Our Lady Of Ransom Catholic Church

St. Angela's parish, located on the west side of Chicago, is an old, well established parish in the Archdiocese of Chicago. The original church goes back to 1915. Early in the 1950's, the parish embarked on a capital improvement project of building a new church. The church was finished in 1952 and its opening was met with great fanfare, as the following poster depicts.

It was a magnificent structure, built of limestone with a tile roof and containing fabulous liturgical furnishings commonplace in that era. Huge, multi-pane stained glass windows were imported from Germany. They depicted not only the Saints, but the leaders of the church at that time. The statuary was imported from Italy and was comprised of several types of marble. Tiny mosaic tiles formed the images in the Stations of the Cross. Marble was prevalent in the sanctuary. The marble forming the altar, ambo, and other furnishings were decorated with designs made by inlaying contrasting pieces of marble. The total cost of this remarkable structure exceeded one million dollars in currency of the 1950's, which would be many, many more times that in today's dollars.

ST. ANGELA'S SANCTUARY, VIEWED FROM THE MAIN AISLE

As time passed, the inhabitants of the neighborhood that supported this fine church were subject to many swings in the economy, both locally and globally. Small manufacturing facilities that employed local people and provided them with good wages either closed, or moved to the suburbs, or out of state. Some replaced human labor with programmable machines. Jobs became difficult to find, and those that were found did not allow the "breadwinner" to support his family. Instead both spouses had to work just to make ends meet. The maintenance required to keep St. Angela's from deteriorating was growing more and more expensive, and the parishioners struggled just to keep their contributions at the same level as prior years. The weekly contributions became insufficient to maintain an aging building.

Finally the inevitable happened. Damage to the church from its failing infrastructure was becoming a safety issue, and needed repairs to only stop further damage, but not to repair the damage that had already occurred, could not be financed. It was time for the church to be closed.

The Needs of OLR

As St. Angela's church was in the throes of closing, Our Lady of Ransom (OLR) was in the final stages of its "Renew the Pride" campaign. Money had been raised to renovate our church and hall, plans were designed, and prints were out for bid and for permits. We had been working with the firm of Daprato Rigali Inc. (DRI) to develop and deliver liturgical furnishings for our renovated church. Because of our limited budget, we were looking for used furnishings from other closed churches in the Archdiocese of Chicago and perhaps in Boston as well to use in our church. We could find individual items from individual churches, but nothing that would match when all assembled in our new space. Because Daprato Rigali removes and places in storage furnishings from closed churches in the Archdiocese of Chicago, they hear first about new closings. When they heard of the St. Angela closing, they placed a "hold" on the religious furnishings for OLR, and notified Fr. John and the building committee that this may be a source of furnishings for our parish.

DRI took the Building Committee on a tour of St. Angela's, pointing out the items in which we might be interested, and explaining how these items could be modified to fit our newly designed worship space. Cost estimates were prepared, compared to the cost of purchasing new furnishings, and approved. Finally, Fr. John asked for and received approval from Cardinal George to proceed with our plan.

The Furnishings

The Altar

The most salient religious furnishing in a church is its altar. The Building Committee had a desire to have a marble altar in our renovated church. Our present altar not only was made of wood, as were the altars in most of the renovated churches, but was also on wheels for portability. We felt that the parishioners deserved a marble altar for waiting so long for a real church. But the altar at St. Angela was long and narrow, and our design called for a shorter and wider altar. DRI assured us that they could "alter the altar" to meet our needs. Below is a picture of the altar as it existed at St. Angela.

THE ALTAR AT ST. ANGELA'S CHURCH

The inlaid marble design is exquisite and is nearly impossible to reproduce today. Below is a picture of the altar as it was modified to fit our space:

ST. ANGELA'S ALTAR MODIFIED AND IN PLACE AT OLR

Notice that the first "swirl" designs on either side of the center of the original altar were removed and relocated to the side of the modified altar.

The menza was also replaced with an entirely new piece of marble. As a final, fitting touch, relics from both the original St. Angela altar and the original OLR altar were .embedded into the renovated altar for OLR.

On either side of the altar are three marble candle holders. These were fabricated from marble from St. Angela's that matched the marble of which the altar was made.

The Ambo

The Ambo at OLR is a completely new design, but it was fabricated from marble taken from various places on the main and side altars at St. Angela. Daprato Rigali made every effort to recycle the magnificent inlaid marble pieces and use them in the furnishings made for OLR. The Ambo and the new Tabernacle shelf have inlaid marble pieces that are a close match.

THE AMBO AT OLR

The Tabernacle and stand

The Tabernacle at St. Angela consists of designs of silver and gold, and is free-standing. It was gently cleaned and re-used as is at OLR. A new sanctuary lamp and processional cross were purchased to match its configuration and colors. At St. Angela, it was located in the center of the back altar, as was the practice when the church was built. Its stand was a solid monolith of orange colored marble. We could not use this stand at OLR because its weight could not be supported by our floor. Again, Daprato Ragali fabricated a new stand from marble gleaned from the main and side altars of St. Angela. The match to the Ambo and the altar, together with our sanctuary lamp and processional cross, give our sanctuary a majestic look.

