St. Gertrude Chicago

All are Welcome

1420 W. Granville,

Chicago, IL 60660

773.764.3621

stgertrude1420@stgertrudechicago.org

www.stgertrudechicago.org

Bulletin for Sunday, September 22, 2024

25th Sunday in Ordinary Time

From Fr. Mike Gabriel

When I listen to the news, I find myself thinking, “What a mess our world and our country is!" Whether it is the war in the Ukraine or the Middle East, or the political climate in our own country, the hope of unity seems to be a far-off, fleeting dream. The news is filled with violence, shootings, with only rare expressions of hope, justice, and peace. I could go on, but it would just be more depressing and negative energy.

We can only face these times with the willingness to forgive and live the values of Jesus: compassion, kindness, service, justice and love. Will that change the world, our country, and our families? Well, hopefully, at least a little. Will living Christ’s love change you?

We were all saddened last week to learn that Scott Williams, the new music director, will be going to another parish. You can read his letter below. We do wish Scott the best! This does bring us back to square one. We are reviewing and beginning to figure out the next step.

Last Monday night, five parishioners came to a meeting about a pilgrimage for the Holy Year. This is a walking pilgrimage, not a bus pilgrimage, starting on March 15, 2025. If interested, let me know. I can be reached via email at mgabriel@stgertrudechicago.org.

This coming Wednesday, September 25, author and parishioner Michelle Nickerson will discuss her book, Spiritual Criminals. This will start at 7:00 pm in the Social Hall.

A Letter from Scott Williams, Music Director

Hi everyone - this is a difficult announcement for me to make after such a joyful first week here at St. Gertrude’s. As some of you know, I live out in the western suburbs in

Riverside, and this last Monday I was approached by the pastor of St. Mary’s church, which is two blocks from where I live. Their music director recently announced that they’ll be resigning, and the pastor was hoping I’d consider being his replacement at St. Mary’s.

I was, of course, shocked, as I’ve been enjoying the process of settling in and getting to

know the staff here at St. Gertrude’s and have been excited about getting to know all

of you; but after talking with my family, and a lot of prayer, I realized that the opportunity to minister minutes from my home, and to always be within walking distance of my daughter’s school and my place of work was an opportunity for my family that I couldn’t pass up.

The decision to pursue this opportunity was made so much more difficult for me

primarily because of the warmth and welcoming of the St. Gertrude’s staff. Fr. Mike has

been so welcoming and encouraging from the moment I met him, Eduardo Soto has

been incredibly knowledgeable and helpful with the employment transfer process, Eloy’s

understanding and organization of the offerings at St. Gertrude’s have make the music

planning/scheduling process go smoothly for me, and getting to celebrate Sherl’s

birthday last week with Sr. Susan, Laurie, Tracy, Andy, and the rest of the staff was such a

delight, and made it overwhelmingly clear that my decision to not move forward with

St. Gertrude has nothing to do with this staff, or this community. I’ve worked as an

employee of the Archdiocese for the past two decades, and the warmth, honesty, and

welcoming spirit of St. Gertrude has been unmatched.

This is a wonderful place, and I’m confident this parish will continue to thrive because

of the quality of the community and the people who minister here. I’m sad that I won’t

be a direct part of it, and I feel terrible about the timing and the way that this has

played out, but I have to trust in God’s plan for St. Gertrude, and God’s plan for myself

and my family, even if it’s certainly not the way I would have personally planned things

out.

I understand if you are disappointed, or upset, or surprised, and I’m happy to talk to

anyone with any questions; I’m easy to find by the piano after masses, and you can

send me an email at swilliams@stgertrudechicago.org if we’re unable to talk in person.

My plan is to hopefully stay here for however long it takes to fill this position, and I’ll be

doing everything I can to make help the transition to the new music director as smooth

as possible.

Thank you so much for your support and prayers, as I will be praying for this community as well.

Second Collection for Seminarian Education Fund Collection - September 21-22

The Annual Seminarian Appeal collection will take place the weekend of September 21-22, 2024. This is an important source of funding for our ministry of priestly formation in the Archdiocese of Chicago. This appeal supports not only Mundelein Seminary, but also our college seminarians who now study at St. John Vianney College Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Your financial support helps cover the cost of their preparation, which includes tuition and fees, room and board and health insurance. Please know, too, that promoting priestly vocations is the work of the entire Church. You can help support vocations by praying for an increase in vocations, encouraging young men to consider the priesthood, praying for our seminarians, and supporting Mundelein Seminary. Please keep our seminarians in your prayers as they continue their journey toward the priesthood. On behalf of all seminarians, thank you for your generosity.

