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WHITING, Ind. — They came to their windows and stood on their porches all along the half-mile route. The sweet Marian hymns sung by 100 Byzantine and Roman Catholics through the streets of Whiting, Indiana, drew neighbors to watch with reverence as the faithful walked by, led by their bishops and priests and holding blue and white candles.
The candlelight vigil procession, from the shrine altar of the Protection of the Mother of God at St. Mary Byzantine Catholic Parish to the Grotto of the Immaculate Conception nearby, was one of the highlights of the two-day inaugural Midwest Marian Pilgrimage, organized by St. Mary Parish, Oct. 6-7.
The grotto is on the site of the former Immaculate Conception church, a Slovak Roman Catholic church, that was torn down this past year. The grotto has remained a site of popular devotion.
Bishop Milan Lach, SJ, of Parma and the local Roman Catholic bishop, Bishop Donald Hying of Gary, led the pilgrims in prayer through the weekend. All of the Byzantine Catholic priests serving in Chicagoland attended, along with the local biritual and Roman Catholic priests. A few members from the Orthodox community also participated.
The two-day pilgrimage was organized to offer Catholics — both Eastern and Western — the opportunity to gather in prayer in the Byzantine tradition, and to hear good preaching on Scripture and on the Mother of God.
Bishop Hying preached at the end of Vespers on Saturday. He identified moments in the life of the Mother of God that are essential to contemplate in order to understand the Christian life better.
The first is the Annunciation. Bishop Hying called this “the greatest moment in the history of the human race” for the Mother of God, brings God into the world through her divine maternity.
The second is the crucifixion. “Mary stands fixed in that spot, when Christ was deader than dead after everything that the devil had done,” he said.
In both these instances — the Annunciation and the Crucifixion — Mary gives people an image of what it means to be a disciple. “She stands transfixed in that spot as a disciple who believes the otherwise unbelievable, the divine birth and the resurrection,” he said.
Bishop Hying went on to talk about the role faith has played in the Whiting community. “Whiting has been deeply formed by the culture of the faith, both Latin rite and Byzantine rite,” he said.
He recounted what St. John Paul II said about the role religion plays in culture. “The root word for culture comes from cult. Cult in its original sense is the worship of God. Take cult out of culture and the whole thing falls apart,” he said.
He urged those present to seek sanctity in their own life, remarking how God uses saints to bring others to the Lord. “When we seek holiness sincerely, Jesus will use us to bring others to him,” he said.
Bishop Hying told Horizons it was “a joy and a blessing” for him to be at the pilgrimage.
“It shows the unity and the diversity of the church, that we’re united in Christ. We’re united by our communion with Rome and with each other in the one, holy, catholic and apostolic faith, but it also shows the legitimate plurality of rites within the church,” he said. “For us to be united with Mary in this pilgrimage reminds us that all of our life is a pilgrimage, walking towards the Father’s house as brothers and sisters, bound together in Jesus, walking with Mary and relying on the intercession of the saints to make that journey ourselves into the mystery of salvation.”
Bishop Hying noted how “many of our people are intermarried and interrelated and there are many families that feel very comfortable in both rites.”
“There’s a lot of blending, and we share that Eastern European heritage and we find, in that commonality of culture, the beauty of faith holding it all together for us,” he said.
After Vespers, and before the procession, a festive ethnic dinner was hosted in the parish hall.
On Sunday afternoon, Father Marek Visnovsky, protosyncellus of the Eparchy of Parma and iconographer, spoke about the mystery of the Incarnation and how it supports iconography.
“If there wasn’t Christmas there would be no iconography. The mystery of the birth of Christ, is that God became flesh, gives us the ability to see him, and as a result depict him,” he said.
He said Eastern Christian devotion to iconography does not amount to idolatry, citing St. John Damascene, who, in his “Treatise on Divine Images,” said: “I do not worship matter, but the creator of matter who became flesh for my sake.”
The pilgrimage concluded with the Hierarchical Divine Liturgy, celebrated by Bishop Lach. He reminded the faithful in his homily that the Mother of God was the first disciple of Jesus and the first member of the church.
“At the foot of the cross on Golgotha, when Jesus entrusted her to John the Theologian, there the church was constituted. Even the sacraments are there. Where blood and water flowed out, the Church Fathers see two sacraments: baptism and Eucharist,” he said.
Bishop Lach identified two key elements of Mary’s character that he said Christians should take to heart and emulate. The first was her submission to the Word of God; the second was her submission to the mission of Jesus, in particular in Cana and Galilee.
“She submitted to the Word of God announced by the Angel Gabriel. But this (submission) was not just one time, but every day, she submitted,” he said.
“We need to follow the Word of God, not just know it theoretically,” he said. “Today in 2018, in the United States, as Christians we are invited to listen to Jesus completely. This is the best lifestyle we could choose for ourselves.”
Caption: Left to right: Bishop Donald Hying of the Diocese of Gary, Indiana, Bishop Milan Lach, SJ, of Parma, and Father Andrew Summerson, administrator of St. Mary Parish, pose for a photo after Vespers Oct. 6. Deacon Timothy Woods (far right) looks on. (Photo: David Bratnick)
As published in Horizons, Nov. 11, 2018.
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