TABERNACLE AND STAND AT OLR

The Stained Glass Windows

St. Angela's was a huge church, with very high ceiling and walls. These tall walls contained spectacular stained glass windows. Each main window consisted of three major panes that were four feet wide and twenty to twenty-five feet tall, as shown in the following photograph.

ST. ANGELA'S SACRED HEART WINDOW

Ransom, being a much smaller church with a relatively low ceiling, had windows that were six feet wide and twelve feet high, as depicted by the following photograph.

ONE OF OLR'S FACETED GLASS WINDOWS

These windows, installed in the 1980's, were faceted glass windows. The original windows of the church were glass block windows. There were seven main faceted glass windows, each of which depicted one of the days of creation. Faceted glass windows are made of "chunks" of rough, colored glass bonded together by an epoxy. They were widely used and popular in the 1980's.

The Building Committee would love to replace our faceted glass windows with the true stained glass windows of St. Angela, but how could they possibly fit? Our windows were comprised of six pieces, each about three feet by four feet. The St. Angela pieces were about four feet square. Again, Daprato Rigali assured us that they could be reconstructed to fit our available space. Because of their age and lack of maintenance, they needed to be reconstructed no matter where they would be re-used.

The photograph below is from a stained glass window installed at OLR after being refabricated by DRI.

REFURBISHED WINDOW FROM ST. ANGELA INSTALLED AT OLR

These refabricated windows consist of only three panes, each six feet wide and four feet tall. Additional stained glass was relocated from the side panes of the original windows to make the original four foot wide pane six feet wide to fit in OLR.

Since our Narthex was constructed entirely new, we did not have to live with any existing openings for the windows. We could resize and reshape them to match the design of the narthex. Consequently, in the narthex we were able to use the St. Angela windows in their original "three windows wide" configuration and width, but we had to reduce the height. After much thought, we decided to place the Blessed Mother window in the narthex. Here is how it looks in our narthex.

Blessed Mother windows in our new narthex

Other stained glass windows taken from St. Angela and used at OLR did not require quite as much reworking as the main windows. For example, there were three transom sized horizontal windows that depicted Faith, Hope, and Chairty. These windows were not only resized for use at OLR, but also realigned from horizontal to vertical, as shown below.

FAITH, HOPE AND CHARITY WINDOWS INSTALLED IN THE WEST WALL

The Baptismal Font

The Archdiocese of Chicago has specific rules about baptismal fonts in new and renovated churches. Baptismal fonts are to be placed near the entrance of the church to signify that the sacrament of baptism is the first "challenge" that must be met by Catholics. Some churches will actually obstruct the main aisle of the chruch to emphasize this point. New churches must have a baptismal font capable of totally immersing an adult. Renovated churches must have a baptismal font capable of totally immersing a baby. For this reason, St. Angela's baptismal font could not be re-used as the baptismal font at OLR. However Daprato Rigali, recognizing the beauty of this furnishing, decided that it could be used as the Ambry to compliment the new baptismal font that needed to be built for OLR. A hexagonal glass enclosed and illuminated compartment was placed on top of the old font, and as you can see from the following picture, the result was spectacular.

THE AMBRY AT OLR

The actual baptismal font installed in OLR was fabricated in Italy from new marble, which was taken from the same mines the original marble used at St. Angela was taken.

BAPTISMAL FONT

Other Statuary

At St. Angela, the nave was graced with the presence of many marble statues, most of which were five feet tall. We did not have room for all of them at OLR, so we selected those that we thought would mean the most to our parishioners. Here is how they look installed in OLR.

MARY MARY AND ST. ANNE

OLR'S DEVOTIONAL AREA

Stations of the Cross

The Stations of the Cross in our old church were painted wood carvings in relief, hanging on the wall. Our original intent was to reuse them as is. DRI presented some options for enhancing their appearance to make them look more consistent with the new church design. We were ready to accept the proposal to present them painted in antiqued gold leaf when the furnishings at St. Angela became available. The St. Angela stations were inlaid marble using very tiny pieces of marble, as opposed to the much larger pieces used in inlaids today. Below is a picture of one of our Stations of the Cross, and one of the St. Angela Stations of the Cross installed at OLR.

EXISTING STATION OF THE CROSS STATION FROM ST. ANGELA

Our hearts go out to the parishioners from St. Angela on the loss of their church. The memories made within it will live in their hearts and minds forever. We sincerely hope they are pleased with what we did with their liturgical furnishings, and offer an open invitation to all of them to come and visit them in our church by celebrating mass with the Our Lady of Ransom parishioners.

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