Liturgical jewel of Chicago

A highlight of the weekend conference in Chicago was the privilege of assisting, for a blessed change, at a traditional Mass. I had found the website of the Saint John Cantius Parish in Chicago. You can scroll down the page and find the "Mass and Devotional Schedule" link, as one would expect. What is exceptional is what one finds, scrolling down a bit farther, under the "Sacred Music" link. Here you find a month-by-month schedule of sacred music and Mass settings, such as you could hardly imagine being mounted by a single parish. I suggest taking a look. At the suggestion of my good friend from Seattle, Kirk Kanzelberger (whose blog, Sapor Sapientiae, some of you may know), we got up early and went to the 6:30am Tridentine Low Mass on Friday morning and Tridentine High Mass at 8:30am on Saturday. The piece de resistance was the Sunday 12:30pm Tridentine Sung High Mass with Propers in Gregorian Chant and Ordinaries sung by chamber choir and strings to a setting by Mozart (Missa Brevis in F, K1 192/K6 186f).

One can take a cyber tour of the restored interior of St. John Canisius Church in Chicago. My friend, Kirk, allowed that one might allow for architectural 'cloning' in cases such as these. The whole inspiring story of St. John Canisius parish, how the church building, built originally by the Polish community, and saved from demolition, and restored, and turned into a center of renaissance of traditional Catholic liturgy, art, and music in Chicago, under the patronage of the St. John Canisius Society and Archbishop Cardinal George of Chicago, is well worth examining.