Al Capone would run later. Nearly every famous Chicago criminal of the early 20th century got their start working under Coughlin and Kenna.

In his later years, while he continued to sit on the city council, Coughlin largely became a doddering figurehead for the Torrio-Capone syndicate, a kindly old gentleman who enjoyed telling stories about days gone past. Bathhouse John passed in November, 1938. Having lost tens of thousands of dollars on his racehorse hobby during the last decades of his life, Mr. Coughlin left only a meager $25,000 to his family in his will.

Who would have ever thought that the land on which our church now stands would have such a storied history? I’d like to think that, since 1953 when St. Peter’s opened, we have made quite a difference in the reputation of this part of the Loop! By the way, just by coincidence a play entitled “Ivywild” dealing with the escapades of Alderman Coughlin is now playing at the Chopin Theater, 1543 West Division St. Although I have not seen the play, the review in the May 15th Chicago Tribune makes it sound very interesting. So much for memories! Enjoy Memorial Day and all that follows for the remainder of the summer.

TRINITY SUNDAY

The Book of Proverbs is a textbook for instruction in ancient Israel, bringing together wise sayings that serve as lessons for its people. In today’s reading Wisdom herself speaks. Wisdom personified is part of biblical Israel’s way of thinking. Wisdom was “brought forth while as yet the earth and fields were not made.” She was there “when the Lord established the heavens.” Wisdom’s antiquity establishes her authority and reliability. Predating the universe, she shares in the life of God in a special way. Being beside God during creation, she has an understanding that is unique. We must seek to learn from her.

Paul writes to the Romans reminding them that having “been justified by faith, we have peace with God.” This peace is our gift, acquired at the cost of the death of Jesus Christ. Through his death “we have gained access” to God’s grace. This is God’s gift to us. But we know that with faith comes affliction. Paul and his fellow believers suffer for the sake of the gospel, but he tells them that it is cause to rejoice because the suffering leads to hope. Paul intends to visit the church of Rome and knows that he will share in both their joy as well as their affliction.

In the Gospel today, Jesus is speaking to his disciples at the Last Supper. He promises them the gift of the “Spirit of truth,” who will “declare to you the things that are coming.” This time in Jesus’ life—the time of his suffering, death and resurrection—is his long-awaited “hour.” Jesus promises that the Spirit “will guide you to all truth,” a reminder that revelation is an ongoing process. It is only over time, as is witnessed in the Book of Acts, that the apostles will come to understand Jesus’ will for them and his message.

For Reflection: Do I strive to achieve wisdom in life, or am I more concerned with knowledge? Can I see how God’s word to me is slowly revealed by the Holy Spirit?

A QUOTE FROM POPE FRANCIS
Homily on the Solemnity of Pentecost 2013

In light of this passage from Acts (2:1-11), I would like to reflect on three words linked to the working of the Holy Spirit: newness, harmony and mission.

Newness always makes us a bit fearful, because we feel more secure if we have everything under control, as if we are the ones who build, program and plan our lives in accordance with our own ideas, our own comfort, our own preferences. This is also the case when it comes to God. Often we follow him, we accept him, but only up to a certain point. It is hard to abandon ourselves to him with complete trust, allowing the Holy Spirit to be the soul and guide of our lives in our every decision. We fear that God may force us to strike out on new paths and leave behind our all too narrow, closed and selfish horizons in order to become open to his own. Yet throughout the history of salvation, whenever God reveals himself, he brings newness and change, and demands our complete trust: Noah, mocked by all, builds an ark and is saved, Abram leaves his land with only a promise in hand, Moses stands up to the might of Pharoah and leads his people to freedom, the apostles, huddled fearfully in the Upper Room, go forth with courage to proclaim the Gospel. This is not a question of novelty for novelty’s sake, the search for something new to relieve our boredom, as is so often the case in our own day. The newness which God brings into our life is something that actually brings fulfillment, that gives true joy, true serenity, because God loves us and desires only our good. Let us ask ourselves: Are we open to God’s surprises, or are we closed and fearful before the newness of the Holy Spirit? Do we have the courage to strike out along the new paths which God’s newness sets before us, or do we resist, barricaded in transient structures which have lost their capacity for openness to what is new?

