By Dolores Madlener
Staff writer

Buses are those modes of transportation that sometimes take you to school, to work or—when perhaps you aren’t comfortable flying—even on vacation.

But buses—big yellow school buses, luxury motorcoaches and maybe minibuses—are also instruments of community, and are at the core of some true stories of faith-filled—not to mention fun-filled—experiences, near and far-away.

You see, just like the old scouting song says, “the people on the bus go all around the town.”

Dolores Siepka, a people-person, and member of Our Lady of the Snows Parish on South Leamington, had never arranged for group transportation before, but she had a vision of parishioners sharing a day of fun and faith. She followed the vision.

The first obstacle was the cost, Siepka discovered. “It was expensive for a nice bus and I didn’t know how many would respond to the notice in our parish bulletin.” But she followed her dream of getting land-logged parishioners, often strangers, together for an afternoon at Navy Pier with a speedboat ride along the city skyline.

A timid tour guide in unexplored territory, she pulled it off last summer with 40 companions.

Not only did she have her pastor’s blessing, he joined the outing that included munching international foods, touring a museum and enjoying Chicago’s fireworks.

“As our bus slowed to watch Buckingham Fountain on our way back,” Siepka says, “everyone felt great and we told jokes, sang and laughed all the way home.”

Siepka says there was much more interaction and relaxation on that outing and at an apple fest trip she planned last autumn than on casino trips. On Holy Thursday this year, she rented a school bus for a mini-pilgrimage to neighboring churches. Their Muslim driver said the singing on the bus “sounded like angels.”

If friendship was a moveable feast, Maryrose Dunleavy would be the recreation director. “Two years ago I made up my mind,” she says, got her pastor’s OK at Our Lady of Victory Parish, and has offered a tour-a-month!

Advance notice in the Sunday bulletin and word of mouth advertising from happy veteran travelers also attracts parishioners from other Northwest Side churches. The excursions are strictly fun-raisers, not fund-raisers, Dunleavy admits.

Like Siepka, she puts her own money up front. She reserves a new A&B yellow school bus and gets enough info from the Internet to offer some brief “color” to passengers after they roll out of the church parking lot.

“Name tags help break the ice for newcomers of any age,” Dunleavy says.

Her eclectic local trips have included the Chicago Historical Society (with dinner at the Chicago Brauhaus), Garfield Park Conservatory, a theater production, and a peek at the Field Museum’s rare Cleopatra exhibit.

Last summer Dunleavy arranged a restful day at the Shrine of Our Lady of LaSalette in Twin Lakes, Wis., with time for prayer and adoration.

On April 10 these pilgrims were munching peanuts and CrackerJack as a community of faith—and hope—at the Cubs-Mets game at Wrigley Field.

For Nancy Mulligan and Geri Cummings of St. Bede the Venerable Parish on Chicago’s Southwest Side, trips to churches on Holy Thursday night began while their kids were small. When their mini-vans became crowded with neighbors’ families five years ago, they began renting a couple of yellow school buses for the ancient tradition of visiting seven churches after Mass on Maundy Thursday, remembering the Seven Wounds of Jesus.

First Communion kids, altar servers, teen-agers, their parents and seasoned citizens fill the seats now.

“We’ve learned not to visit the most beautiful church first,” Cummings says. “One year we started with Our Lady of Sorrows Basilica and we couldn’t get them out!”

There are also happy surprises. On last year’s visit to St. Sabina Church they found pastor Father Michael Pfleger playing the keyboard. “The atmosphere, lighting and music was just perfect for meditation,” says Mulligan.

The women don’t choose churches in their own backyard “because you can visit those on your own,” they say.

Mulligan says passengers also enjoy seeing how different cultures honor the Eucharist. Cummings recalls going to Our Lady of Pompeii Shrine in the heart of what was once Little Italy. “A passenger said she made her First Communion there as a child and had never been back since her family moved away!”

A fee of $7 includes transportation, a booklet with something about each church and a bottle of water for each person. Cummings and Mulligan admit, “We learned not to distribute water bottles until the third or fourth church—for practical reasons.”

Buses have been taking pilgrims on Holy Thursday church visits from St. Cajetan Parish in the Beverly area for 10 years.

Father Stanley Rataj recalled the ritual he performed as a child with his “busia” (“grandma” in Polish) and in 1992 decided to invite parishioners to join him.

When Rataj was transferred three years later to be pastor of St. Nicholas of Tolentine, he began the tradition there and others kept the wheels rolling at St. Cajetan.

Cathi Hogan, Rich Kinczyk and Ellen Skerrett organize the trip. Skerrett, a church historian and author, compiles a keepsake booklet each year so folks can remember the churches they’ve seen or may want to revisit during the year.

Skerrett says, “People love the tour and begin asking us about it in January. Many life-long Chicagoans don’t know the treasures we have right here.” They added St. Nicholas of Tolentine Church this year, “in gratitude to Father Stan who gave this old tradition a boost.”

For over 25 years, The Catholic Women’s Club of Lake County has taken the domestic missions to its heart. Each year, in cooperation with the Catholic Church Extension Society, they raise about $3,000 for a different mission church.

When the weather is pleasant they charter a motor coach and travel to the parish for a Mass, to socialize with its parishioners and be shown the local tourist sights and wonders. The group has journeyed to 17 mission parishes around the country.

They depart on a Sunday morning about 8 a.m. and return the following Wednesday at dusk.

From 1976 when the club first traveled to Cabool, Mo., they have embarked from the Catholic Charities parking lot in Waukegan to parishes they have supported in states like Colorado, Mississippi, South Dakota and North Carolina. Last July they went to St. Jude/St. Ann Parish in White Pine, Mich.

The memories remain forever, says Islo Leccesi of Beach Park. “For instance, in 1998 in Horse Branch, Ky., Bishop John McRaith drove us on a hay ride.”

The men, women and sometimes grandchildren, enjoy harvest dinners and pot-lucks as each parish expresses its gratitude.

Emily Krupa and Leccesi recall one year their hosts divided them into small groups to join individual families for a luncheon in their own homes, “like visiting relatives.”

Not only have the visitors from Lake County witnessed the fruit of their sacrifices, but they’ve tasted Americana, recited two rosaries a day on their motor coach, sung hymns and perhaps even a chorus or two of, “The people on the bus go up and down.”