Carlo Acutis is not the first saint in this project whose life intersected with my own, but he is the first whose life was entirely within my own (not to mention being the most recently canonized—the first I’d heard of him, in fact, was when I was making the spreadsheet of parishes, saints and feast days).
St Carlos Acustic parish has two churches, so I went to St John Berchmans in Logan Square. The church as a building is rather undistinguished: a brick façade and almost austere interior, although the stations of the cross¹ are quite nice (they almost feel like they were taken from another church.
But churches aren’t buildings, they’re the people within them and while the 9.30a Mass was sparsely attended, it was one of the most diverse groups of people I’ve seen in a parish: young, old, families, differing races and ethnicities. The liturgy was lively and while the language in the prayer of the faithful was indirect, it clearly speaking with disapproval of the attacks on the people of Chicago by ICE. And as I walked into the church, there were a couple women passing out Carlo Acutis stickers and lapel pins of the eucharist.
I often ask myself as I attend Mass in different parishes if this is someplace that I could call my spiritual home, and this definitely felt like it could be a community that I would be happy to be part of.
- I’m used to the presence of the stations of the cross in every Catholic church so I don’t really think about them, but a recent discussion on Bluesky pointed out to me that for protestants and Jews, they’re deeply weird. This, in turn, reminded my of a joke from the Dave Allen show:
There once was a Jewish boy who misbehaved so much, that he was expelled from every school his parents enrolled him in. Finally, out of desperation, they sent him to a Catholic school.
After a few weeks, not only was the boy not expelled, but he got good grades and was deemed a model student.
Surprised, but pleased, his parents asked him what changed.
“Well,” the boy said, “the first thing I saw when I walked into the classroom was a Jewish guy nailed to a cross and I figured I’d better shape up.”
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