AMDG
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| Annunciation
Byzantine Catholic Church in Homer Glen, IL near Joliet.
Our
Byzantine Catholic 29th Wedding Anniversary
After enjoying the celebration of the Big 50th
anniversary of my brother John and sister-in-law Kathleen, we just had to go to
the Annunciation Byzantine Catholic Church’s 10th Annual Prairie Fest was going
on that same weekend. Jaga found out
about it via their website (www.byzantinecatholic.com). So about 9:30 pm we left to attend the fest
that had great fellowship and dancing under the big tent plus games, pierogi
and other ethnic foods. It was on the
grounds of the beautiful church built on the top of a hill. Fr. Tom Loya (cousin Martuka’s oldest son)
had an army of volunteers, working through the weekend, but that presented a
problem…….how to get them to fulfill their Sunday Liturgy obligation. Simple!
Have Sunday liturgy for the feast of the Transfiguration at midnight for
all of the volunteers after all the patrons went home.
Since Fr. Tom’s guest room was occupied, he arranged for a
motel. Jaga reacted: “We’re here on Mr. Tabor and you want to go
to a motel!” You can sleep in the motel, but I’m staying here. So we slept in the
front seat of our little red wagon (2010 Chevy Cobalt). It was a beautiful peaceful evening under the
moon and the stars, a romantic way and cheap to celebrate our 29th wedding anniversary on August 13. We
slept well. At 6 am the rising sun woke
us up and we saw this lanky guy with a beard in shorts picking up the trash
with a nail tipped cane. Not having my glasses on, I thought that the guy was some flunky that Fr. Tom hired.
Jaga said: “That’s Fr. Tom!” “No
way!" I said. That's beautiful humility! As always, Jaga was right and I'm out there
in the cool of the morning, helping him pick up the trash and beer cans for
recycle. 
The
interior of Annunciation Byzantine Catholic Church in Homer Glen, IL
We attended the regular 10 am Liturgy. As always, this Byzantine Catholic divine
liturgy was beautiful. A deacon was
there when it was over to give explanations of the beautiful icons that Fr. Tom
himself painted. He did it all, inside
and outside. In fact, he’s still
painting icons on the exterior of the church.
Before he discovered a call to the priesthood, Fr. Tom was an artist. I believe that the icon screen was done by
Nick of dear memory and Christine who he married on his deathbed.
We started the afternoon with an ethnic dinner at one of the
stands. We walked around and enjoyed the
atmosphere. A big highlight was the tour
of the prairie of several acres that Fr. Tom himself conducted. It was originally a swamp, a wasteland on the
other side of the hill. The parish let
it grow back into its original habitat with typical Midwest prairie vegetation
and flowers as “God intended” according to Fr. Tom. What a beautiful place for reflection and
meditation! We thought we were on a little Mt. Tabor on
the Feast of the Transfiguration. And
guess what the name of the prairie is?
Transfiguration Prairie of course.
Constructing
a building to house visitors, Annunciation Church could be a retreat center as
well as a parish, similar to the Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa in
Doylestown, Pennsylvania which is run by a Polish order of priests and brothers
(www.czestochowa.us). The master plan and more detail is on the
website at http://byzantinecatholic.com/nature/overall-vision/. Everything is environmentally correct and
even the runoff rain water is collected in a barrel on the side of the church
to water the flowers. The church and its
grounds really follows Pope Francis’ encyclical, “Laudato si - On Care For Our
Common Home". Al Gore would be
impressed by it all and Fr. Tom is by no means a liberal.
On
the first Saturday of December Transfiguration Prairie briefly wakes up from
its winter slumber for a day. Children
learn the real story of St. Nicholas as they walk on the prairie paths. They even get to meet St. Nick and get a ride
on a horse drawn carriage. There’s
frontier era Christmas crafts for children and a homemade Christmas bake sale
for the adults.
