The Little Things

 On Friday afternoon, when Muslims pray as a congregation, the top floor of a mosque in the South Loop fills with rows and rows of men, falling to their knees in submission to their God and facing east, the direction of Mecca.

The Muslims at the Chicago Islamic Center on State Street are Arabic, South Asian, black and white.  Some are young professionals, recently moved from their homes in the suburbs to their first jobs in the city.  Some are older; a few come with children who follow along with the group prostrations.

The diversity within the Muslim community in between marble-tiled walls of the downtown mosque is a reminder of the diversity of Islam worldwide.  When President Obama spoke in Cairo, Egypt last week, he did not use the term “the Muslim world,” which seems to reference a uniform group, and instead said “Muslim communities” and “Muslim-majority countries.” 

According to the Christian Science Monitor’s global news blog, by adopting this nuanced word choice, Obama avoided promoting the idea that all Muslims are alike and that by fighting terrorism America is fighting a war against all of Islam.

“There is no monolithic ‘Muslim community,’ nor is there a singular homogeneous entity known as ‘the Muslim world,’ rather there are diverse and distinctive Muslim communities that need to be reflected in our discourse. Using the term ‘the Muslim world’ only serves to bolster the Islamist and Al Qaeda narrative of ‘the West’ against ‘Islam’ – of a battle of ‘us’ versus ‘them’ or ‘good’ versus ‘evil,’” said the Quilliam Foundation, a think tank in London that opposes Islamic extremism, in a press release.

Obama also spoke about Islam in the U.S., mentioning the country’s 1,200 mosques and “non-stereotypical” Muslims.

“He really recognized the American Muslim community.  He recognized the size of our community and the challenges we face,” said Junaid Afeef, executive director of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago, pleased with President Obama’s ambitious promises of change, but waiting for the action to follow.  “It’s the responsibility of the president to fight stereotyping wherever it is.”

(Photo from Mus, Flickr Creative Commons) 

Sisters Maria Cristiana and Maria de la Ascension shuffle though large, laminated photos—pictures of nuns holding children, playing volleyball, eating pizza, singing and worshipping.

They’ve come to Chicago to ask for donations for their missionary work in the Ukraine and Argentina as members of the Institute Servants of the Lord and the Virgin of Matará, a religious order with about 700 women serving in 30 countries worldwide.  Despite the recent decline in enrollment into Catholic vocations, their sisterhood has enjoyed significant growth in its 20-year history, and now finds itself needing more space to house and educate the young women joining the order.

In Chicago, the two—Sister Cristiana dressed in a black habit, customary in Eastern Europe where she serves, and Sister Ascension dressed the order’s religious habit, grey and blue to symbolize Christ’s earthly and divine nature—are visiting local parishes, including St. Stanislaus Kostka and St. Fracis of Assisi, for support. 

It’s not easy, though.  Not only does the down economy make parishioner purse-strings tight, but for some Catholics living in today’s contemporary world, it’s difficult to relate to the kinds of work the nuns do.

Many can see the value in Catholic mission work and charity, but that’s just one part of it.  The Institute also includes “contemplative sisters,” who live in cloisters and dedicate their lives to prayer.  Sister Cristiana, who’s starting a monastery for these sisters in the Ukraine, said this is a harder project for them to fund.  A picture of a group of children or an event can show off missionary work, but the role of contemplative sisters is less visual, less colorful and more spiritual.

“Not everybody understands the power of prayer,” she said. "Everybody understands helping the poor, the orphans, the disabled."

Sister Cristiana is not alone; contemplative orders in today’s world often struggle to justify their significance as the spiritual side of a sisterhood or brotherhood.

“For Catholics to support it, it seems like ‘oh such a waste,’ so it’s a challenge,” said Michael Wick, the executive director of the Institute on Religious Life in Libertyville. “The present generation appreciates doing rather than being, and in cloistered life, they appreciate just being of the Lord and the institution of prayer.”

In a world of to-do lists, busy schedules and achievement-based measures of success, it’s hard to see a silent, away-from-everything lifestyle as worthwhile.  But these nuns come to know and love God deeply, and they pray for the benefit of the rest of the world.

“They are basically the professional pray-ers of the Church,” Wick said.

For Servants of the Lord and the Virgin of Matará, the work of contemplative sisters is a necessary complement to their apostolic mission.

"By their prayers, works of penance, and sufferings, contemplative communities have a very great importance in the conversion of souls," according to a compilation from the order's constitution, on its Web site.  "The nuns bear in their hearts the sufferings and anxieties of all those who seek their help."

While missionary sisters draw people to the Church with their programming in the community, like mercy houses for orphans, young mothers and the disabled, “contemplative sisters are to pray for the people there,” Sister Cristiana said.

As more young people join religious orders like Sister Cristiana—she, now 32, and Sister Ascension, now 21, joined as teens—the Institute for Religious Life anticipates a rebound for the Catholic Church, after years of decline.

People in the most recent generation have not been exposed to Church vocations and have grown more curious, Wick said.  After noticing the popularity “cloistered life” section of his organization’s Web site, they launched a separate site just on contemplative living three years ago, cloisteredlife.com.

Seeing “Angels & Demons” did for me the same thing that my visit to Rome did: reveal Catholic church’s worldwide significance and how deeply rooted in tradition the Catholic population remains today.

