Category: Catholic nerd pilgrimage

Thanks to the Renew My Church initiative, we have parishes which have one or more churches by a different name than the parish itself as parishes are merged and the combined parishes choose to take on a new name even as the individual churches keep their original names. The parish of Saint Clare of Assisi…

The parish of Saint John Vianney is located in the nearish suburb of Northlake, which is not so named because it’s near a lake but because it is located at the intersection of Lake Street and North Avenue. For some reason, I had it in my head that the Mass began at 8a even though…

Today is the feast of Saints Martha and Mary, and their brother Saint Lazarus. For this feast, I traveled to St Martha church in Morton Grove. The church hosts the Shrine of All Saints, with relics from over 3200 saints, but apparently it requires an appointment for a docent-led tour. In any event, I forgot…

  Today is the feast of Saint Celestine, a fifth century pope. The church of that name is in Elmwood Park, thankfully only a short drive away. The parish is unapologetically suburban in its feel, a post–Vatican II building (although the parish itself is much older). The Sunday Mass was, well, suburban. I do note…

The Archdiocese of Chicago has two churches of Saint Anne (while one Saint Anne and one Saint Ann) along with a Shrine of Saint Anne. That last does not have Saturday Masses anymore, something I only learned today when I noticed that the church which hosts the shrine has a newer website and the older…

Today is the feast of St James the Great and while there are five currently open churches of St James, apparently, no one is exactly sure which Saint James any of them is named for, although not only is there confusion about which Saint James the churches are named for, there’s also confusion about which Saint…

One of the strange things with the Renew My Church process is that occasionally churches end up becoming part of parishes which have a completely different name than any of the churches that are used as worship sites. And sometimes what ends up happening is that a parish formed from two or more legacy parishes…

Today is the feast of St Benedict, the founder of the monastic order which bears his name. The archdiocese has two St Benedict churches, but one has a name at least partially subsumed by the new parish name (they have multiple worship sites, so it’s still St Benedict Church but it’s St Mary Magdalene Parish).…

Today, being the feast of Saint Maria Goretti, I trekked to the parish of Holy Virgin Martyrs formed by the merger of the legacy parishes of Saint Maria Goretti and Saint Beatrice. The parish uses the former Saint Beatrice church for worship under the combined patronage of both saints. The Mass was generally fine, with…