This past Thursday, we had the privilege of hosting two church tours for participants of the 16^th International Congress of Medieval Canon Law.  They took a break from their conference, being hosted at St. Louis University, to see some sites in Springfield, with our Cathedral being one of the main attractions.  Although I do not do it regularly, I thoroughly enjoy explaining the many beautiful elements of our Cathedral to those who come to visit this stunning church.  I always walk away from those tours with a renewed sense of gratitude for the privilege of living here and being able to celebrate Mass here every day.

Catholic churches are built to be holy places where people come to encounter the Lord, to step outside of their daily lives and to be lifted up to a higher place.  The beauty of a church serves to foreshadow the beauty of Heaven, the final destination in our journey as Catholics.  As I have mentioned in the past, the most important part of the church is the tabernacle, for behind those golden doors rests the King of the Universe, our Lord Jesus Christ.  He eagerly waits to welcome us, and upon our entrance into house of God, it is fitting for us to give Him our greeting in the form of a genuflection (or profound bow if we cannot genuflect), acknowledging His Real Presence and offering Him a sign of our adoration.

Having first turned to Our Lord in the tabernacle, our eyes behold so many other beautiful things, all of which speak in some way to the various mysteries of our faith.  Historically, churches have been designed to be a place not just to worship God, but to learn about the faith.  Paintings, mosaics, stained glass windows, and statues tell a story about our Catholic faith and how it has been lived out through the centuries.  In a time when many people were unable to read, or when catechetical materials were not readily available, one could learn much by walking through a church, “reading” the story of our faith through the various elements that make up a church.

In addition to my encouragement to make frequent visits to the church to visit Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, I would also invite you to consider taking time in the church to read the story of our faith as it is expressed is so many beautiful ways.  Do not be afraid to walk around the church to look more closely at the treasures that fill it.  You will likely be surprised to notice something that you have never noticed.  As you notice these things, ask the Holy Spirit to help you to ponder the story, or the mystery being depicted.  Just as when we pray before the Blessed Sacrament, the Lord invites us to listen to Him as He speaks to us, so too with the church.  If we are open to it, the church will also speak to us though the various elements that adorn it.  One important note – we ask that you respect the holiness of the sanctuary of the church and generally to remain out of that area of the church, but you can still see much of what is there by standing at the foot of the steps leading into the sanctuary.

Let us continue to thank God for the gift of this magnificent Cathedral Church.  We are privileged to call it our home.  May we never become too familiar with this church, but be renewed regularly with a sense of awe at the beauty of such a sacred place.

Father Alford

My name is Fr. Paul Lesupati, Parochial Vicar of Cathedral of Immaculate Conception in Springfield in Illinois. I am a native from Kenya. My parents are Jacob Lesupati and Cecilia Lesupati. We are six children in my family four girls and two boys, I am the baby in the family.  My Vocation journey began when I was an altar server. It had been my heart’s desire to become a priest, but I never knew where God was calling me to go and serve. After completing high school, I went to visit my sister in Nairobi and one Sunday I attended mass there at Consolata Church.  While there, I met a Franciscan Priest and I asked him about their procedure for joining their congregation.  After this, I discerned with them for a couple years. After a period of time. I saw that God was not calling me to religious life. 

After completing my university studies in 2015, I went to work with Jesuit Refugees Services which is a Catholic Organization run by the Society of Jesus (Jesuit Fathers).  I enjoyed working with the refugees and those who had been displaced from their countries because of war, by serving them as a social worker.  I was responsible for doing supervision, assessing different cases, and working with different agencies. I focused on refugees who needed someone to listen and understand their issues.  The mission of Jesuit Refugees Services is To Serve, To Accompany and To Advocate. As a social worker, I took the vulnerable client or beneficiaries to the service provider. I was working under the counseling department which covers individual counseling, family therapy, group counseling and a peer group for drug and substance abuse. Under the counseling department, I offered different trainings for conditions such as PSTD, loss and grief, and drugs and substance abuse.

