At St Gregory the Great on the north side of Chicago, we have everything we need. There is a beautiful organ and a choir loft that is safe and structurally sound. There is a grand piano, an ability to pay a music director and a rotation of green altar plants. Near Christmas, the smell of pine permeates, while spring is wrapped in Easter lilies. On any given Sunday, lemon and wax scented air from a recent polish welcomes parishioners. We have toilet paper in the bathrooms and coffee in the parish center kitchen. We have warmth in the winter and and freshness in the summer. We have friends and family and we have community and strength. 
Halfway around the world, on the island of Lesvos, there is a tiny hidden Catholic church, the only Catholic church on the island. Set back about about fifteen meters from Mytilene’s busy Ermou Street, the Catholic Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary is obscured from view due to the larger neighboring buildings and a wrought iron fence. Upon entering the church, one leaves behind the bustle and brightness of the market street, exchanging it for the calm, cool sanctuary of the interior. Built in the middle of the 19th century, and home to relics of St. Valentine, the nave of this tiny church stretches ambitiously for all of about twenty square meters. Though renovated in 2013, there are bubbles of moisture below the plaster on the faded color painted walls and to certain parishioners.. the choir loft is NOT an option. But despite the diminutive size of the church and it’s humble features, the blissful acoustics are a blessing to any classical singer who happens to wander through.
There is a Greek mass on Saturday morning and a French mass on Sunday, separated by both a day and by a world of experiences. The French mass finds African believers pressed close together in small but sturdy pews, while others stand, their eyes fixed to God, their shoulders brushing their neighbors and their tired feet forgotten.
In Chicago, I sit in St Gregory’s each Sunday with everything I need and yet I furiously challenge God, I rail at complacent humanity and I curse blind faith. Meanwhile, those who have lost nearly everything, those who have faced terror and fear, those who have put their trust in a tiny boat and the grace of God..They are found each week on their knees in the little church in the heart of Mytilene.
Recently a young man who was a refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo, drowned while crossing the Mediterranean with hope for a chance at life. This afternoon, the Church of the Assumption hosted the funeral. As the choir shuffled music and warmed up, the coffin was brought in with shouts and sobs echoing beyond the open doors to the street outside. At the conclusion of the ceremony as the coffin was removed, a raw keening wail rose, the visceral harshness merging with the recessional hymn. The hairs on my arms raised and my face was wet with my inability to remain detached.
In the coming days and years, I will remember the ache of singing broken by sobs. I will carry their cries and wailing with me, accompanied by the sound of hands desperately grabbing the wood of a coffin. Their humanity and grief cannot be forgotten.
There is so much beauty here; a late night guitar, the taste of the sea, the light of a beautiful friend, voices raised as one, a snoring ginger kitten. But reality is harsh and unrelenting. Tonight a child died in the safe zone outside Moria. How do we reconcile these things? What are we doing as Christians to change things and to ease pain? Better yet, what can we be doing as humans. These are not rhetorical questions. What am I doing? What are you doing? It is time to get to work.
