University of Saint Mary of the Lake

Probably the greatest moment in American Catholicism up to, to this point was the 1926 International Eucharistic Congress.

So many people showed up for the closing mass, they had to build that train that runs from downtown Chicago out to Mundelein Seminary to get people there.

Almost a million people at Mundelein Seminary for the closing mass.

I think the bishops realized, "Oh, we could invite the lay people to our national Eucharistic congresses." And so the first one they really invited lay people to was 1930 in Omaha, and 60,000 people showed up for the Eucharistic procession.

And then the next one was in Cleveland, and again, like 60 to 80,000 people showed up.

I thought, "What am I doing here? How did this happen to me?" [chuckles] You know? Well, gosh, now fast-forward many years after that, um, I'm in Chicago.

I'm rector of Mundelein Seminary.

It's a job I loved.

Knew everybody.

Um, I'm in Chicago.

I'm rector of Mundelein Seminary.

It's a job I loved.

Knew everybody.

But like I said, we're blessed to have him here.

2024, Father Andrew, still finding time somewhere, did further graduate studies to receive his licentiate in sacramental theology from the University of St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein, Illinois.

And most recently, and for our purposes here this evening, he wrote an article in Adoramus Bulletin on the revised order of anointing of the sick and of their pastoral care.

Again, like I said, the sacrament that we'll be talking about here this evening with Father Andrew.

I would say the sanctification of time.

I remember, this comes to my mind all the time, uh, Wilton Gregory, the now retired Archbishop of Washington, was the liturgy professor at Mundelein Seminary when I was a young kid.

And we had just gotten to the seminary.

It was, like, orientation week.

And I thought, "What am I doing here? How did this happen to me?" [laughs] You know? Well, gosh, now fast-forward many years after that, um, I'm in Chicago.

I'm rector of Mundelein Seminary.

It's a job I loved.

Knew everybody.

What are you gonna find? Corruption in the Church, yes, even in the top leadership.

We had a great professor when I was a, a kid at, at Mundelein Seminary, Father Charlie Meyer, and Charlie had taught church history for the longest time, and he kinda took a certain delight in sharing the stories of, of the corrupt, you know, popes in the Middle Ages and so on.

Well, i- in a way, that was good because it, it, it, it immunized me so that when in my own lifetime, great scandal broke out in the Church, I think, "Well, yeah, there's a Simon dimension to the Church." But Fulton Sheen insists there's also this Petrine dimension, Peter, Petrus, Cephas, the rock.

In the measure that the Church, led by the successor of Peter, knows who Jesus is and embodies that knowledge in its sacramental life and the witness of its saints, it remains the rock, permanent, absolute, resistant to, to any attempt to undermine it, the Church that's endured down through the ages, against which the gates of hell will not prevail.

Mm-hmm

... should be related to the corporal and spiritual works of mercy." In fact, if I'm not mistaken, when you were rector of Mundelein Seminary, you had posters made-

Mm

... with that quote, and you hung them up all around the campus.

You were a deacon at the time, I believe.

And we met in Chicago at Mundelein Seminary at a program conference.

uh on

spiritual formation for priests