Sentimental (Church Record) Sunday: St Michael Catholic Church, Old Town, Chicago - The Other Altars

While visiting my son in Chicago, Illinois, in August 2017, I was able to easily walk from the daylight basement apartment where we were staying in Lincoln Park to St. Michael Catholic Church in Old Town.  I made a couple trips there over the week we were visiting.  So far I have written about the exterior and some of its details, as well as a family connection at the rectory doors, the interior in general, and the main altar (the High Altar of Angels).  There are four other altars in or next to the sanctuary of the church.  Click on all photos to make them larger.

If you are facing the main altar, the first altar on the far right is the Our Mother of Perpetual Help Altar.  She is very special to the Redemptorists, the order of priests who serve this church.  I remember attending novenas to Our Mother of Perpetual Help with my father at a Redemptorist parish in Houston, Texas, when I was a young girl.

The altar was part of a display of altar building by E[gid] Hackner and Sons of La Crosse, Wisconsin, at the Chicago World’s Fair and Columbian Exposition of 1893.  It was purchased directly from the fairgrounds and erected at St. Michael’s on January 20, 1904.

The icon of Our Mother of Perpetual Help in the center is a replica of the original one, which survived the Chicago Fire of 1871 (thanks to parishioners taking it further north).  That original icon is one of the first four sent to the United States by the Redemptorists in Rome in 1870.

Two angels below the icon hold a banner that reads "Hail Mary Mother of Perpetual Help Pray for Us."  The angel standing at the far left holds a banner that reads "Regina Sanctorum Omnium" (Queen of All Saints).  The banner of the angel at the far right reads, "Regina Angelorum" (Queen of the Angels).

Below the table part of the altar is a scene with a painting of a man and a woman in the center, and two small angel statues on either side.  The words above them are “Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dom[inus] tecum,” the words of the angel Gabriel to the Blessed Virgin Mary at the Annunciation:  "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee."  It's not clear to me what the significance of the painting is.

The next altar to the left is the Family Altar or Saint Joseph Altar.  

In the center of it, Saint Joseph is holding his stepson, Jesus Christ.  To his right is Saint Joachim (the father of the Blessed Virgin Mary), and, to his left, the young Virgin Mary with her mother, Saint Anne.

There is an inset at the bottom of the altar depicting the death of Joseph, surrounded by Jesus and Mary.

The next altar, to the left of the High Altar of Angels as you look at it, is the Sacred Heart Altar.  It depicts Jesus with his Sacred Heart, as he appeared to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690).  The statues on either side of Jesus are of  St. Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1787), founder of the Redemptorists, and St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582), founder of the Discalced Carmelites, a religious order of nuns.

Here's a close-up of this altar:

sacred heart of jesus [9 Aug 2009] / Via Tsuji / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

The final altar, on the far left as you face the sanctuary, is the Poor Souls Altar.  The carved imagery is of a soul being raised from purgatory to be united with Christ through the intercession of the priest at Mass.  You'll need to click on the photo below to see this and other details.

In the arch above the imagery are the Latin words "Domine Jesu Christe, rex gloriae," which translate to "Lord Jesus Christ, King of glory."

Just above the mostly-green mosaic-like images at the bases of the pedestals, on the left and the right, you can see two of the remaining light bulbs, of the original 2000, that decorated altars and various arches at one time. The other light bulbs were removed in 1952.

Underneath the altar tabletop is the carving below, with the Latin phrase "Liber scriptus proferetur, in quo totum continetur."  This is a line from the Latin hymn Dies irae (Day of Wrath).   The phrase roughly translates to "The written book will be brought forth, in which all is contained."

Next Sunday:  some of the stained glass windows!


© Amanda Pape - 2018 - click here to e-mail me.