Sacred Heart Catholic Mission
Serving in Hopkins Park, IL
Sign Up for Your Lifeline Screening Exam for the Sake of Your Health! To be Held at St. Patrick's Church in Momence on August 26th. To Sign Up, CLICK HERE!!!
Also sign up for a FREE COVID-19 Test in Momence on August 26th if you CLICK HERE!!!
Liturgy for the 21st Sunday
in Ordinary Time - August 23, 2020
Celebrated at the National Shrine of St. Anne - St. Anne, IL
Fr. Pete Jankowski has been celebrating all Masses on behalf of the parishioners of St. Patrick's Church (Momence), St. Anne's Church (St. Anne) and Sacred Heart Mission (Hopkins Park) who are not able to church. We now are honored to celebrate OUTDOOR services at our parishes (weather permitting) at the regular weekend Mass times, INDOORS otherwise. Feel free to invite others to join our Masses if they are not able to join their own parish communities – we will never get large enough to worry about too many people that come and join us (and what a wonderful dilemma it would be if they did!). All we ask you to do is bring your own chairs to the Masses, bring your own masks and observe social distancing. For Social Distancing Guidelines, Please CLICK HERE (English Instructions) or CLICK HERE (Spanish Instructions).
Please continue to support our local parishes – we need your support to continue spreading God’s mercy during these difficult times.
To support the mission of St. Patrick's Church, please contact us at (815) 472-2864 or write us at 119 North Market Street - Momence, IL 60954.
To support the mission of St. Anne's Church, please contact us at (815) 427-8265 or write us at PO Box 470 - St. Anne, IL 60964.
To support Sacred Heart Mission, please go to www.sacredheartpembroke.org and click on the "Online Giving" link, following the directions on your computer screen.
Previous Online Masses, Blessings and Services...
Joliet, IL-- Pope Francis announced on July 17, 2020 that he has named Bishop Ronald A. Hicks, Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Chicago, as the sixth Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Joliet, IL. Pope Francis had previously accepted the resignation of Bishop Emeritus R. Daniel Conlon and had named Bishop Richard E. Pates as Apostolic Administrator of the diocese until a new bishop could be appointed.
Bishop Hicks, 52, will be installed at the Cathedral of St. Raymond Nonnatus in Joliet, Ill. on September 29, 2020.
"The Diocese of Joliet is most grateful to Pope Francis for the appointment of Bishop Ronald Hicks as its sixth bishop,” said Bishop Pates. “The bishop owns a reputation for pastoral leadership and is totally committed to the ongoing renewal of the Catholic Church. He is a worthy successor to Bishop Conlon and his predecessors."
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On February 29, over FORTY students and their chaperones travelled to Sacred Heart Mission to visit the residents of the township, clean up and refurbish their Food Pantry and empty/paint the convent house! Fr. Ray Lescher and Sr. Marybeth Clements were on hand to talk about the need in providing the folks at Hopkins a sense of HOPE, which these students did on their part!!! Lots of good work and ministry were offered by the faithful confirmation students in Joliet, as well as their DRE, Julie Dillenburg. |
The Chicago Tribune published an article on December 18th about the need for Hopkins Park to access simple things like gas lines. CLICK HERE to read the article...
CLICK HERE to read the Joliet Diocese article about Hopkins Park in the 2019 December issue of "Christ our Hope Magazine."
This homily by Father Tony Taschetta was recorded on Pentecost Sunday, May 20, 2018 at Sacred Heart Church in Hopkins Park, IL. |
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Thanks to so many folks for piling up Sacred Heart Church with coats and toys for our Inaugural Drive on December 14-15, 2019! Eventually when Fr. Pete wakes up, we will get a "Donate" button to support Sacred Heart Church, which is one of the poorest churches in Illinois with less than $3,000 in the bank!!! |
In the hot midsummer of 1999, the Kankakee Catholic Youth Group of St. Martin of Tours, St. Teresa and St. Patrick parishes made its first week-long "Project Hearts of Hope" service trip to Pembroke Township.