During this time, I felt a strong desire to serve God more closely and discern my vocation. Multiple priests strongly influenced me in my prayer life.  The first was the elderly priest who I met in my life among the Franciscans.  Additionally, the Diocesan priests (such as my own parish priest) played an important role in my vocational journey. The final push came from Fr. Jeff Grant from the Springfield Diocese in Illinois whom I meant at Kakuma Refugee. His life of prayer and emphasis on pastoral care influenced me to be more prayerful and to discern joining the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois.

My journey to the priesthood from Africa to the United States began in 2016 when, in Kenya, I met the pastor for Blessed Sacrament Parish, Rev. Jeff Grant. He came to Kenya for his sabbatical. He came down to Kenya, and he ended up being at the refugee camp, which is run by Jesuit Refugee Service. During that time, I was also there. I was working as a social worker. I was asked by my project director to help Fr. Jeff Grant because he was new. He needed somebody who could take him around the camp and introduce him to different areas and groups. I said, ‘Well, I am ready to help Father’. My work as a social worker was to visit different groups collecting data, doing assessments, familiarizing myself with their problems, and determining means of helping them. I was working under the counseling department, and they were dealing with trauma and stress disorder.

I was assigned to an area where there were new arrivals, fresh from fleeing from their countries. I took Fr. Jeff Grant, and we went from tent to tent, asking how the refugees were doing, discovering their needs, and finding ways to assist them. I do remember Father Jeff Grant just looked at me. He asked me one question: ‘Paul, have you been a priest before?’ I responded, ‘No, Father’, then Father told me that the way I was talking, listening, and handling the refugees with compassion was more than what could be expected of a social worker. 

After this conversation, I shared my experience with Fr. Jeff Grant that day. He encouraged me to tell him about my vocation journey and my desire for discerning priesthood. I was working with Father Jeff Grant as a pastoral coordinator. I started developing an interest and sharing with him about my desire to become a priest, which was already there. Before speaking with Fr. Jeff, I already felt called to be a diocesan priest. Still, I did not know which Diocese to join. It was after talking with Father Grant that I came to know about the Springfield Diocese in Illinois. I asked him about the requirements and procedures for joining this diocese. He gave me the contacts of the Vocation Director, Fr. Brian Alford. I kept in touch with him through email until he requested that I visit the Diocese in 2017 and 2018. 

I was accepted as a seminarian for the Springfield Diocese in Illinois by Most Reverend Bishop Thomas John Paprocki. On August 26, 2018, I was enrolled as a seminarian for the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois, and studied at Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology in St. Meinrad, IN. My home parish is Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church in Springfield where I spent my summer in 2019 working with Fr. Jeff Grant and Fr. Ron Lorilla, and in the summer of 2020, I worked with Fr. Dean Probst at St. Thomas and St. Marie Parish in Newton IL.

 I was ordained transitional Deacon by Most Reverent Bishop Thomas Paprocki on April 9, 20221. I worked as transitional Deacon for my summer internship at Immaculate Conception Parish in Mattoon under the mentorship of Rev. Fr. John Titus. I graduated in saint Meinrad School of Theology with master’s in divinity and I was Ordained priest for the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois by Most Reverend Thomas John Paprocki on May 28, 2022, and I was appointed Parochial Vicar of Cathedral of Immaculate Conception by Most Reverend Thomas John Paprocki. I am looking forward journeying together with you to the path of faith as your Parochial Vicar. Please pray for me and all the priest as we work in the vineyard of the Lord. 

This past week I was chaplain for a Teens Encounter Christ (TEC) retreat in Quincy and at one point during the weekend the young people were asking questions of myself and Sr. Clementia Toalson, FSGM, about the liturgy, specifically differences about the liturgy throughout the history of the Church. Much, of course, could be said on this topic, but the side of things that I would like to look at today regards the placement of feast-days for saints in the liturgical calendar. 