Transfiguration
Prairie on the grounds of Annunciation Byzantine Catholic Church in Homer Glen,
IL
I’m
sure Fr. Tom would love to have members of his extended family and others to
visit when in the Chicago area, especially for the Prairie Fest on the second
weekend of August. It would really be
worthwhile to attend a 10 am Sunday liturgy in his beautiful church full of his
own art and pray on the prairie, restored to the way it was in pioneer
days. Give him a call at 708-645-0242 or
e-mail him at fatherthomasloya@aol.com or stop by at 14610 Will-Cook Road in
Homer Glen, IL 60491 near Joliet.
What a great
weekend! Since we celebrated our wedding
anniversary that Sunday and Fr. Tom married us on August 13, 1988, we asked him
to give us a parting blessing. Years
before he blessed our Stephanie in utero (see her now in the photo below).
And we were off to visit Jaga's brother, Joe Gajda & his wife
Justina along with his beautiful daughter Kalina and son Miłosz. Time wise we were half way to Poland and it
was time to visit the Polish branch of our extended family. That will be another adventure. The next day we were over the Atlantic to arrive
in Poland in time to celebrate the great feast of the Assumption.
Christmas
2017
Picture taken on
Father’s Day 2016 at the Little Sisters of the Poor Nursing Home in Pittsburgh
where Naomi worked. Left to right are
Joseph, Naomi, Stephanie, John-Paul, Paul, and Jaga.
On the morning of December 17 we had an empty nest. Suddenly, in late afternoon we had an
invasion and a full house. On their way
back from Pittsburgh Naomi and her boyfriend picked up Joseph at Ohio State (Computer
Science & Engineering) plus John-Paul (Ave Maria University Math &
Economics) and Stephanie (Liberal Arts Thomas Aquinas College) at the
airport. They were on the same flight
from Dallas, where both are teachers…..John-Paul teaches Math at Faustina
Academy and Stephanie teaches 4th grade at Great Hearts Elementary,
a great books charter school. Naomi
graduated from Franciscan University last May and is a registered nurse at
Montefiore Hospital in Pittsburgh.
She had no desire to date any guy from rural Gallia County. But guess what? In Pittsburgh she ran into a medical student, named John Faro, from Gallia County and they’re close friends now. They stayed for a few days, but Naomi had to return to work and that included Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and the second day of Christmas. Clearly we couldn’t bring Naomi to us for Christmas; so we took us to Naomi. Since her three roommates went home for Christmas, we had an empty house all to ourselves for a few days.
After arriving early in the afternoon and moving in, we went
to Mass at 4 pm at the combined St. Patrick/St. Stanislaus Kostka Church
in the Strip District, a large and beautiful church built at the turn of the 20th
Century. The pastor, Fr. Harry Nichols
gave me a taste of the history. Once an
ethnic Polish church, only traces of its history are left. It’s amazing how these immigrants from
Germany, Ireland, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Ukraine, etc. arrived as unskilled
workers with practically nothing. They
worked long hard hours under poor working conditions in the steel mills for low
wages. This made it possible for the
tycoons to accumulate capital for reinvestment and expansion, leading to the
economic takeoff of the United States and our high standard of living. We are greatly indebted to them. These immigrants skimped and sacrificed and
saved and were generous with their parish.
Thus they were able to build magnificent churches, schools, and
convents. After Mass we walked around
among the many quaint shops, including one selling Peruvian crafts.
On Sunday while Naomi was working, Stephanie wanted to go to
both a Byzantine Liturgy and a Mass in Latin.
Both John-Paul and Stephanie frequently attend St. Basil’s Byzantine
Catholic Church in Dallas on Sundays and for daily liturgy. The pastor, Fr. Joseph Wargacki I believe was a
deacon for many years and has several grown children, but opted for the priesthood
with the new Vatican ruling for eastern rite Catholic Churches outside of
Europe. For the sake of uniformity, the
Vatican had ruled in 1925 that priests of all rites had to be celibate outside
of Europe.
Thus
we drove to Holy Ghost Byzantine Catholic Church in McKees Rocks. That brought back memories of Fr. Romza,
pastor in the 1940s and 50s. I dated his
daughter, Rita once. I had a nice talk
with Fr. Frank Firko, the pastor. Within
a block is a Roman Catholic Church and also St. John’s Ukranian Byzantine
Catholic Church. I was impressed in the
way they cooperate with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, giving hope for eventual
Church unity.