Care for Real Collection This Weekend September 21

Our monthly Food & Supply Drive for Care for Real is September 21 and 22. Please place nonperishable items in the bins at the back of church before and after mass times. Special needs this month include diapers in any sizes.

Our monthly collection for asylum seekers is October 5 and 6. Please place nonperishable items in the bins at the back of church. Items will be donated to Care for Real who is working hard to help these newly-arrived neighbors.

Our collection drive for Care for Real is always the fourth calendar weekend every month, and our asylum seekers’ collection is the first weekend of each month.

Visit www.careforreal.org/wishlist to shop Care for Real's Amazon or Target wish lists to shop-to-donate today. Donations can also be dropped off between 12:00-3:00 pm every Monday-Saturday at the back entrance of 5339 N. Sheridan. 

This Sunday, September 22, is the 2024 Edgewater Home Tour

The Edgewater Historical Society will feature the West Edgewater neighborhood on a guided tour through several of its historic homes this Sunday, September 22, rain or shine. The fee is $25.

At each home, a volunteer docent will greet you and tell you something about the exterior of the house. You will then be escorted with others in a group to tour the inside of the house, where another volunteer docent will highlight some of the features of the interior. You will also receive a souvenir tour booklet containing a map of the neighborhood and descriptions of each home on the tour.

Reservations are not required. Register at the Rosehill Cemetery entrance, on the west side of the tracks, at 5800 N. Ravenswood between noon and 4:00 pm and receive your tour booklet and map. The homes are on Rosehill, Edgewater, Hollywood and Bryn Mawr, and will be open from noon until 5:00 pm. To visit all featured homes involves walking approximately one mile (starting at the registration table), using the map in the tour guide as reference.

Registration is Still Open for our Religious Ed Classes

While our 2024-2025 Religious Education classes have begun, we are still accepting applications for students to attend our program! In-person instruction is held from 9:15-10:15 am on Sundays.  

Registration forms, the Religious Ed handbook, and service options for students preparing for confirmation, can be found at stgertrudechicago.org/religious-education-forms. Forms in Spanish are also available on our website. Please note that students must receive two years of preparation in order to make these sacraments. 

The fees for the 2024-2025 school year are $210 for one child and an additional $30 for each student from the same family. Payments are accepted here.

An additional sacramental fee of $65 is required for children making their First Communion and First Reconciliation, or their Confirmation. That fee can be paid here.

Completed forms and any questions about the program should be emailed to Eloy Escamilla at eescamilla@stgertrudechicago.org. Please register before the start date.

Interested in becoming a substitute catechist teacher? Contact Eloy Escamilla at the above email address.

Kids Word Available at 10:30 am Masses

On Sundays during the 10:30 am Mass in church, children aged 4-7 years-old are invited to attend Kids Word to hear an age-appropriate Gospel message and do fun, scripture-based activities, such as coloring or crafts, in the Rectory.

Children are invited by the celebrant to come to the altar before the readings and will return to church before the petitions.

Email eescamilla@stgertrudechicago.org for details.

Interested in Becoming Catholic?

The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) is a process by which adults learn more about the Catholic Church. This free program begins in the fall and meets until Pentecost.

Many people who begin RCIA are non-Catholics seeking to become Catholic or at least to explore whether Catholicism might be a good home. Those who complete the process and decide to become Catholic are initiated into the Church at the Easter Vigil Mass on Holy Saturday. Others who take RCIA are already Catholic but want a deeper understanding of their faith foundation.

The RCIA process does not ask those who have been baptized in another faith to give up their denominational experiences. Rather, the RCIA process seeks to add new colors and designs to their existing faith life tapestry. In addition to attending Mass, the RCIA process includes weekly gatherings of breaking open the Word of God, sharing our stories, and learning about our faith traditions.

If you or someone you know is interested in learning more about the RCIA process at St. Gertrude, contact Eloy Escamilla at eescamilla@stgertrudechicago.org or call the Rectory at 773.764.3621. 

Commonweal Dialogue to Host Book Discussion with Author and Parishioner Michelle Nickerson This Wednesday, September 25; Follow-Up Discussion Planned for October 11 

Recently, longtime parishioner, co-chair of the parish council, Loyola professor, Fulbright Scholar, and historian Michelle Nickerson released a book titled, Spiritual Criminals: How the Camden 28 Put the Vietnam War on Trial. On September 25, the parish group, Commonweal Dialogue, will host a discussion with Michelle from 7:00-9:00 pm.