A second thought: the Holy Spirit would appear to create disorder in the Church, since he brings the diversity of charisms and gifts, yet all this, by his working, is a great source of wealth, for the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of unity, which does not mean uniformity, but which leads everything back to harmony. In the Church, it is the Holy Spirit who creates harmony. One of the Fathers of the Church has an expression which I love: the Holy Spirit himself is harmony—“Ipse harmonia est.” Only the Spirit can awaken diversity, plurality and multiplicity, while at the same time building unity. Here too, when we are the ones who try to create diversity and close ourselves up in what makes us different and other, we bring division. When we are the ones who want to build unity in accordance with our human plans, we end up creating uniformity, standardization. But if instead we let ourselves be guided by the Spirit, richness, variety and diversity never become a source of conflict, because he impels us to experience variety within the communion of the Church. Journeying together in the Church, under the guidance of her pastors who possess a special charism and ministry, is a sign of the working of the Holy Spirit. Having a sense of the Church is something fundamental for every Christian, every community and every movement. It is the Church which brings Christ to me, and me to Christ. Parallel journeys are dangerous! When we venture beyond the Church’s teaching and community and do not remain in them, we are not one with the God of Jesus Christ. So let us ask ourselves: Am I open to the harmony of the Holy Spirit, overcoming every form of exclusivity? Do I let myself be guided by him, living in the Church and with the Church?

A final point. The older theologians used to say that the soul is a kind of sailboat, the Holy Spirit is the wind which fills its sails and drives it forward, and the gusts of wind are the gifts of the Spirit. Lacking his impulse and his grace, we do not go forward. The Holy Spirit draws us into the mystery of the living God and saves us from the threat of a Church which is gnostic and self-referential, closed in on herself. He impels us to open the doors and go forth to proclaim and bear witness to the Good News of the Gospel, to communicate the joy of faith, the encounter with Christ. The Holy Spirit is the soul of mission. The events that took place in Jerusalem almost two thousand years ago are not something far removed from us; they are events which affect us and become a lived experience in each of us. The Pentecost of the Upper Room in Jerusalem is the beginning, a beginning which endures. The Holy Spirit is the supreme gift of the risen Christ to his apostles, yet he wants that gift to reach everyone. As we heard in the Gospel, Jesus says, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to remain with you forever” (Jn 14:16). It is the Paraclete Spirit, the Comforter, who grants us the courage to take to the streets of the world, bringing the Gospel! The Holy Spirit makes us look to the horizon and drives us to the very outskirts of existence in order to proclaim life in Jesus Christ. Let us ask ourselves: Do we tend to stay closed in on ourselves, on our group, or do we let the Holy Spirit open us to mission?

SAINT ANTHONY’S RELICS VISIT CHICAGO AREA

It has already been published in the Catholic New World that there will be a special week in the month of June when two special relics of Saint Anthony of Padua will be coming to the Chicagoland area for veneration. Here at St. Peter’s we have begun to receive calls about this event, so I thought it best to alert you to what is being planned.

Even though we already have a relic of this wonderful saint in the shrine in his honor in our church, we are most happy to welcome this opportunity for veneration that has already come to New York City and the Los Angeles area. We invite you to join us in welcoming Saint Anthony of Padua on the occasion of the 750th Anniversary of the Discovery of Saint Anthony’s Relics by Saint Bonaventure. Several relics from the Basilica of Saint Anthony in Padua, Italy, will visit us along with a Franciscan Friar from Padua. This will take place between June 8-16, 2013, and will include the following locations:

Basilica of St. Josaphat, Milwaukee
National Shrine of St. Maximilian Kolbe, Libertyville
Shrine of Our Lady of Pompeii, Chicago
St. Stanislaus Koska, Chicago
St. Mary of the Angels, Chicago
Saint Alphonsus, Chicago
St. Peter’s in the Loop, Chicago
St. Anthony of Padua, Rockford
Holy Name Cathedral, Chicago
St. Thomas the Apostle, Chicago
St. John Bosco, Chicago

We are fortunate at St. Peter’s to have the relics on the Feast of St. Anthony, June 13th. The reliquary will be in the sanctuary from 8:00 A.M. until 6:00 P.M. that day with special feast day Masses at 8:15, 11:40, 1:15 and 5:00. At these four Masses Fr. Mario Conte, O.F.M., from Padua will preach, and there will be an opportunity after each of these Masses for people to view the relics up close. The 11:40 Mass will be a Solemn Mass with choir, and we will bless bread during the Mass for distribution afterwards. Since the visit of these relics has already been publicized and no doubt will continue to be mentioned in the coming weeks (we will give an even greater description of details in a later bulletin), we anticipate a large crowd of visitors to St. Peter’s on Thursday, June 13th. You might want to make your plans early so as not to forget this wonderful opportunity.

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