Usually a saint’s feast day is celebrated on the day that they died. This began early in the Church when they would celebrate the dies natalis [literally “day of birth [into heaven]”] of a martyr, celebrating their entrance into heaven each year on the anniversary of their death. Of course, there are now thousands and thousands of martyrs, and other canonized saints so eventually you had the problem of multiple saints’ feast-days falling on the same day. For this reason, the actual liturgical calendar (of the feast-days that we celebrate at Mass) does not contain nearly all canonized saints, but only a sub-set of the whole list. Just to indicate the extent of this “problem”, if you look up “saints for July 29^th”, you will find St. Theadore, St. Antony, St. Lucilla, St. Eugene, St. Seraphina, and St. Flora (from Afghanistan), St. Simplicius, St. Rufo, St. Beatrice, St. Faustinus, St. Seraphina, St. Felix of Rome, and St. Faustinus of Spoleto (from Italy), St. Paulus Chen Changpin, St. Martha Wang, and St. Ioannes Baptista Luo Tingyin (from China), as well as St. William of Saint-Brieuc, St. Prosper of Orléans, St. Lubus of Troyes, and St. Pope Urban II (from France), St. Olaus (from Sweden), and St. John the Soldier (from Turkey). They all have their feast-day on July 29^th, along with their team captains, the saints we celebrate at Mass, Sts. Mary, Martha, and Lazarus from Bethany.

You can imagine that as saints pile up on one day like that, eventually the Church has to decide who they’re actually going to celebrate on any one day.  So, every few hundred years one Pope or another has to clean up the calendar and pick who gets onto the universal calendar. In addition, some particular locations celebrate saints who are important for them, but are not important enough to be celebrated throughout the whole church. Example: St. Kateri Tekakwitha, who we celebrated here in the USA on July 14^th, but other countries around the world would not be obligated to celebrate her at all because she would not be as important a patron for them. Now, just to add to the convolutedness of this whole thing: Kateri actually died April 13^th which is the day that she is celebrated in Canada, and the Diocese of Phoenix. Why wouldn’t we all celebrate her on April 13^th? Well, Pope St. Martin I already has that day throughout the universal Church, so apparently in Canada and Phoenix Kateri is considered important enough to trump Martin, whereas for the rest of us that is not the case. 

– Fr. Dominic Rankin, because of the multiplicity of saints, often struggles to find one to write upon each week. However, the Holy Spirit is good (no surprise there!) and no matter which saint I choose, I always discover an amazing story, and am often drawn deeper into countless other parts of our faith as well.  As we continue this series, and stay with Sts. Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, I suspect we will find ourselves delighted by God’s generosity! Buckle up!

“Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things.” (Lk 10:41)  The words that Jesus speaks to Martha in this Sunday’s Gospel can easily apply to us.  If you are like me, there is usually a list of things that cause anxiety and worry in our lives.  Whether it’s related to our families, our job, our health, the state of the world – there are so many things that we tend to worry about, things which rob us of peace.

How do we handle anxiety and worry in our lives?  Certainly, we stew over those anxieties more than is healthy, in many cases.  We think about what might happen, generally focusing on the worst possible scenario, which only intensifies our worry.  We might bring those worries to a family member or friend, hoping to get some encouragement or advice on how to resolve our worries.  There may be a place for that, though we need to be careful there too, for sometimes sharing our anxieties with others will increase their anxieties, or it may introduce new worries into our already troubled mind.  This is not to say that we should not share our fears and frustrations with good and trusted individuals, it is just a caution to not put too much hope in others to solve our problems.  So what is one to do?   We look to the example of the other person in the Gospel, Martha’s sister Mary.  Where is she?  She is sitting at the feet of Jesus, listening to Him.  Did she have some worries and anxieties?  Most likely.  But her being there close to Jesus shows that first and foremost, she brings what she has to Him.  Jesus’s words to Martha are not necessarily a rebuke, but an invitation to come and spend time in His presence, to pause her thoughts, her activity, and just be with the Lord who already knows her worries, and who desires to speak peace into her heart, as He was doing with Mary.

