Old St. Patrick's Church

Old St. Patrick's Church

A Roman Catholic Church in Chicago’s West Loop

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
MyOSP Login
Menu 
  • About
    • Calendar
    • Contact Us
    • Contact Us — Board of Advisors
    • Mass Schedule
    • Old St. Pat’s Mission
    • Membership – Join the Church
    • Bulletin & Blogs
      • Awakenings Reflections
      • Bulletins
      • Just a Thought
      • Ministry Spotlight
    • History
    • Tours of Old St. Pat’s
    • Media Gallery
    • Update Contact Information
  • Parking
  • Liturgy
    • Altar Server Program
    • Liturgical Ministry
    • Mass Intentions
    • Music Ministry
    • Nursery Service
    • Sunday Music – Now Playing
    • Sunday Experience Feedback
  • Sacraments
    • Anointing of the Sick
    • Baptism
    • Becoming Catholic (RCIA)
    • 7th Grade Confirmation
    • Adult Confirmation
    • First Holy Communion
    • Holy Orders
    • Marriage/Weddings
    • Reconciliation
    • Sacramental Records and Forms
  • Community Life
    • Social
      • Crossroads Runners Team
      • Encore
      • Gay +
      • OSP Next: Young Adults @ Old St. Pat’s
      • OSP Men’s Group
    • Spiritual
      • Adult Education Ministries
      • Beloved
      • Marriage Ministry
      • Men’s Spirituality: On the Journey
      • Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction
      • Off-Site Insight Speaker Evenings
      • Women’s Spirituality
      • Spiritual Companionship
      • Rosary Prayer Group
    • Families
      • Adoption Group
      • Foundations Youth Ministry
      • BluePrints 8th Grade Experience
      • Children’s Liturgy of the Word
      • Parents and Tots
      • Partner’s Religious Education
      • Interfaith Groups
      • Special Friends Mass
      • SPOKES
    • Pastoral Care
      • Prayer Ministry
      • Ministry of Care
        Home Visits with the Eucharist
      • Grief Ministry:
        Companions on the Journey
      • Mass of Healing
        Anointing of the Sick
      • Mass of Remembrance
      • Parish Counselor
      • Infertility Support
      • Divorce Support Groups
      • Annulment Support
      • Funeral Liturgies
      • The Next Chapter
    • Special Events
      • World’s Largest Block Party
      • Emerald Ball
      • Deck The Hall
      • Crossroads Runners Team
      • Siamsa na nGael
      • Concert Choirs
    • North Lawndale Kinship Initiative
  • Give to OSP
    • Sunday Giving & Recurring Gifts
    • The Journey Forward
    • Stock Transfers & Matching Gifts
    • Estate Planning
    • Preservation Trust
    • Book of Patrick
    • Beloved Retreat Scholarship
    • Kitchen Registry
    • Annual Catholic Appeal
    • Crossroads Circle
    • Immigrant & Refugee Fund
    • Give to Phoenix Hall
  • Social Action
    • Mission Overview
    • Outreach Opportunities
      • Drives
        • Beth Katsaros Winter Clothing Drive
    • North Lawndale Kinship Initiative
    • North Lawndale Works
    • Phoenix Hall
    • Justice Initiatives
    • Donate to a Tax Credit Scholarship
    • The Mary and Bill Aronin Center for Social Concerns
      • Career Transition Center
      • Global Outreach
      • Harmony, Hope & Healing
      • Horizons for Youth
  • Livestream
    • Livestream Services at Old St. Pat’s
  • Space at 625
  • search-gray

Awakenings: Embark on the Journey

By: Keara Ette

Sunday, February 26, 2017

As we prepare to embark on the journey of Lent – each of us is invited to carve out these next 40 days (ok, at least in Catholic liturgical time it is 40 days) to go to the desert. The desert is a strong image in our scripture and it is, I think, and appropriate image for this season. Every year before Lent, I turn to a poetic text about Lent that comes from my colleague and friend, Bob Kolatorowicz. In the piece entitled, “The Lenten Desert,” he writes:

We, too, need the desert.

And so each year,

at Lent,

Christian people create a desert.

• • •

In the geography of spirit

the desert is a place for keen focus

and hard discernment.

Who is God?

Who am I?

Who is my neighbor?

How shall we live together?

Lent is about reminding us who we are and whose we are. Because, frankly, I find that I often get lost in all the other ‘stuff.’ How well did I perform on that last project? Did my friends get offended that I didn’t attend that last gathering? Should I have made the time to be at that networking event? I really need to start planning ahead when it comes to my finances…

The tools of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are meant to serve us on our Lenten journeys to remember or perhaps discover in new ways our own sacred identities. This year, the Old St. Pat’s Lenten experience also invites us to Repent, Repair, Renew. What actions or attitudes in our lives call for repentance? What in our relationships or our communities is in need of repairing? What in our world or in our souls is in need of renewal?

Another gift offered to the members of the church during the Lenten Season is the gift of new life in the form of those who have been called to initiation in the Catholic Church. These men and women have chosen to work through the struggles, the questions, the skepticism, and the frustrations of a mysterious journey with openness to the urging and prodding of the Holy Spirit. They have engaged in conversations that hold up their experiences, the wisdom of the tradition, and the questions of our time – all in the hope of coming to know God and know themselves more deeply.

This Lent, twenty-seven of these men and women candidates and catechumens will be a mirror for us at Old St. Pat’s, reminding us of who we are as well: pilgrims on a journey. The time, prayerfulness, energy, and effort they have put into their learning and discernment are an inspiration to the rest of us to similarly engage and reengage in the life of the Spirit, in the context of community. Our RCIA community will stand before Cardinal Cupich this Sunday, revealing their desire to enter into the Catholic Community of faith. And the Cardinal Archbishop, on behalf of the universal church, will elect them to the Sacraments of Initiation and invite them into a final period of preparation and prayer. For them, and for us, Lent is the invitation to carve out time for the desert.

The long tradition of Christian wisdom tells us

that in the desert,

if we pay attention to the essentials,

we can learn to live.

Loving God, help each of us to use this Lent to learn to live; to use the tools of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving to remember who we are; and to do the hard work of repentance for our wrongs, repairing what is broken, and renewing our relationships with the help of the Risen Christ. Guide our steps, strengthen our resolve, grant us your mercy, and walk with us through the desert, for we know your greatest desire is for us to live into our identities as your beloved ones.

Filed Under: Awakenings, Awakenings Reflections

myOSP Log in
Username Password
Forgot Password?
Create an Account

Map/Directions

Address

CHURCH ADDRESS
700 WEST ADAMS STREET
CHICAGO, IL 60661

OFFICE ADDRESS
FR. JACK WALL MISSION CENTER
711 WEST MONROE STREET
CHICAGO, IL 60661
Tel: 312.648.1021

Parking Informaiton

Click here for Parking Information

Mass Times

Sundays
7, 8, 9:30 a.m., 11:15 a.m., 5, and 8 p.m.

Monday - Friday
7 a.m. and 12:10 p.m.

Map/Directions

Copyright © 2019 · Log in