This coming Thursday will see the arrival of Father Dominic Rankin who will serve our parish as a parochial vicar. I look forward to welcoming him and all the energy and enthusiasm that he will bring to us, but welcoming him also means saying good-bye to our Father Stock.

This summer will mark five years that I have been at the Cathedral this second time and Father Stock is the fourth vicar that we have sent out. I had the privilege of working with all of our vicars these past five years when they were seminarians while I was serving as vocation director for the diocese. It has been my great honor to witness the grace of God manifest itself in their lives and to serve with them as they grow in their own priesthood. One might think that these good-byes would be routine by now, but I find that to not be the case and I am grateful for that because it shows that each priest doesn’t just pass through, but, rather, he leaves his mark on our shared parish life.

Each priest who has served us here has brought his own unique gifts and persona. Father Stock is no exception to that norm. His many gifts, including his sense of humor and joie de vie, made him welcome not only here but also in the halls of Sacred Heart- Griffin High School, where I know he will be sorely missed. Living with him, he can be as quiet as a church mouse or as loud as the 4th of July; Father Friedel and I will miss both of these facets of Father Stock’s personality.

Over these five years, Father Rankin will be the sixth parochial vicar that we have welcomed and he will join the ranks of the good men who have preceded him. He brings with him his own gifts and I invite you to get to know him, his zeal, and his gentle heart. I also invite you to send your prayers with Father Stock as he takes up the mantle of being a pastor now. I pray that he will always know our gratitude for God’s goodness in allowing him to have shared these past two years with us and to know that, wherever he is sent, that the Cathedral parish will always be a home for him.

Father Christopher House is the Rector of the Cathedral and serves in various leadership roles within the diocesan curia, namely Chancellor and Vicar Judicial.

A few weeks ago, thirty-seven of us on the Cathedral pilgrimage to the Holy Land were able to visit Capernaum on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee. Capernaum was the home town of St. Peter and St. Andrew and became an adopted home of Jesus. We were blessed to stand in the ruins of an ancient church built on the foundation of Capernaum’s ancient synagogue. It was in this synagogue that Jesus gave one of his most famous teachings which is found in the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel and known as The Bread of Life Discourse. Jesus repeats himself several times in this discourse, commanding us to feed on him, to literally eat his flesh and drink his blood. This is not figurative language; this is John’s exposition on the Eucharist.

This weekend we celebrate the feast formally titled the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, but popularly known as Corpus Christi. Every time the Church gathers to celebrate the Mass, the Eucharist, which is the body, blood, soul, and divinity of our Lord, is at the center of our worship. We must avoid the danger of growing lax in our reverence and awe due to our familiarity with this great and wonderful sacrament, which is one reason why the Church dedicates a particular day of solemnity to focus solely on this mystery. The Eucharist is the life source of the Church, the ultimate manifestation of Christ’s presence among us, and it has been the strength of the faithful for the Church’s entire history.

It is not a sign or symbol, because a sign or symbol points to another reality; the Eucharist is the reality of Jesus’s real presence among us.

In this Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus’s feeding of the five-thousand is recounted for us which happened at another site a few miles from Capernaum called Tabgha and that the pilgrims were able to visit The transformation of those five loaves and two fish, meager as they were, reminds us that our simple gifts of bread and wine, when changed by the power of the Holy Spirit, become something new and wonderful in the Eucharist. In the Church of the Multiplication at Tabgha, there is a famous mosaic on the floor of two fish but only four loaves. The absence of the fifth loaf in the mosaic invites us to raise our eyes to the Blessed Sacrament present either on the altar or the tabernacle and to see that it is Jesus who is the true bread who continually comes down from heaven in the Eucharist.

This past winter, Father Stock offered a three-part series on the 20th century American Catholic writer Flannery O’Connor. Amongst her writings is a letter where Flannery recounted being invited to a dinner party and feeling out of place in a group of she termed “intellectuals.” She went on to say that she said nothing all night until the conversation turned to the Church and the Eucharist and that her hostess talked about that, even though she had left the practice of the faith, she still thought that the Eucharist was a wonderful “symbol.” Having heard enough, Flannery recounted: I then said, in a very shaky voice, ‘Well, if it’s a symbol, to hell with it.’ That was all the defense I was capable of but I realize now that this is all I will ever be able to say about it, outside of a story, except that it is the center of existence for me; all the rest of life is expendable.