This is a beautiful model for us to follow.  When we find ourselves feeling overwhelmed with our many worries, how quick are we to place ourselves in the presence of the Lord, to be still and let Him be present to us?  We can do this anywhere but coming to the Church to be in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament is a very privileged place to do so.  I am not guaranteeing that just coming before the Lord will remove all the problems in our lives.  But bringing those worries to Him gives us the opportunity to be reminded that the Lord is near to us.  He knows what unsettles our hearts and He wants us to invite Him into those places of worry.

As I thought about this topic, a prayer came to mind that I was only recently made aware of – The Surrender Novena.  Each day has a short reflection and at the end of each reflection the person praying the Novena is asked to pray the following line 10 times: “O Jesus, I surrender myself to You, take care of everything!”  Perhaps that prayer, said even just once in the presence of the Lord, can bring us great peace in the midst of those anxieties that bother us.  Why not give these words a try at some point this week?  What do we stand to lose?  Nothing.  What do we stand to gain?  Peace! 

Father Alford

Since priest assignments were announced this spring, I have been asked many times by parishioners, students, family, and friends, “Why are you studying Canon Law?” Fr. Peter Chineke and I will both begin programs of study in Canon Law this fall, with Fr. Peter studying full-time at Catholic University in D.C., while I will be studying online through St. Paul University in Ottawa in a part-time capacity. 

First, I’ll address the question, “What is Canon Law?” Canon Law is a collection of laws of the Catholic Church; the current edition was promulgated by the pope in 1983. Every society or group has laws, rules, and regulations; the Catholic Church is no exception in this regard. It may be surprising that the Church’s laws are relatively simple compared to other bodies of law! There are 1752 “canons” (a word that comes from a Greek word for law) in my Canon Law book. Pope Francis has updated some laws recently, so I will need to purchase an updated edition soon. Sometimes the Catholic Church is criticized for having too many rules, but in reality, the Church’s legal system is extremely simple compared to our state or national laws. Consider that the Catholic Church has over a billion members, and one small book contains the laws that help to keep the Church functioning smoothly!

I often refer to the final Canon of the Code, which reminds us all why Canon Law exists in the first place. In part, this Canon reads, “having before one’s eyes the salvation of souls, which is always the supreme law of the Church.” Over 2000 years, the Church has a lot of experiences in her collective memory, and the Church has made certain rules to better foster encounters with God, which bring about the salvation of souls! When I was in the seminary, one of our favorite professors was our Canon Law teacher. Just like any legal study, Canon Law can sometimes be known for being boring or tedious. However, our professor, Msgr. Ramacciotti, was a very engaging and hilarious teacher. He would come up with funny and memorable examples, and we discussed a lot of hypothetical marriages between “Joe Catholic” and “Mary Methodist.” There was once a big lecture at the seminary by a visiting bishop, and the topic was Canon Law. Msgr. Ramacciotti introduced the lecture and questioned how anybody could think Canon Law was boring. Citing the final canon of the code, he asked us, “why do you think the salvation of souls is boring?!” 

A practical reason that Bishop Paprocki has asked Fr. Peter and me to study Canon Law is that our diocese will eventually need more canon lawyers. Currently, there are four priests in our diocese who practice Canon Law. Two of these priests finished their studies relatively recently, while two of them may be described as more “experienced”! I have heard from canon lawyers that much of their time is spent investigating marriage cases. You may have heard about declarations of nullity in the Catholic Church, when a Church tribunal declares that a supposed marriage was actually invalid from the beginning, thus freeing the person to enter a true marriage with somebody else. Although marriage law is only one small part of Canon Law, it demands a lot of attention because of the current state of marriage in our culture, and the practicality that many Catholics in our diocese are married or have been legally divorced. 

