Airport Chapels

Posted on by
Reply

The Lead

The work of an airport chaplain is a never-ending stream of intense personal encounters followed by silence, the void being filled with hopeful prayer that each individual will continue to find the help and support they need once they have moved on from here. Only twice in my time at Schiphol have those whom I have helped written or returned to let me know how they are doing.

At O’Hare Airport, and also at Midway, there’s a regular schedule:

Catholic Devotions at O’Hare Chapel

  • Thursdays: 6:30 p.m. to 6:45 p.m. (note: transferred to Fridays during Lent)
  • Catholic Mass weekdays at O’Hare Chapel: Monday through Friday at 11:30 a.m.
  • Catholic Mass on Sunday at O’Hare Chapel: 6:30, 9:00, 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m.
  • Saturday at 4:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m.

Catholic Mass at Midway Chapel

  • Monday through Friday at 11:30 a.m.;
  • 4:00 p.m. Saturday; and 7:00 a.m., 9:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. Sunday

Islamic Prayer at O’Hare Chapel

  • Friday, 1:15 p.m.

Protestant Worship at O’Hare Chapel

  • Sunday 10:00 a.m. and Noon

Protestant Worship at Midway Chapel

  • Sunday 10:00 a.m. and Noon.

The phone number for more information is 773-686-2636.

Airport chapels, and chaplains, are important for a variety of reasons – most people never know they’re there, until they really, really need them:

Chapels have mostly been organized by Catholics and Protestants but welcome people of all faiths. New York John F. Kennedy has the country’s only airport synagogue. O’Hare’s chapel has services for Muslims. Chaplains say they’re not there to convert.

Travel chaplains may be most visible at times of crisis, such as a plane crash. But normally they tend to everyday issues: Reassuring a nervous flier; comforting a grieving widow; praying for a family sending their son to Iraq, or helping a traveler clear security with an urn filled with a loved one’s ashes.

And there’s the occasional wedding — or marriage intervention. Chaplain Brett Jones at Houston’s Bush Intercontinental Airport recalls last year helping a woman who changed her mind after throwing her husband out. Jones tracked down the husband, who was connecting flights at Bush, to let him know that his wife would take him back.

There are difficulties to be overcome with the church and state establishment clause, but most airport chaplaincies overcome them by incorporating as nonprofits, with a tendency toward interfaith rather than denominational uses for the chapels.

[tags]Travel, prayer, airports, chapels[/tags]

Jamaica’s Anglican church to modernize hymnals with reggae songs

Posted on by
Reply

Jamaica’s Anglican church to modernize hymnals with reggae songs – International Herald Tribune

KINGSTON, Jamaica: Songs by late reggae legends Bob Marley and Peter Tosh — both devout Rastafarians — will be included in a new collection of Anglican church hymnals in Jamaica.Marley’s “One Love” and Tosh’s “Psalm 27” (aka “Creation” ) will be the first reggae tunes to appear in songbooks alongside traditional worship music on the island that gave birth to reggae, said church leaders preparing a new collection of hymns.

Church spokesman Rev. Ernle Gordon said on Friday that members of the Anglican Church of Jamaica were enthusiastic about including the reggae musicians’ music in the hymnals, despite their sometimes vocal opposition to Christianity.

“They may have been anti-church, but they were not anti-God or anti-religion,” said Gordon, adding that including the songs would help modernize Jamaica’s hymnals.

Marley and Tosh, who both died in the 1980s after becoming international music stars, practiced Rastafarianism, a faith founded by descendants of slaves in response to black oppression.

Prayers for the Lundberg Family

Posted on by
Reply

Daily Herald

Sara A. Lundberg, 55, daughter of the Rev. Richard Lundberg, died unexpectedly last week, and the news spread quickly among Episcopalian parishioners in the Northwest Suburbs, because Father Lundberg has served many small mission parishes in the area as an interim or supply priest. Sara was often in attendance whereever her father happened to be serving, and thus she is “one of our own” in a number of different churches. She and her captivating spirit will be missed.

In the homily today, the new assistant rector at St Simon’s, M.E. Eccles, spoke of how Sara had had helped and supported her as a recent seminary graduate. Sara will continue to motivate, support, and encourage those she loved and cared for, in the memories of everyone she touched.

Born June 17, 1952, in DeKalb, Ill., she died Friday, July 27, 2007, at home. Sara was a graduate of Riverside Brookfield High School, Class of 1970, and a graduate of Wesleyan Nursing School. She had worked for the Cigna Insurance Company as a registered nurse. She was the mother of Kelly Anderson and Kara (Dennis) Saltzman; grandmother of Abigail Saltzman; daughter of the Rev. Richard and the late Patricia Lundberg; sister of Molly, Mark (Anya) and James (Pauline) Lundberg; and aunt of Andrew, Catherine, Julia, Christina and Laura Lundberg and Richard Noble. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, 910 17th St. N.W., Washington, DC 20006 or St. Simon Episcopal Church.

We will remember the Lundberg family in our prayers.