The designation ‘Catholic’ as it relates to the Church was first used by Saint Ignatius of Antioch around the year 110 A.D. in a letter to the nascent Church in Smyrna. By that time the seeds planted by the Apostles and St. Paul had sprouted in different soils and cultures throughout Asia Minor and around the Mediterranean Basin. St. Ignatius’ selection of the word ‘Catholic’ was apt as it captured both the universality and the locality of the body of Christian believers.
Now, two millennia later, the word retains this dual significance. Believers around the world are, in St. Paul’s term, members of one body. At the same time they are informed and embraced by the culture and traditions unique to the families in which they were raised. The tradition laden bonds of this embrace are strong and resonant and stubbornly resist the adverse circumstances of time and geography.
Such is the case of the Shrine of Our Lady of Pompeii in Chicago. Readers who want to rekindle what today is called ‘the spirit of Christmas’ would do well to learn the Shrine’s history and to visit its website at www.ourladyofpompeii.org. It is the story of the ‘pull’ a parish church built by Italian immigrants had a century later on their descendants who long before had left the community.
The American actor, Joe Mantegna, provides a touching and brief (nine minute) review in the video below.