A Slovenian Heart on St. Mary's Hill
On a rise east of the village of Lemont, southwest of Chicago, a working Franciscan monastery has been the home of Slovenian Catholic life in the Midwest for more than a century. The Slovenian Catholic Mission, known in Slovenian as Slovensko Versko Središče, is the parish of the Archdiocese of Chicago created to gather Slovenian Catholics from Lemont and the wider Chicagoland area. Its chapels, gardens, and grounds belong to the Franciscans of the Foundation of the Holy Cross, a Croatian, Slovak, and Slovenian fraternity originally organized in 1912 as the American arm of the Province of the Holy Cross in Slovenia. Together with the neighboring Slovenian Catholic and Cultural Center, the mission keeps Slovenian language, devotion, and community alive in the southwestern suburbs of Chicago.
Franciscans on St. Mary's Hill
The mission is rooted in a much older story. During the week after the Feast of the Immaculate Conception in December 1923, the Franciscan Fathers of the Commissariat of the Holy Cross bought a farm called Oakdale, east of Lemont, for two hundred and twenty-five dollars an acre. The farmhouse became a temporary chapel once a small altar was set up in one of its rooms. Father Hugo Bren, then Commissary Provincial, moved onto the property on May 24, 1924, the feast of Mary, Help of Christians, known in Slovenian as Marija Pomagaj. On Labor Day, September 2, 1924, Msgr. Bobal of the Chicago Archdiocese blessed the cornerstone of a wooden church and monastery on the hill, and the eight Franciscan students of theology from St. Bonaventure University in Olean, New York, came down to be introduced as the future priests of the community.
Because the two founding friars, Father Casimir Zakrajšek and Father Hugo, shared a deep devotion to the Blessed Virgin, the property was renamed St. Mary's. The Slovenians still call the place Ameriške Brezje, after the great national Marian shrine at Brezje in Slovenia. Classes officially began at St. Mary's Seminary in September 1925, and the Fathers and Brothers have lived and worked on the hill ever since. Father Casimir, who had arrived in the United States in 1906, also founded the Slovenian Catholic monthly Ave Maria in 1909 as a tool of evangelization; it is still in print today.
The Arrival of Marija Pomagaj
The mission's centerpiece devotion came to Lemont in 1924, when Father John Capistran brought a copy of the famous painting of Marija Pomagaj from Slovenia. The original hangs in the church of St. Vitus in Brezje, an Alpine village whose shrine had become one of Slovenia's national pilgrimage centers after miraculous healings were reported there. The copy was painted by Father Blaž Farčnik, an academically trained Franciscan artist who had studied in Florence. It was touched to the original at Brezje before being shipped to the United States, and was officially placed on the altar of the Lemont chapel on December 1, 1924.
On June 27, 1926, the painting was crowned in a great ceremony during the visit of the 28th International Eucharistic Congress. Bishop Anton Bonaventura Jeglič of Ljubljana, who had crowned the original in Brezje in 1907, blessed the crowns and placed them on the heads of Mary and the Child Jesus in the Lemont copy. A wooden structure had been built for the occasion where the present Lake Bled and Marian grotto now stand in Baraga Park. Crowds carrying banners, choirs, and societies processed from the church to the hill, where a Pontifical Solemn High Mass was celebrated before the painting was returned in procession to its side altar. When the new brick seminary building was finished in 1939, the painting of Marija Pomagaj was moved above the main altar of the seminary chapel, where it remains. The recent restoration of the painting, carried out by the Joliet artist Lilijan Brulc, revealed the date 1924 on the back of the picture.
The Birth of the Mission (1994)
Although the Franciscan presence on the hill dated to 1923, the Slovenian Catholic Mission itself is younger. As postwar Slovenian immigrants and their children moved outward from Chicago to the suburbs, Slovenian parishes and centers began to thin out, and community leaders talked of creating a single Slovenian religious and cultural center in Lemont. Father Christian Gostečnik worked through the Archdiocesan authorities with detailed written arguments, stressing the importance of the Lemont shrine in Slovenian Catholic memory and the projected Slovenian Cultural Center.
