Last night I went, along with tens of thousands of other people, to the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe. I took photos. Here they are and here’s a short essay.
I give a lot of credit to Laura Rodriguez and the Chicago Tribune. There is a lot of whining about “notification abuse” in news apps. The definition of “breaking news” is malleable, it seems.
But at about 6:00 last night the Tribune broke into my phone and told me about this vigil in immense detail. The Hoy team, which the Tribune is closing down literally tomorrow, had this story covered in immense detail. They told me absolutely everything I needed to know to be a part of this event where 200,000 of my neighbors were participating. This was news I could use.
I’m Catholic. I’ve never not been Catholic. Many people with whom I have been Catholic are no longer Catholic. I remain.
I’ve been an altar server, a lector, an usher, a communion minister, a CCD teacher, a pastoral council president, a school board president, a member of communications committee this and Deanery Planning Council that. You get my point. Being Catholic is one of the things I do.
During my Catholicism, awful, awful things have happened to people who have interacted with the Catholic Church. Disgusting crimes, sexual abuse, physical abuse, mental abuse. Fucking horrible. I hate all of it. I want all of the Catholic criminals to go to jail. I remain Catholic.
Bill Barr is a Catholic. I believe that he is the worst among us. His vision of a mean church, laid out in recent speeches at Notre Dame and the Federalist Society, is the opposite of mine. It is the opposite of my lived experience in urban American Catholicism over the last 5 decades. I seek to make Bill Barr’s vision null.
So I’m not going anywhere. I will not be moved from Catholicism. It was this renewed energy, after reading his dumb bile, that I went last night down Central Avenue from Oakton College in Des Plaines, IL, on a road not designed with pilgrims in mind, with hundreds of Catholics toward a light-bathed shrine.
Approaching the shrine itself, it wasn’t easy to tell where things were, or where I should go. I have seen this a lot in religious or group environments.
Wayfinding isn’t based in signage or typography, it’s based on literally following others. Flow. I don’t mind it.
From my body, looking out, it was all glorious chaos.
Everybody seemed to know what was going on and what to do but none of it was clear to me. Again, I was okay with this.
The entire thing– the pilgrimage– is of course a procession. Catholics have processions at the center of all sorts of important things– entrance, communion, offertory, etc. The most sacred procession last night was the line to move in front of the shrine itself, and place flowers or candles, or present their own image or statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
That line was loosely corralled by barricades, which were treated more like movable suggestions than hard barriers.
Walking in front of the shrine itself was a very moving experience. Thousands of bouquets.
The time had come for nutrients. I entered the enormous heated tent.
I bought some food tickets, and got a churros and hot chocolate. Again, the lions and chaos but it worked great.
All of this reminded me a lot of AA. We have a lot of sayings, but I like this one a lot: Let go, let God.
Last night I let go, I let God, and I was with tens of thousands of my friends.
And in that warm tent I ate my churro and drank my hot chocolate at midnight when the feast finally began and I steeled myself to oppose Bill Barr and his ugly modes.
All the world has been touched by your love.