May we have the same grace that Flannery O’Connor did to recognize just how vital the Eucharist is for us. The Eucharist has been the strength of martyrs, it has comforted the faithful over the centuries in the face of adversity, it is the source and summit of our life of faith, and the remedy for our mortality that will lead us to everlasting life. May we always approach the altar to receive this most precious gift with worthy hearts and lives.

Father Christopher House is the Rector of the Cathedral and serves in various leadership roles within the diocesan curia, namely Chancellor and Vicar Judicial.

Following the Lord’s Ascension into heaven, the Apostles were gathered once again in the Upper Room where the Lord had instituted both the Eucharist and the Priesthood at the Last Supper. It was also the place where he first appeared to them following the Resurrection. Tradition tells us that the Apostles were not alone on this particular day and that Mary, the Mother of the Lord, was with them. Jerusalem was filled with Jews who had come to the holy city for the feast of Pentecost, a feast celebrating the wheat harvest that was celebrated seven weeks and one day (50 days) following Passover. That day was a day that would forever change the face of the earth.

Before his Ascension, the Lord promised the Apostles that he would send a paraclete, an advocate to be with them always until he returned in glory. It was precisely this advocate for whom the Apostles waited in the Upper Room, when on that Pentecost day, the Lord Jesus fulfilled his promise and the Holy Spirit came upon the Apostles and Mary, appearing as tongues of fire. It was precisely in this moment that the Good News, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, was preparing to break forth into the greater world.

From the Upper Room, the Apostles went forth as new men, as new creations. The grace of the Holy Spirit had forever changed them, transforming their fear and trepidation into courage and zeal. With this gift of the Holy Spirit, they went out and fulfilled the Lord’s command to preach the forgiveness of sins, beginning first in Jerusalem. The Acts of the Apostles recounts that some 3,000 people that very day heard the preaching of the Apostles, believed, were baptized, and thus the Church was born.

Today, we, the living stones of the Church, claimed by Christ in baptism and anointed with the Holy Spirit through confirmation, are called to carry on this mission begun by the Apostles some 2,000 years ago. We who profess the name of Christ are his disciples because we have come to believe in him, but our discipleship must be transformed into apostleship. The word apostle means “one who is sent.” The Apostles were the first to be sent but we are called to continue their mission. On this Pentecost Sunday and always, let us open our hearts to the gift of the Holy Spirit who continues to guide the Church. Let us cooperate with the grace of the Spirit that seeks to make us witnesses of the crucified and risen Lord so that through our lives others may come to know and believe in the Lord Jesus.

Father Christopher House is the Rector of the Cathedral and serves in various leadership roles within the diocesan curia, namely Chancellor and Vicar Judicial.

It is summertime and we find ourselves in the midst of events and travel! Summertime is often hard on organizations because volunteers travel. Consistent support becomes a challenge! Here is how you can help the Cathedral:

Prayer

Alpha begins this week and we need your prayers. Alpha is perfectly designed to fail unless God shows up, so your prayers are needed to support the team and the guests who will encounter Christ.

Service

Consider volunteering with the Vacation Bible School this summer from July 8th-12th! It is a great opportunity for service hours, as well. Contact the parish office at 217-522-3342 or email Haley Bentel at [email protected].

Giving

Are you going to be traveling this summer or looking for a way to give more conveniently? Share your gifts online through setting up a recurring gift to the Cathedral by going online to https://spicathedral.org/give-online/. It is secure, safe, and greatly appreciated!

Please note: we have adjusted the Cathedral Weekly for summertime. During the summer we will have a smaller bulletin, so we can save
costs and provide a larger Weekly during the year. We will continue to have the Sunday Announcements stuffer each week and you will
find additional faith formation there. If you have any questions, please contact Katie Price at [email protected].

The end of our fifty-day Easter journey is near. It was seven weeks ago that we celebrated the joy of the Resurrection on Easter Sunday and now the Church celebrates the first of two key events both in our life of faith: this Sunday with the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord into heaven and the second being Pentecost next Sunday. St. Luke teaches us in the Acts of the Apostles that Jesus, having revealed his risen glory to his disciples after the Resurrection, returned to his place with the Father in heaven forty days following his resurrection.