Then we drove to St. Boniface Roman Catholic Church,
once an ethnic German parish. It consists
of two parishes, Holy Wisdom and St. John XXIII, which has all of its Masses in
Latin, drawing from all of Pittsburgh and the suburbs. I thought I was in a time capsule going back
to the Pre-Vatican II Church I grew up with.
The members of St. John XXIII Parish love the
solemnity, the tradition, the Latin, and the beauty of the Latin chants. The priest was ordained in the 1970s, but was
no stranger to the traditional Latin Mass because he grew up with it.
We picked up Naomi from her 12 hour shift at Montefiore
Hospital and had our traditional Polish Christmas Eve Vigilia dinner. Again Jaga was queen of the kitchen. Then we went off to St. Paul’s Cathedral for
midnight Mass. It was packed. Bishop David Zubik carried Baby Jesus during
the entrance procession. The Choir was
instrumental, probably with members of the Pittsburgh Symphony. A nationally known singer from the Pittsburgh
Opera sang a solo.
It turned out that
Montefiore Hospital did their best to discharge their patients in time for
Christmas. Since they had too many
nurses, they asked Naomi, the rookie, to take the day off. Naomi was with us all of Christmas Day after
all! To boot we woke up to a white
Christmas. So far we had a Roman
Catholic Christmas, but we wanted a Byzantine Catholic Christmas too. Afraid to risk driving on the icy streets, we
decided to do the half hour walk past St. Paul’s Cathedral to Holy Spirit
Byzantine Catholic Church on Fifth Avenue.
It was icy even to walk, but a good workout on a cold Christmas morning.
Holy Spirit Byzantine
Catholic Church on busy Fifth Ave. in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh. Christ is in the center, showing the unity
between the prophets of the Old Testament (the promise of the Redeemer) on the
left and the saints of the New Testament (the fulfillment of the promise) on
the right.
It
was a beautiful liturgy. Msgr. Russell
Duker proclaimed: “Christ is born” and the people responded, “Let us adore Him”
and he repeated the same in Old Slav: “Christos razdajetsja!” with the
response, “Slavite Jeho”. Ms. Revilak, a
native of Slovakia, was the cantor. She
has a beautiful voice, leading the people with singing in English and some in
Old Slav. I remember as a kid how
powerful were the liturgies sung in the original Old Slav, led by the deep
voice of the cantor. The beautiful
liturgy, originally written for Old Slav, seems to lose something when
translated into English. Ms. Revilak’s
two sons were altar servers. The very
musical Revilak family does ethnic singing throughout western Pennsylvania and
beyond (<revilaks@hotmail.com>).
The
magnificent church has icons everywhere, inside and outside too as shown in the
photos above and below. When the Church
was built in the 1960s, they had over 200 families and the church was often
packed. Now they’re down to about
60. Since driving was treacherous on
this Christmas morning, not many people attended. Nevertheless, this shows that many churches
are bleeding as many Catholics of all rites are drifting away under the
influence of a very secular society. We
have a huge job of re-evangelization. Everyone
can do something big or small……by prayer, example, word, or deed.
Christmas at Holy
Spirit Byzantine Catholic Church in Pittsburgh.
We see portrayed the Son of God becoming one of us to begin His great
mission of Redemption and in the background His victory over death in redeeming
us.
For
the first time our family joined the Byzantine Rite in celebrating their three
Holy Days of Christmas. The second day
focuses on Mary, the God bearer and the third day on St. Stephen, the first
martyr.
In the Byzantine Rite the
liturgy is normally sung acapella, being led by a cantor. The liturgy emphasizes the majesty of God
that inspires awe. They have a great
focus on imploring the mercy of God centuries before St. Faustina and St. John
Paul II made it popular in the Latin rite.
Instead of statues the Eastern churches under Greek influence use icons,
which are full of symbols. The focus is on
the message of the icons rather than an exact likeness. The Byzantine Rite is stricter with fasts and
the number of holy days. Through all of
Lent, they abstain from all dairy products.
The principal parts of the liturgy are the same in all rites, but each is
adapted to a particular culture of the East.
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