Byzantine Road Trip—Champaign, IL
Posted by Eric (May 3, 2006 at 10:17 am)
Christ is risen!
Yesterday I drove down to Champaign, IL to gather with a contingent of the Annunciation Church choir for a special Divine Liturgy at the St. John chapel of the Newman Center of the University of Illinois.
The experience was especially signficant for me, because I was a parishioner at St. John’s when, as a senior at U of I, I left the Church. Here I was, 18 years later, returning to this church to help celebrate the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom—my entire spiritual journey in miniature.
The liturgy was wonderful, attended by some sixty or seventy students and other denizens of Champaign. In the photo here of Fr. Tom Loya incensing the altar you can see one of the two icons which, taped to candle stands, constituted the icon screen.
The choir sounded good, and Fr. Tom preached a great homily on the relationship between the Eastern and Western Churches and how the East has a particular gift to offer the West in manifesting the Catholicity of being human.
“Every human being is a Catholic,” he explained, “because every human being makes visible the invisible by means of the physical.” Just as the human body makes visible the spiritual reality of the person, Christ makes visible the spiritual reality of God, and the ligurgy makes visible our nuptial relationship with Christ, especially in the Eucharist when God becomes present in our midst and enters our own bodies.
After the liturgy, Father gave a talk in the Newman Center lounge. I wasn’t able to stay for the talk with a three-hour drive back to Aurora ahead of me, but I’m sure it was great as usual. If you haven’t heard Fr. Tom speak, get a CD or DVD and hear one of the great preachers on the theology of the body.
This was my first Byzantine “mission” experience. It won’t be my last!
[…] Yesterday I dropped by the Borders in Champaign, IL after a special Divine Liturgy there to pick up Rod Dreher’s book Crunchy Cons (more on that in a future post). While roaming around the store looking for Dreher’s book I saw no fewer than three editions of The Da Vinci Code, including a thick, new “Illustrated Edition.” There were also several books on the so-called Gospel of Judas, and a number of other books purporting to tell us the “true story” of Jesus. […]
Comment posted May 3rd, 2006 at 12:08 pm
I long ago stopped patronizing Borders because of the open festering sore that is its “religion” section. Barnes & Noble is marginally better.
There’s a Catholic bookstore in town: C & A Inspirations on north Mattis, just south of McDonald’s and Pizza Hut. http://candainspirations.com/
Cheers -
Bill, a Champaign member of St Blog’s
Comment posted May 3rd, 2006 at 2:47 pm
Bill—Great to hear from you. I don’t know if you realize it, but I’m the same Eric who runs the TOTB discussion list you were on for a while, and the Catholic homeschool list my wife April was on. How did you happen to come across this blog?
You know, I think I might have bought a Rosary at the bookstore you mentioned, when I was a sophomore at U of I—if it was around back then.
Comment posted May 3rd, 2006 at 5:18 pm
I’d like to post an article. How does one do that?
CDL
Comment posted June 18th, 2006 at 9:31 pm
Is that Fr. Thomas Loya in the picture?
Brother Ed
Comment posted August 11th, 2006 at 1:22 pm
I am very glad to know that a tradition I helped start when I was a student at UofI (class of ‘03) continues!
Comment posted December 19th, 2006 at 6:18 pm