Sentimental (Church Record) Sunday: St. Michael, Old Town, Chicago - Interior: Miscellaneous

While visiting my son in Chicago 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, the main altar (the High Altar of Angels), and the four other altars in or next to the sanctuary of the church.  I also wrote about the stained glass windows on the west side as well as those on the east side and in the narthex/vestibule area.  This week I'm writing about miscellaneous interior features.  Click on all photos to make them larger.

Starting near the entrance to the church - there is a mosaic of St. Michael the Archangel on the floor.




Also near the vestibule are these wooden old-style confession booths.  The priest would center the door at the center, and penitents would go in each side door.  The priest could slide open a panel on each side where he could hear but not see the penitent, to hear his or her confession.  There are also a number of statues of saints in this area.  To the left of the confessional is Saint Catherine of Alexandria (note the Catherine wheel at her side); to the right is Saint Rose of Lima (usually pictured with the infant Jesus Christ).




Along both the east and west walls, interspersed between the stained glass windows, are the fourteen Stations of the Cross, seven on each side.  Below are stations four (Jesus meets his blessed mother [Mary]) and five (Simon assists Jesus to carry the cross) on the west wall.

And below is station nine, from the opposite (east) wall, Jesus falls the third time.

A little further up on the west wall, below the three windows portraying the Assumption of Mary, is a small, newer altar to Our Lady of Guadalupe.  

Moving up towards the sanctuary, two of the side altars there (St. Joseph and Sacred Heart) are partially surrounded by what I believe are sections of the original communion rail of the church.




Next to the Sacred Heart altar is a statue of the Infant Jesus of Prague.

I've seen similar statues, of the child Jesus with a crown, holding a globus cruciger in the left hand, and the right hand giving a blessing, in many churches, each one with different real clothing.  Here is the same statue in August 2009, with different clothing and a different globus.

santo niño / Via Tsuji / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Finally, the church also has a large elevated pulpit near the front.  The crossed tablets below the shell with the Roman numerals one through ten symbolize the Ten Commandments.  A semi-spiral staircase, on the right in the photo below, leads up to it.  The dove at the top of the shell represents the Holy Spirit.

Various popes or bishops (based on their mitres and croisers) are portrayed around the pulpit, but I'm not sure who each is.  

One more post about St. Michael's Catholic Church in Old Town, Chicago, next week, to end up the year!

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