The Lord’s Ascension into heaven is the fulfillment of his mission to achieve our salvation; we might use the phrase that he has come “full circle” in his return to the Father. However, there is a marvelous new reality that makes all the difference for us. In his return to the Father, Jesus takes with him our human nature. When he first descended from the Father in the Incarnation, Jesus joined his divinity to our humanity in an inseparable bond. Jesus’s humanity was and remains real. It was not something that was an illusion nor was it discarded when his earthly ministry was completed. Jesus retains his glorified human nature beyond the boundaries of space and time in heaven. This fact points to the coming reality of the Resurrection of the Just on the last day when not just the soul but also the body will be redeemed and the two realities reunited forever in heaven.

While the Ascension is the fulfillment of the Lord’s saving act for us, it does not mean that his work on our behalf is over. From his place at the Father’s right hand, the Lord Jesus continues his mission as our intercessor, as the one who continually pleads our cause to the Father. Jesus’s return to heaven also stands as a sign of hope for us that where he has gone we also may follow. We are reminded of both of these truths in the Preface of the Mass for the Ascension in which the Church prays:

Mediator between God and man, judge of the world and Lord of hosts, he ascended, not to distance himself from our lowly state but that we, his members, might be confident of following where he, our Head and Founder, has gone before.

Like the Apostles, we can’t spend our lives looking up at the heavens and wondering “what next?” This great feast of the Ascension reminds us that the Lord Jesus has done his part and, now, we must do ours. With the Holy Spirit going before us, we must continue the proclamation of the Kingdom both in word and action. Every aspect of our lives is to point to Christ, crucified and risen, who will come again in glory. Until that day, we, as his disciples, must be about the work of the building up of the Kingdom of God. The Lord’s Ascension calls us to be a people of action, proclaiming Jesus Christ and the forgiveness of sins and the coming of the Kingdom here and now.

Father Christopher House is the Rector of the Cathedral and serves in various leadership roles within the diocesan curia, namely Chancellor and Vicar Judicial.

As the father of two adopted children, my thoughts about abortion and the way forward for the pro-life movement have developed significantly in the past decade. I often remember that Leo and Zelie are survivors who were exponentially more likely to be aborted than adopted. The unique and unrepeatable light that each of them brings into the world could so easily have been snuffed out in a country where there are 1.3 million abortions each year.

Their birth mothers were and are brave. They could have fallen for the lure of the quick fix and gone with the flow of the modern throw-away culture, but they instead did the far harder thing. They gave the gift of life.

Whenever the topic of abortion comes up Leo and Zelie concretize the urgency of a movement for life. Looking into their eyes depoliticizes the discussion and reminds me that I am not pro-life fundamentally because I am against something. I am pro-life because I love life and because I love specific unique and unrepeatable people. I am pro- life because, especially since Aimee and I have adopted children, I know the vulnerability and bravery of women in crisis pregnancies and how adoption can be healing and empowering where abortion scars and tears at the hearts and souls of women.

From a Spark of Goodness to a Flame

Here we are, more than forty years after the Roe v. Wade decision, in a polarized world full of deeply entrenched opinion in which real discussion and genuine dialogue are rare, but ever more urgent. Our opinions are so often highly fortified talking points, guarded against dialogue out of raw insecurity. We like and share and comments in echo chambers. We create straw men, weak caricatures of the opposing position, rather than seeking to understand where some truth or goodness or beauty has been distorted. Perhaps we can blow upon the spark, until it is white hot smoldering coal and in service of full truth.

C.S. Lewis employs this concept in his book , The Great Divorce, where the heavenly creatures can work with even a small spark of goodness in order to bring souls along to heaven:

If there’s one wee spark under all those ashes, we’ll blow it till the whole pile is red and clear….
 “Is there hope for her , Sir?
 “Aye, there’s some. What she calls her love for her son has turned into a poor, prickly, astringent sort of thing. But there’s still a wee spark of something that’s not just herself in it. That might be blown into a flame.”
(C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, HarperCollins, San Francisco, 77, 104)

A Sisterly Embrace, a Pro-Life Message

A few days ago an eighth grader asked a simple question as she prepared to go to D.C. for this year’s March for Life: “How can we make a convincing argument to someone who is pro-choice?”

When asked something like this I almost always think about a Saturday morning some years back when Aimee and I were praying outside of an abortion clinic with a group of students. I was leading the Rosary with a group of teens and Aimee was sidewalk counseling, I think for the first time. It was most typical that women would be dropped off and walk into the clinic alone, but that morning two women walking in together stood out. Aimee approached them on their way in to tell them about alternative services that were being offered right next door. Out of the corner of my eye I watched the exchange and noticed one of the women get right in Aimee’s face angrily while the other, visibly pregnant, walked into the clinic.