The 40 young people, mostly white and middle class, slept in the basement of Sacred Heart Catholic Church — one of the many beating hearts of Pembroke Township — and one of the largest rural black communities north of the Mason-Dixon Line.
These privileged teenagers did service work at the church and in the homes of residents of one of the poorest townships in the United States.
They also were blessed by the examples of the Sacred Heart parishioners and community leaders, such as Gertrude Higginbottom and long-term township supervisor Robert "Bobby" Hayes —descendants of Joseph "Pap" and Mary Eliza Tetter, Pembroke's first black residents.
Pap Tetter and his wife, a freed slave, arrived in 1862 along with their 18 children after a long and arduous wagon trip from North Carolina.
They settled near the state line, about a mile east of the original village of Hopkins Park, where Sacred Heart stands. The township was two-thirds swamp and seven of the children died within a short time in that miasmic environment. Four more didn't live to have children of their own.
Among that 1999 Catholic youth group was 15-year-old Kankakeean David Baron, 32, whose excellent profile of the history and culture he encountered during that Sacred Heart week — "Pembroke: A Rural, Black Community on the Illinois Dunes" has just been published by Southern Illinois University Press.
Baron launches his fine book with a description of Gertrude Higginbottom leading the congregation in a contagious evangelical style not often heard in Catholic churches. Baron's enthusiastic account can't help but engage the reader.
"That week my paradigm shifted, and I came upon a new understanding of myself," Baron wrote."I clapped and sang with the rest of the congregation at Sacred Heart, and at the week's final Mass, this white kid from downstate Illinois was even offering his own "Thank you, Jesus" during the middle of a sermon. I later wrote an article for my school newspaper: "The teens realize their lives had been changed. No one thought he or she could go back to the old lives of television, gossip and $160 shoes. ... For the short time we were there, they were content with what they had."
Three years later the son of Dennis and Debra Baron graduated from Bishop McNamara Catholic High School. In four more years he completed a degree in political science and economics at the University of Notre Dame. His last year was spent as student body president.
In 2009, he completed law school at Harvard University. He is now a constitutional litigator for the City of Chicago and is involved in a number of organizations dedicated to improving race relations and combating poverty.
Pembroke had remained on his mind through the years "but it really wasn't until my last year of law school that I thought about writing a book," he wrote. "I had just turned in a couple papers for courses on 19th-Century U.S. law and the Civil Rights Movement through the courts, and each referenced Pembroke for a different reason. So I thought about weaving them together and writing a few more 'papers' that would turn into chapters."
With guidance from Harvard Professor Randall Kennedy about the book-writing process — and a delay in his starting date with the law firm, "it made sense to use the time to launch the research and interviews," he wrote.
He estimated that the process took "over a thousand hours" plus "a few 'staycations'" after that from the law firm.
Given the thoroughness of the research and the quality of the writing, that seems a modest estimate.
Each chapter begins with reflections on the days of that week he spent in Pembroke at 15, then continues in well-researched topics from slavery in Illinois, to the Great Migration, when rural black families fled the south for opportunity in Chicago, then many fled back to the country in Pembroke. They bought small parcels of cheap sandy and woodsy land from Pembroke native Merlin Karlock and his partner, Chicago real estate broker Frank Moscickis, whose "For Sale" signs still dot the township.
With families raising crops and livestock in the country, many men kept working in Chicago and coming home on weekends, stopping by the Piekarczyk family building supply in Momence, sometimes, buying no more than 10 concrete blocks at a time. "The families then built during the day and camped on their property at night," former county engineer Jim Piekarczyk recalled. Some of those slow-growing dreams were realized, some left to collapse.
In the chapter "A Rip-Roaring Time," Baron writes of the days of prohibition, when Pembroke was the home of one of the largest bootleg booze distilleries in the country, operated by Al Capone's gang, and the community became famed for other ill-famed activities.