On September 12, 1994, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin issued a decree establishing the Slovenian Catholic Mission, and on October 1, 1994, the decree and the accompanying agreement with the Franciscan superior, Rev. Blaž Chemazar, took effect. Father Vendelin Špendov, then the local Franciscan superior, was named the first chaplain and director. Father David Štrumpf, who had already been organizing the new parish, became its director on April 1, 1995. The first baptism took place on May 7, 1995, when Father Christian baptized Kelly Victoria, daughter of Natasha and Mark Buh. The first wedding followed on April 29, 1995, when Jeffrey Szarek and Paula Rous exchanged vows before Father Blaž. From the beginning the Ave Maria magazine referred to the Mission and the Cultural Center as the twins.
Mass in English and Slovenian
Worship at the mission is centered on the Roman Catholic Mass. Daily Mass is offered in the monastery chapel at 7:00 am, Monday through Sunday, in English. On Sundays an additional Mass is celebrated at 11:00 am in Slovenian, and on Holy Days of Obligation the 11:00 am Mass is also in Slovenian. The Mission's published bulletin, called Lemontski list, is bilingual, and homilies are published in both languages. During October, the Slovenian month of the rosary, the community gathers for the rosary each Sunday at about 10:30, praying the Joyful, Luminous, Sorrowful, and Glorious mysteries of Jesus' and Mary's lives.
The Mission's patron is Blessed Anton Martin Slomšek, the Slovenian bishop who was beatified by Pope John Paul II in Maribor in 1999. The Mission has been dedicated to Slomšek since 2000, and the last Sunday of September is celebrated as Slomšek Sunday with a special gathering at the 11:00 Mass. On October 4 the friars also mark the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, founder of the Franciscan family and patron of ecology, at the 11:00 Mass.
Slomšek's School and the Youth Group
Alongside the chapel and the cultural center, the Mission sustains two intergenerational programs that connect families to their Slovenian roots. Slomšekova šola is a Slovenian supplemental school, organized each October at the start of the new academic year. Classes use the former Franciscan seminary classrooms and other monastery spaces, and are coordinated by Mojca Magajne-Anaya, with the cooperation of the Slovenian Catholic Center. Parents and grandparents are encouraged to enroll children and grandchildren so that they continue to learn the language of their forebears.
For older young people, the Mladinska skupina Marela is a folk-dance youth group that performs at events in the Lemont area and beyond. The group's fundraising lunches, often held after Sunday Mass, are a recurring feature of the community's life and a chance for the whole parish to gather.
The Monastery Grounds and the Retreat House
St. Mary's Franciscan Monastery sits on wooded grounds that include a Lourdes Grotto, a Rosary Valley with paths renewed for the hundredth anniversary of Ameriške Brezje, Stations of the Cross, and a lake known as Lake Bled. The gardens and outdoor prayer areas are open for quiet reflection and prayer, and are made available to wedding parties for photography with a signed permit from the Franciscans. A separate building on the property, St. Mary's Retreat House, hosts retreats in collaboration with the nearby Baraga Retreat House and the School Sisters of St. Francis, whose neighbors include Mt. Assisi Convent, Mt. Assisi Academy, and Alvernia Manor.
The cemetery of St. Francis on the property is the resting place of Father Casimir Zakrajšek, who died in Lemont in 1958. It is also where Bishop Gregorij Rozman, whose remains were repatriated to Slovenia in 2013 after a memorial Mass at the Mission, was buried for fifty-four years.
Bishops, Burials, and the Slovenian-American Story
The Mission's history is woven into the larger story of Slovenian Catholics in the United States. Missionaries like Frederic Baraga, who reached New York in December 1830 and became the first bishop of Marquette, Michigan, drew other Slovenian priests to America; Fathers Baraga, Ignatius Mrak, and John Vertin were the first three bishops of Marquette. In the Archdiocese of Chicago, Slovenian Catholics established parishes at St. Joseph in Joliet (1891), St. Stephen in Chicago (1898), Mother of God in Waukegan (1903), and St. George in South Chicago (1903). Two of these, St. Stephen's and Mother of God, have since closed. Cardinal George Mundelein invited the Slovenian Franciscans to serve in the city parishes in the 1910s, and in 1923 the same friars who staffed those parishes laid the foundations of the Lemont monastery.
Planning a Visit
The Mission is open to anyone who wishes to join in prayer. Daily Mass is celebrated at 7:00 am in English, and Sunday brings the Slovenian-language Mass at 11:00 am. The chapel and monastery are quiet places for personal prayer, and the outdoor grotto, Rosary Valley, and Stations of the Cross are open for reflection, with a permit required for any organized group or photography session. Bulletins include announcements and Mass intentions, and homilies are published in both English and Slovenian. The Mission has a YouTube channel.