Why Pope Leo Kept This Chicago Icon Close

Some gifts are polite. You smile, say thank you, and later they vanish into a closet somewhere behind a door no one opens unless they're looking for extension cords or Christmas candles.

This one didn't vanish.

According to Aleteia, Pope Leo XIV received an icon of Our Mother of Good Counsel, commissioned by his longtime friend Michael Airdo and written by Chicago iconographer Joseph Malham. The connection is personal all the way through. Pope Leo joined the Midwest Augustinians years ago, and that province bears the name of Our Mother of Good Counsel. The icon was also made in Chicago, his hometown. Then comes the lovely little detail that got me, he told Airdo he wanted to keep it on a shelf in his bedroom in his private quarters.

That says something.

Not every holy thing needs a spotlight

I love big public Catholic moments as much as anybody. Bells ringing. Crowds cheering. Incense doing what incense does, which is making half the congregation feel transported to heaven and the other half quietly check whether something is on fire.

Still, some of the most revealing things are small. A shelf in a bedroom. A handwritten thank-you note. A friend thinking not, "What do you get a pope?" but "What would help my old friend pray?"

That's such a better instinct.

We can get weird around church art. We either treat it like museum material for experts or like religious decor you'd buy beside scented candles and discount garden flags. An icon refuses both categories. It's not there just to be admired, and it's not there just to match the room. It's meant to draw the heart toward heaven, quietly, steadily, without making a fuss about itself.

I think that's why this story lands with such force. Malham didn't just make an object under pressure, though Aleteia says he had only a short window before Airdo's trip to Rome. He described setting other work aside and focusing on it prayerfully and quietly. That's how sacred things usually come into the world, not by frenzy alone but by attention.

And yes, I know attention sounds less glamorous than miracles. Yet most grace in parish life arrives dressed as attention. Someone stays after Mass to straighten hymnals. Someone lights a candle for a son who hasn't called home in months. Someone paints an image of Our Lady while deadlines snap at his heels...

Chicago followed him there

The hometown piece matters more than people may think.

I've seen this in ministry over and over. People carry places inside them long after they've left them. A city parish basement smell can take somebody back forty years faster than any photograph can. The sound of folding chairs being set up before a fish fry is practically sacramental memory where I come from.

So when Malham said there was something meaningful about the icon being written in Chicago, I nodded immediately. Of course there was. If you're far from home, a sacred image from familiar streets isn't just art. It's affection with wood and pigment on it.

And no, I'm not pretending every person from Chicago turns misty-eyed over everything local. Some people leave home gladly and would rather not discuss deep dish pizza ever again as long as they live. Fair enough. Still, when faith and memory meet each other through something beautiful, walls come down fast.

That may be part of why Pope Leo wanted it nearby instead of lost in storage with countless ceremonial gifts. Not because he's impressed by craftsmanship alone, though he clearly appreciated Malham's artistry enough to send him a personal handwritten note according to the story. It feels more intimate than that. More like recognition.

This came from my people. This speaks my spiritual language. This reminds me who held me together before anyone called me Holy Father.

The artists in the back pew matter too

There's another part of this story I don't want us to miss because it's easy to sentimentalize popes and overlook everybody else.

Malham told Aleteia that receiving thanks from Pope Leo strengthened him in his vocation as an iconographer. I understand that deeply. Most vocations include long stretches where you wonder if anything you're doing matters at all. Priests know that feeling well. So do mothers, teachers, organists, janitors, catechists, and the poor soul trying to get the parish printer working on Saturday night before first Communion.

Sometimes encouragement arrives dramatically. Usually it doesn't.

Usually it's one note. One conversation after Mass. One sign that what you've offered God has reached someone else's life without your knowing it ever would.

A few years ago I found an old holy card tucked into a parish prayer book with a handwritten intention on the back in shaky penmanship. No headline-worthy miracle attached to it, no grand story I could verify, just evidence that somebody had brought their fear into church and left holding onto Mary a little tighter than before. I've thought about that card more times than I can count.

That's what this whole thing reminds me of. Holy work often looks small until suddenly it doesn't.

A friend carries an icon across an ocean. A pope sets it near his bed. An artist gets confirmation to keep going.

And somewhere in all this is Our Lady of Good Counsel doing what mothers do best, staying close enough that when one of her children needs steadiness, she is already there waiting on the shelf.