Churches and Faith Communities as Third Places/ Third Place Stories
I’m not sure what the other Masses were like, but the 6pm Mass at St. Ignatius Catholic Church in Chicago became a third place for those in attendance and was one of the truest experiences of “church” I’ve ever experienced. The Mass was held in the smaller side chapel instead of the main church with about 75 people in attendance. But don’t count too soon! At this Mass, hardly anyone makes it on time. The congregation was a motley crew. There were grad students, like myself, and a few older couples of the type you expect to go to Mass. And then there was the dad with the bluest eyes you’ve ever seen who always brought his autistic son; there was the gay couple; there was the Vietnamese couple with a new baby; the young man with a traumatic brain injury; the families with wild children squirming and rolling on the floor; drug users of all scents; the diabetic veteran with no permanent address who had his meds delivered directly to the church office, and so on. Despite being one of the most beautiful chapels in the country, there was nothing pretentious about this Mass. This was a place you showed up as yourself. Once a month, we would have a pizza social in the basement. Almost everyone would attend and stay for over an hour talking. These were people who didn’t have anywhere else to be. If we saw anyone walking by outside, we’d invite them inside too. Everyone would sit at the cafeteria tables all mixed up, and we would give each other gifts when babies were born, celebrate new jobs, and hear each other’s stories. One week, a priest gave the homily, clearly reused from Sunday morning, suggesting that not only do we fail to love our neighbors, we often do not even know their names. He asked us to look around and challenged us to consider whether we knew the names of even five people in attendance. I knew practically everyone.
In 2021, the diocese decided to consolidate some parishes, and St. Ignatius was closed.
-Wendy Crosby