In the chapter "In the Eyes of the Angels," he writes of the importance of the church in the township, focusing on the establishing of the Sacred Heart Mission as a outreach of St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Momence in days when nuns would travel over ruinous roads by borrowed horse and buggy to recruit a congregation.
In "Lunch Tables" he focuses on the school conflicts of the 1970s and '80s between Pembroke and the St. Anne high school district.
In "Nature Preserved" the issue is the "discovery" of the world-class black oak savannas of the Pembroke area by state and national naturalists and the recent conflict over preservation and development.
In "Pembroke Today and Tomorrow" Baron returns to a hell and heaven observation of the book's beginning.
"Pembroke and its people adapted to changing times and conditions. The community faced down and recovered from drought conditions, catastrophic fires, encounters with the mob, prejudice and bigotry, the assassination of one of its leaders, school shutdowns, government shutdowns and plenty of economic recession. Scars from these experiences remind others why Pembroke might be deemed hell on earth. But for the sizable number of people — young and old — who affirm that they would rather live no place else, there is little left to disturb their view that they have found their version of paradise in Pembroke."
From The Kankakee Daily Journal
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Help support our parishes buy purchasing copies of Fr. Pete's Homiletic Books! You can purchase them at the parishes or online at Amazon.com!
Cycle A Homilies
Cycle B Homilies
Cycle C Homilies
CLICK HERE to watch Fr. Pete's Videos that Walk Through the Liturgy, produced for the University of Dayton
CLICK HERE to watch Fr. Pete's Twelve Part Series "Stories on the Journey," Broadcast on Shalom World TV!
Other Resources for Your Consideration...
Augustine Institute:Free subscriptions of FORMED for 40 daysBayard: Living with ChristCatechesis of the Good Shepherd(for parents)Catholic Faith NetworkDominican Friars on Sunday ReadingsLiturgical Press: Give Us This DayLoyola PressFaith Formation and Grammar and Writing Games |
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MagnificatOregon Catholic PressResources for ParishesResources for HomePaulineEucharistic Adoration with the Daughters of St PaulMary Walks Beside You: Strength for Living in Fragile TimesThe Word Among Us |
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Pope Francis’ Prayer with Mary for COVID-19Archbishop Gomez Prayer for COVID-19Spiritual Communion. . .COVID-19: A Prayer of SolidarityLight a Candle Online (from the National Shrine of St. John Neumann). . .Pauline Media Eucharistic Adoration . . .Mary Walks Beside You: Strength for Living in Fragile Times. . . from Pauline Media |
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Support Sacred Heart
by Giving Online!!!
An Online Memorial Day Service at St. Patrick's Cemetery in Momence
Join our Kankakee Border Town Parishes in an Online May Crowning Service!
Greetings from Our Hopkins Park Mission Staff to Our Parishioners
Fr. Pete found a way to help a grieving family who loved a lost one celebrate their funeral service on April 22. Thanks to the folks at Camino y Esperanza for helping Fr. Pete in this cause!
Video Announcement for Kankakee Bordertown Parishes - April 19, 2020
WE DON'T DENY THE SACRAMENTS! A Video Message from Fr. Pete Jankowski - March 2020
Easter Family Resources for Prayer (Diocese of Joliet)
Resources in English
Resources in Spanish
Either Fr. Pete's dog Gabby is preparing to be baptized at the Easter Vigil on April 12th (which not only isn't going to happen anymore but wasn't going to happen to a dog anyway) or Fr. Pete does a lousy job giving his dog a bath! Poor Gabby...
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Sacred Heart Mission
43765 S. Walnut St.
Pembroke Township, IL 60958
(815) 370-9791
Daily Mass: Mon - Th 8:30 a.m.
Sunday Mass: 12:00 p.m.
Office Hours: By Appointment
Email Rectory
Parish Staff
Fr. Pete Jankowski, Administrator
Fr. Ray Lescher
Resident Retired Pastor
Sr. Mary Beth Clements,
Pastoral Associate
Catholic News & Perspective
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