Category: Catholic nerd pilgrimage

The icon of St Mary of Częstochowa¹ is one of a number of black Madonnas, showing both Mary and Jesus with dark skin. Tradition says that it was painted by the evangelist Luke and rediscovered by St Helena during her pilgrimage to Jerusalem, although there is no attestation of its existence before the fourteenth century.…

Saint Patricia is an early saint about whom little is known and much is contradictory. She apparently appealed to Pope Liberius to be allowed to become a nun to escape a marriage arranged by Emperor Constans II and was granted her wish after which she distributed her personal wealth to the poor. Later, she attempted…

I have a sentimental attachment to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary as my baptismal parish and the church which established my expectations of the norms of Catholicism was Our Lady of the Assumption in Claremont, California. I would guess that these days, three decades after I left Claremont, there’s nobody that I know there…

Most of the time when I go to a weekday Mass, it’s no more than a dozen people present, St Rita being the main exception thusfar, but today’s trip to Marytown, home of the National Shrine of St Maximilian Kolbe was the most packed Mass I’ve seen, including Sundays. I arrived just as the Mass…

At one point in the Renew My Church process, Saint Jane de Chantal and Saint Camillus were united as a single parish taking the combined name of Saint Faustina Kowalska. Then Saint Camillus was closed. The archdiocesan directory still lists Saint Jane de Chantal as the name of the church, but none of the signage…

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…