Even with Catholics making up about one in four people in the U.S., it seems like we typically think of them as disenchanted rather than devout.  Not so in La Citta Eterna, where Catholic piety is so glaringly unmissable.   Where Catholic pilgrims fill the city’s churches—impressive, symbol-laden buildings with mosaics and sculptures.  Where nuns and monks walk through the streets in their robes—black, grey, blue and brown.

In the movie, Catholics gather in St. Peter’s square to await the selection of a new pope while inside the Vatican’s walls, the church’s leadership and dozens of cardinals wonder what to do after four of the possible candidates for the office have been kidnapped.

“Angels & Demons” may go here and there with technology and traitors, but the central to its storyline is the idea of the church as a community.  Without this focus, the rest of the movie—the concern over the community’s next highest leader, the draw to witness his debut in Rome—wouldn’t make sense.

Tom Hanks, as symbologist Robert Langdon speeds around the city, to look for clues in popular religious sites: St. Peter’s Basilica, the Sistine Chapel, the Pantheon, Castel St. Angelo. Anyone who has visited Rome can appreciate “Angels & Demons” as a two-hour vacation, a chance to briefly revisit the streets with herky-jerky traffic, cobblestone piazzas and countless churches.

As Vatican police take Langdon to the church’s archives, I think back to my class’ tour of the catacombs beneath the Vatican accompanied by a security guard who mumbled to himself in Italian. As he runs through Castel St. Angelo, I remember wandering slowly through its stairwells, chambers and hallways on a Sunday afternoon.

And as the new pope steps out to greet the huge, cheering crowd, I remember watching the people who packed the sidewalks along Via Merulana watching adoringly as Pope Benedict processed down the street, then singing together in Italian.

Being in Rome, or watching Rome on the big screen of “Angels & Demons,” offers a glimpse of the religion from the inside.  From the outside, it’s easy to reduce Catholicism to political issues and clichés (i.e. conservative values, anti-abortion stance, big families), but seeing Catholicism in the context of its historic places and its highest leadership , it’s a more authentic picture of how powerful, organized, community-based the Church is.

Rather than simply taking today to applaud and honor mothers, the Unitarian Universalists church returns Mother’s Day to its origins, when the holiday inspired mothers (and others) to promote social values rooted in the church—peace and community.

Sunday’s service at Second Unitarian Church in Lakeview emphasized the idea that everyone can take on the responsibility of modeling ritual and right behavior in the world.

“Sometimes it’s good to simplify those things,” said one parishioner.  “These are our values.  It’s about accountability to self and to the world.”

Mother’s Day began as a values-based day of activism, before lobbying by card makers and florists led to it to become a national holiday in 1905.  For decades before that, “Mother’s Day for Peace” was celebrated as a holiday for moms to oppose war and violence, reports Slate Magazine. 

One of its founders, suffragist and pacifist Julie Ward Howe, was a 19^th-century Unitarianwho wrote a proclamation for Mother’s Day: “We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country, to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs." (Howe is actually better known for her composing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”—you know it: glooory, glooory, hallelujah!  His truth is marching on!)

The Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations continues to take Mother’s Day as an opportunity for peace protests and to simply emphasize the values deep within their tradition.

At Second Unitarian, the Rev. Jennifer Owen-O’Quill reminded the congregation of their role in modeling values before children in the community.

“Thanksgiving is something that’s taught and cultivated,” she said.  “Kindness and compassion are learned things.”

As shakers shh-shh-ed the rhythm of the music during the service’s anthem, Kat Wyand, a petite, 20-year-old brunette, tilted back her head and loudly sang “It takes a whole village to raise our children; it takes a whole village to raise one child.”  

“I really recognized the importance of (this song) for today and in this church, I want it to be something they can connect with in some way,” said Wyand, who goes to Columbia College and lives in the Loop.  “In my home church (in Connecticut), I was definitely brought up by a village.”

When I ventured to Pilsen this afternoon for the Mole de Mayo Festival, I came to listen to mariachi music, watch some “Nacho Libre”-style wrestling, and of course, sample dishes made with mole poblano, a thick, Mexican sauce flavored with spice and chocolate.

My favorite was Mundial Cocina Mestiza’s sweet, tangy fruit-topped mole over pork, served on a corn tostada.  I wish I know how to say “delicious!” in Spanish.  (Delicioso?)

Mole takes a special place on Mexican menus, often eaten at weddings and holidays, like Cinco de Mayo.  Its significance comes not only from that it’s so rich and tasty, but also because of its religious origins.

According to legend, nuns from the Convent of Santa Rose in the Mexican state of Pueblainvented the concoction to impress an archbishop who was coming to visit.  After praying to an angel for inspiration they mixed together everything they had including chilies, spices, day-old bread, chocolate, seeds, nuts, and about a dozen other ingredients then boiled it for hours.  The poured the sauce over a turkey and served it to a very pleased archbishop.

So on Cinco de Mayo, don’t limit your Mexican cuisine to margaritas and chips, try a mole at a place like:

Nuevo Leon Restaurant, 1515 W. 18^th St. (Pilsen)

La Oaxaquena, 3382 N. Milwaukee Ave. (Irving Park)

Frontera Grill and Topolobampo, 445 N. Clark St. (River North)

Adobo Grill, 2005 W Division St. (Wicker Park)

El Barco, 1035 N Ashland Ave. (West Town)