When Chicago seminarian Greg Wilk saw videos in recent months of migrants and their families being separated, he wanted to do something to help.

“I yearned for peace for them and for Mary to help them so we decided to start a ministry for migrants at Mundelein Seminary,” Wilk said.

With the support and encouragement of the seminary rector, Father John Kartje, Wilk and five of his fellow seminarians have organized workshops where they hear from speakers on topics such as immigration reform and just immigration. 

But they also wanted to “bring the church to the streets,” Wilk said, in the form of Marian processions in communities with migrant populations. They call that effort “Consagrando el Barrio,” or “Consecrate the Neighborhoods.”

“We go to neighborhoods with a lot of migrants in them that have had a lot of deportations and we bring Mary to them,” said Wilk, who is in the fourth year of seven years of seminary formation. “We ask Mary to intercede for the migrants and protect them.”

The seminarians held their first procession in Mundelein at Santa Maria del Popolo Parish and are receiving organizing support from the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Life, a non-profit group grounded in Catholic social teaching that has organized Catholics around migrant accompaniment, particularly at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Center in Broadview.

About 80 people joined the seminarians on the evening of April 29 for a procession through the streets of Little Village. The 2½-mile procession began following Mass at Mother of the Americas Parish, 3047 W. Cermak Road.

The seminarians carried a statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe on their shoulders as members of St. Aloysius Youth Group, in blue and white vestments, carried a large cross and candles and swung a thurible with incense as they led the procession. People followed behind praying the rosary.

The group walked to St. Agnes of Bohemia Church, 2651 S. Central Park Ave., where it received a blessing from a parish deacon and seminarian Vincente Cobos made remarks in Spanish. Then the group processed to Good Shepherd Church, 2735 S. Kolin Ave., where people greeted them and the group celebrated Benediction.

After the processions in Mundelein and Little Village, Wilk said, the seminarians hope to organize more in different areas of the archdiocese.

Wilk said his primary reason for organizing the processions is spiritual.

“When I come out to the streets and see the eagerness of the people, how much they want God and to see tears in people’s eyes, you just realize how real and personal it is for them,” he said. “It makes me proud to be a Catholic. It makes me thrilled to be becoming a priest and bring Jesus and Mary to people. At the end of the day, they are the ones that are going to help them.”

It has also deepened his already strong relationship with Mary, he said.

“In making the sacrifice for us to come out to this neighborhood, walk the streets, pray the rosary, I know Mary’s going to come through in a big way for these people,” Wilk said. “I have that faith, and I know my seminarian brothers do too, and the people in the neighborhood.”

Seminarian Jimmy Venegas is studying at Mundelein for the Diocese of El Paso, Texas. Being so close to the border means families are not separated in El Paso as often as they can be in the Midwest, he said, but he was still moved to help. 

“It’s just a huge privilege to come and be with people at such a difficult time, that when they feel fear, I can remind them that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ,” he said. “As seminarians, it’s a privilege that we can bring Christ to others and bring them hope.”

“I’m really glad the seminarians are standing up for such an important and wonderful issue of accompanying our brothers and sisters,” said Brother Chuck Fitzsimmons, a member of the Brother Rice Christian Brothers who attended the procession and other events with the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Life. “The whole idea is that we love one another as God loves us. That love is a concrete thing. It’s not an airy hope, it’s accompanying them and being with them and helping out where you can.”