Serving Hyde Park’s Catholic Community since 1869


5472 South Kimbark Avenue,
Hyde Park, Chicago IL, 60615-5297
Phone: (773) 324-2626 Fax: (773) 891-0602

From the Pastor’s Desk

This week heralds two major rites for our elect, Ryan Culligan, Greg Sutherland, and Viviana and Joaquin Negron. They are in their final weeks of preparation to receive the sacraments of initiation.

At the 8 am Mass this weekend, we celebrated the First Scrutiny of the Elect and heard the beautiful account from John’s Gospel of Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well. In this passage, Jesus offers the woman “living water,” noting that “whoever drinks the water I give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4: 14). In the sacrament of baptism, our elect will be born anew and receive the promise of eternal life.

The second rite will be celebrated during Mass on Wednesday at 5:30 pm. In this liturgy we will formally hand on the ancient sign of our faith — the creed — to our elect. As members of our community preparing for baptism, catechumens study the teachings of the church, are apprenticed in the ways of faith, join us for prayer and fellowship, and engage in both service and community activities, but they have not yet received the creed. Catechumens and elect are kindly dismissed from Mass following the homily and before the profession of faith.

Our profession of faith is a sign of our baptism, an affirmation of our belief in the Triune God, and states the faith of the Church. Each Sunday and solemnity of the year, we profess our faith using the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, or by renewing our baptismal promises. The Creed “recalls the wonderful deeds of God for the salvation of the human race[and] suffuses the vision of the elect with the sure light of faith” (RCIA, 147).

As the early Church handed on the faith through oral tradition, we hand over the creed through its profession during Mass on Wednesday evening. Our elect will hear the community proclaim the faith of the Church and be asked to receive “the [words] with a sincere heart and be faithful to them” (RCIA, 160). To celebrate this rite well, we invite all parishioners to join us as we entrust the text to Ryan, Greg, Viviana, and Joaquin. We hope you will be able to join us.

St. Paul writes that he “received from the Lord what [he] also handed on to you” (1 Corinthians 11: 23). This is our opportunity as a faith community to hand on our faith to those who are preparing to enter into it at the Easter Vigil. They are to commit it to memory — not as a mental exercise or a mere recitation of words, but by embracing it with their being. During the Preparation Rites on Holy Saturday, which will be celebrated during Morning Prayer at 8am, they will return the creed to our faith community. That evening, during the Easter Vigil, they will be baptized into the faith which we have handed on to them.

Please also mark your calendars and plan to join us on Wednesday, March 20 at 5:30pm when we will gather with our elect for Mass. On that evening, we will formally entrust to them the Lord’s Prayer.

Lenten Blessings,

Sincerely in Christ, 

Fr. Trail 

Read it in our Sunday bulletin at https://stapostleparish.org/parish-life/current-bulletin/