The book relates the harrowing real-life story of Catholics who burglarized draft boards to oppose the Vietnam War. Guided by the church’s social teachings, they broke the law to revive non-violence as an activist strategy for advancing peace at the end of the 1960s. In the process, these activists exposed illegal activity by the FBI, forcing a new era of Congressional and judicial oversight of government surveillance in the United States. We hope to have books on sale in the back of the church in the near future. 

On Friday, October 11th at 6:30 pm, Commonweal Dialogue will continue the discussion of the book and its relevance for current political protests. This gathering of Commonweal will be held in the first-floor chapel of the Ministry Center, located at 6214 North Glenwood Ave. Please RSVP for the October 11 gathering to to John Williams at oolikar@gmail.com or Denise DeBelle at ddebelle@gmail.com so we are sure to have plenty of pizza and wine!

Celebrating 50 Years of St. Francis House

Since 1974, St. Francis House, located in the Uptown neighborhood at 4652 N Kenmore Ave., has been a home of hospitality in the tradition of the Catholic Worker movement.

To mark their 50th anniversary, they are hosting a Catholic Worker National Gathering and Celebration at St. Gertrude parish from October 4-6, 2024!

For more information, please visit francishousechicago.org or email sfh.chicagocw@gmail.com, or just come by for dinner any Monday at 6:00 pm.

Pet Blessing Planned for Sunday, October 6

The Feast of St. Francis of Assisi is Friday, October 4. As we do each year, there will be Blessing of the Pets on Sunday, October 6, held after the 10:30 am Mass.  

Please join us with your furry (or scaly!) loved ones! 

Parish Garden Update

The latest harvest from our parish garden yielded some great cucumbers, plenty of green tomatoes, and the bell peppers!

Our bounty was shared with are for Real and St. Thomas of Canterbury's soup kitchen.

Growing in Faith

A few years back, there was a popular expression, “it takes a village to raise a child.” Maybe it was popular because it needed no explanation. It was immediately understood, immediately recognized. We’ve all been that child. We all live in that village. 

We intuitively, instinctively, “as a village“ raise a child maybe because we intuitively, instinctively, collectively understand what Jesus tells us in today’s gospel: "to receive the child is to receive me and whoever receives me, receives the one who sent me." 

In today’s gospel (you remember the story), the apostles are squabbling over who amongst them is the most important. Jesus responds to their ambition to be the greatest with the tender gesture of embracing a child.

In contrast – we find in the other readings of the day, misguided worldly ambition to be at the heart of selfishness, jealousy, envy, cruelty, foul practices, and war.

In my own practice of faith (my life), my take-away is, that when I have an unsettling ambition for “more” (however I define that) to instead recognize, no, this is enough (this is a feast): the tender gesture of embracing a child.

At a different level, however, Jesus’ example challenges me, as a “villager” in our world community. Why aren’t we doing more, why aren’t we doing enough for the child in our midst – in Gaza, or barricaded in the classroom? I don’t have an answer, but I do have a clue. It begins with acts in service of the least and the lost.

~ Madeleine Philbin 

Eucharistic Ministers

• Saturday, September 21 at 5:00 pm - Kathy Wall
• Sunday, September 22 at 8:00 am - Barb Daly
• Sunday, September 22 at 10:30 am - Patrick Robinson, Michael Kowalsky, Michelle Kuehlhorn

Upcoming Mass Intentions

• Monday, September 23: 7:30 am - Juanita Gusmanos+
• Tuesday, September 24: 7:30 am - Ben Keefe+
• Wednesday, September 24: 7:30 am - Marie and Michael Adler+
• Thursday, September 25: 7:30 am - Communion Service
• Friday, September 26: 7:30 am - Mary Monaghan+
• Saturday, September 27: 7:30 am - Purgatorial Society; 5:00 pm -Adam Kwiecien+
• Sunday, September 28: 8:00 am - Sheila McGuire+; 10:30 am - The Shields family; 10:30 am Gym Mass - Billy Tobin+

If you would like to add a name to the prayer list, please contact the Rectory at 773.764.3621 or email stgertrude1420@stgertrudechicago.org. Names will remain on the list for three weeks. After that time, please renew the name using same contact information.