Episode Details

Visible light is electromagnetic radiation within the electromagnetic spectrum that the human eye can perceive.  Its brightness is measured in lumens and foot-candles, categorized by color temperature and comes from all different sources like the sun, fluorescent bulbs, LED’s, and even from a firefly.  So it can be confusing when God asks us to be a “light to the world” because He didn’t give us a spec sheet on the design specifications or give us a photometric lighting plan for our internal light.

Thankfully, in today’s episode, Father Cusick walks us through how we can shine a light into the darkness and brighten up our world. 

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Text From Homily:

Father Hurley mentioned it was a year ago, that the live stream mass began here at 10 o'clock Chicago time. And those of us who preside at mass would come out in those first three, four weeks and it was a freak show because there was nobody here.

This is a place on Sunday that was packed to the rafters all the way back since the mid-eighties before the church was restored. The people restored it by their presence.

Now many of you who I've connected with St. Pat's virtually, and you're out there again today on the other side of those two little cameras up here, you may never have been here. And there's a chance, that those of you who have never come to Old St. Pats in the flesh, sometime, if you're in Chicago, you may wind up saying, "you know, during that shutdown I'd watch mass occasionally or regularly, uh, on live stream from Old St. Pat's in Chicago, I think I'd like to stop by and see the place." Well, if you were to come here now you'd think that it's a real trendy neighborhood. And in many ways it is. But there are some of us, maybe some who are here today who remember it as anything but trendy.

There was not a park across the street with a statue commemorating st. Pat's sister city in Ireland. Instead, there were five buildings that led the way to a little parking area. And at the end of the first building here at Adams and Desplaines, was it shipping dock.

And under the shipping dock was a nighttime accommodations for those who were short on cash.

As a matter of fact, the last of the flop houses, it was empty by then, was on the corner, next corner, Monroe and DesPlaines. Thank God it was empty by then. It was our rat hole. And people paid to sleep there. Disgusting. But that was the neighborhood.

And once the rush hour was over, and people working east of the Chicago river would exit their buildings, get into their cars, get on the expressway, which is right behind this building, you could have slept every night in the middle of the street at Adams or DesPlaines and there's a good guarantee you would not ever been hit by a car. Nobody, literally nobody, came to this side of the river and this far next to the expressway.

It was a terrible place. Old Saint Pat's had a policeman outside on the corner.

His beat was DesPlaines and Adams to Monroe. Translated, his beat was St. Patrick's church.

Southside to the north side, that was it and there was another police officer in the rectory.

Because the housekeeper was murdered in that rectory when this was the drags of the city. Her name was Betty Walch. Her sister peg survived. Balmed up six hours in surgery but she healed, returned because this was her home, to wait on Fr. Steve O'Donnell, who was the aging pastor of Old St. Pats.

It was a tough place and there was, like a year ago, nobody in this building.

Father O'Donnell, many days, would celebrate mass with no people.

It was a tough place to be.  It began to transform itself, very slowly.

And one of the transformations took place on the next street, when the Illinois Institute of Technology opened a law school and a business school.

And one day after daily mass, I was standing at the bottom of the stairs and a guy who's walking with a stroller, there's a