Some parts of Canon Law apply to all Catholics, while other sections may apply only to those in religious vows, clergy, or those accused of canonical crimes (Ouch!). One of my favorite sections of Canon Law when I was in the seminary was the section on the College of Cardinals and how they relate to the pope. The whole world watches the Vatican when the Cardinals convene to elect a pope, and Canon Law directs a lot of what goes on during that time. 

Canon Law can actually be some interesting reading. I would encourage you to read some of the laws regarding the sacraments, especially the Eucharist! Go to your search engine and look up “Canon 897, Code of Canon Law,” and that is the beginning of the section on the Eucharist. Unlike some legal systems, Canon Law is easily understood, and not much technical training is required to benefit from reading parts of it. I know this topic is not of interest to everyone, but to those who have read this article, thank you! Please say a prayer that Fr. Peter and I will be good students in Canon Law, to help in our local church’s goal of working for the salvation of souls. 

Feast Day: July 21^st | Patron of his hometown, Brindisi, Italy | Often pictured in Capuchin habit, writing with a quill, holding the baby Jesus, or carrying a crucifix.

Lawrence is one of those hard saints to emulate.  Born to devout parents, he grew up an intelligent and pious boy and by the age of 16 entered the Capuchin order and quickly mastered not only those studies but he also easily became fluent in Latin, Hebrew, Greek, German, Bohemian, Spanish, and French. While still a deacon his preaching was so moving that he was asked to travel all over Italy preaching in the largest and most popular cities in the country, something he would continue to do after he was ordained a priest at the young age of 23. It was said that he had memorized the entire bible, in its original language, and so over the course of his life he would be called to preach all over Europe, bringing countless people back to the true faith by his clarity, depth of scriptural and patristic insight, and capacity to relate his sermons to the varied congregations he addressed. Over the following decades, he would hold many of the highest positions in the Capuchin order and on one famous occasion also rode out in front of Christian armies defending Hungary against a Turkish invasion. He carried only a crucifix, but came away without a scratch, and the Christian armies faced 4-to-1 odds against them, but came away with the victory.

How can you or I emulate that?! Where in our lives do the graces – of fluency in language, ecstasy at Mass, defense amidst battles, eloquence and knowledge and convincing words … – where in my life would those graces even go?  I don’t even ask for such tremendous gifts, sticking with just requesting the graces needed for my daily duties. “Give me this day my daily bread”: the basic grace of being patient, attentive, generous, and faithful … of perseverance in prayer, of trust in God, of love of neighbor. I struggle to carry my daily cross enough even without 80,000 Turks bearing down on me. I struggle to communicate the Gospel to one person in spiritual direction, much less to crowds who don’t want to hear it.  I struggle to stay prayerful when saying Mass for the nuns, ecstasy and sublime contemplation seem unlikely.

When getting to know a great saint like Lawrence, we are faced with a difficult situation: we must both accept that Lawrence was given graces that we have not, but at the same time we must not give up the call that God speaks to us to live a life of heroic sanctity. How can we stay both humble, and bold?  Both content/trusting, and magnanimous? How is it every “enough” to spend my morning on email and laundry when Lawrence was reading the Old Testament in Hebrew and leading armies into battle?!  May I point out a simple, but transformative, truth? Notice that every one of those wondrous graces in Lawrence’s life was so that he could love. Being a saint is easy, it only requires love. “Love one another as I have loved you.” “Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and your neighbor as yourself.” “What you did for the least of my brethren, you did for Me.” “Whoever gives a cup of cold water to one of these little ones to drink because he is a disciple – amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward.” 

Fr. Dominic Rankin struggles to be a saint just like everybody else. He faces the same attack and same lie that we all do: “you aren’t smart enough … holy enough … productive enough … courageous enough … trusting enough … humble enough … loving enough … to be a saint.” Thing is, the lie is easily denounced: sanctity doesn’t depend on me, it depends on Jesus. And He is enough for me to become a saint.