Our Lady, Mother of the Church
8747 W. Lawrence Ave., Chicago

This is a parish of “firsts”: The first church founded and dedicated here by then-Archbishop John Cody, and maybe the first on the globe so named at the close of Vatican II, when Pope Paul VI put the world into Mary’s hands under this title.

The edifice had a rebirth in 1987 at the hands of architect John Voosen, changing from a rectangular shape to an interesting multi-angular one. Jerzy Kenar carved the new tabernacle, altar, ambo and baptismal font. Most of its parishioners have a “sense of history”; they were here at the beginning.

Without a school, efforts to make this parish near O’Hare more “family friendly” have begun to change the demographics. More young families are choosing to call it home.

Parishioners decided the Sunday after Labor Day would be their parish feast day (since there isn’t one), so special Masses and a picnic now mark the occasion each year.

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