(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — This time of year is busy with kids' concerts, shopping and holiday parties, but it can be depressing. So Our Lady of Perpetual Help is hosting its first Blue Christmas service.
“Because Christmas is a very difficult day for people that are dealing with different kinds of losses in life,” Father Jerry Boland said.
Father Boland said the decision to host a Blue Christmas service came out of his work with bereaved families around the holiday.
“Last year we had 140 funerals in this parish. Well, that's 140 families that you know this Christmas someone's not going to be sitting at the table.”
The event at Our Lady of Perpetual Help is not limited to just people who have lost someone.
The service will have poetry readings as well as scripture and hymns to comfort those who may have lost a loved one, a job, a marriage or are feeling low at a time so many others are full of joy.
He said the 7 p.m. service is open to all.
“Whether you're a Catholic or Christian, a believer or not a believer, it's all on the human experience of comfort, you know, resilience and support and encouragement.”
Sitting in the parish rectory, Father Boland told WBBM Newsradio he’s not sure exactly what to expect at their first such service.
“No one's going to be asked to share anything and no one's going to come up and there's going to be an expectation that you're supposed to tell everybody why you're in the church. It's nothing like that at all.”
Other denominations hold similar events around the winter solstice when the lack of daylight can lead to depression.
The parish will also stream the service online.
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