Five years ago when Franciscan Father Bob Lombardo came to Chicago to minister at Our Lady of the Angels Mission in Chicago’s West Humboldt Park, most of the buildings were in a serious state of disrepair. Just a few short years and lots of donations and volunteer hours later, the third building on the mission’s campus — the old convent — has been gutted, renovated and received Cardinal George’s blessing on May 30. The people living in Chicago’s West Humboldt Park neighborhood see a lot of crime, violence, drug trafficking and poverty and yet there is a spark of hope at Iowa and Hamlin Streets where new life is being pumped back in to Our Lady of the Angels, the site of a tragic school fire on Dec. 1, 1958, that claimed the lives of 92 children and three religious sisters. All of the repairs to Our Lady of the Angels have happened through word of mouth. “I feel like I’m walking through the pages of the Acts of the Apostles,” said Lombardo. Jesus sent the apostles out to minister to his people with just the clothes on their backs but the tools they needed to do their work, and the people, came. Jesus is sending people to help revitalize Our Lady of the Angels, Lombardo said. First the rectory was renovated and repaired with donations. Then came the parish center, Kelly Hall, which reopened in January 2009 and where the mission partners with the YMCA to offer tutoring, a basketball league, chastity group and other programs, including offerings for seniors. The Greater Chicago Food Depository also partners with the mission at Kelly Hall and they serve around 700 families a month. Brand new building Now the convent has been renovated with volunteer hours from unions throughout the city and the help of groups like the Knights of Malta. It will be used to house groups for retreats and volunteer groups who come to serve at the mission, Lombardo said. There’s a new roof, new windows, updated plumbing, new electric wiring, repaired walls and more. “We basically have a brand new building,” said Lombardo. Jack Shine, a Knight of Malta who grew up in Chicago and now attends Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish in Darien, Ill., works with the Insulators Union and encouraged his and other unions to donate labor to repair the convent. There were unions from all over the trades who pitched in: boilermakers, plumbers, carpenters, tuck pointers, tile setters, plasterers and brick layers, to name a few. “They’ve all been excellent. They have gone out of their way,” said Shine. Many of the union members were Catholics themselves and remembered the tragic school fire that occurred more than 50 years ago and wanted to help, he said. Some contractors, associations and individuals donated the materials needed to repair the convent. Parish groups also volunteered on the convent project. Praying with cardinal On May 30, about 50 people who worked on the convent turned out on Trinity Sunday for Mass in the church with Cardinal George and a brief blessing service at the convent. During his homily, Cardinal George told those gathered that the feast of the Holy Trinity is a feast about the family life of God — Father, Son and Spirit — and that a family is founded in love. “It’s love, your love, that has enabled this project to come to the point it is now,” he said. “This is a moment when we thank God for sharing his life with us so that it is here in this very dangerous neighborhood, among people who are easily written off, that we see visibly present the love of God — the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” Fixing the church Next up for the mission is renovating of Our Lady of the Angels Church, where the funerals of three nuns were held following their deaths in the 1958 school fire. For many years a Baptist congregation rented the church but they recently consolidated at another site and moved out of the church, Lombardo said. “So we ended up with a church as part of our mission here,” he said. “It will not open up as a parish. It will open up more as a center for prayer.” It will be different from a parish because it won’t have religious education or a regular Mass schedule. Lombardo said the neighbors “are thrilled,” with what’s happening at Our Lady of the Angels. He said they are “very excited about the church reopening. And many of them are Baptist.”