As the irate friend headed to her car I watched Aimee follow her. (My Hail Mary’s got faster and I was more than a little worried for Aimee’s safety.)

Just minutes later though, I noticed that those hands that were once flying around in anger were still. There was a major change in body language. Two decades of the Rosary later I witnessed a sisterly hug between Aimee and the other woman, and watched as the formerly angry friend headed back into the clinic to find the woman she had accompanied inside just about twenty minutes earlier.

The Ember of Friendship

Later I asked Aimee about the exchange. “What did you say? How did you do that?” She explained how she did it. First she quietly and confidently took the angry barrage and when she had a chance, asked about the situation.

“What happened to your friend?” she asked her. Aimee heard all about how the friend in the clinic had been abandoned by a former boyfriend when she got pregnant. She heard about her friend’s great financial difficulties, tensions with her family, and intense emotional difficulties. Aimee heard all of this from an invested and protective friend whose hands were flailing. This friend would do almost anything to take care of the woman she loved like a sister. Aimee simply listened and genuinely cared too.

After listening and radiating genuine charity, she had a chance to talk about alternatives to the awful finality of abortion. The formerly angry woman came to the clinic trying to be a good friend. Aimee blew on that glowing ember of goodness until it was white hot, open to truth, and able to burn away tragically flawed thinking. The result was beautiful.

Motivated by Charity

Now I would love to say that she emerged from the clinic minutes later with her pregnant friend, but that didn’t happen. I honestly don’t know what the outcome of her attempted intervention was. The victory of that day may not have averted the tragedy of that specific abortion, but it might have prevented future abortions, and it certainly opened a mind and heart and revealed a simple and powerful way forward.

When we move beyond ideology onto the solid ground of personal encounter, we are more likely to get somewhere. This is a hallmark of the feminine genius, and the path to a change in culture that will come mainly from women upholding the dignity of women. Aimee was able to fight for the unborn by fighting for the empowerment of women….actually, for the empowerment of a specific woman. The dignity of unborn lives shines brightest when women recognize first, even in the sharp pain of a crisis pregnancy, their own dignity. Remember that the whole teaching on morality in the Catechism of the Catholic Church begins with

St. Leo the Great telling us that very thing, “Christian, recognize your dignity.”

So how can we make a convincing argument to those who are pro-choice?

• Listen to the story of the person to whom you are talking
• Find the embers of goodness in their faulty thinking and blowing on them until they are white hot and able to burn away error
• Remind the person that you are talking about their own dignity
• Do more than liking and sharing (Do that too though)
• Make sure that your comments and discussions are always motivated by real charity and love.

Colin MacIver teaches theology and has served as the religion department chair and campus ministry coordinator at St. Scholastica Academy in Covington, Louisiana. He is the author of the guide to Quick Catholic Lessons with Fr. Mike. He and his wife, Aimee, are co-authors and presenters of Theology of the Body for Teens Middle School Edition. They are also co-authors of the Power and Grace Guidebook, and the Chosen Parent’s and Sponsor’s Guides. This article originally appeared on the Ascension Press blog and is used with permission. (https://media.ascensionpress.com/2019/01/15/howwe- communicate-pro-life-message-effectively/)

Sadly, devout Catholics who believe and practice their faith are often cartooned as being out of touch and out of sync with the “world” or at least the “times.” Our priests wear robes as if we still live in biblical times, we occasionally use phrases from an archaic and “dead” language, Latin, and we literally believe that Jesus not only rose from the dead, but forty days later physically, not just spiritually, flew up into the air beyond the clouds, promising to return one day. So, it’s believed, Catholics have had their heads in the clouds ever since. The world, according to the worldly-minded, appears to be something Catholics would rather avoid altogether.

The French philosopher and convert to the Catholic Faith, Fabrice Hadjadj, would, however, disagree with this summation. The Feast of the Ascension is the perfect occasion to reestablish a firm foundation and a better definition of how Catholics truly relate to the world. Fabrice comments that, in fact:

“Christ’s Ascension is not an escape, but the way of being the fullness of everything. Don’t you find it magnificent? We are not asked to detach ourselves from earthly things, but to go to their origin, and this origin is heaven”

Though our hearts truly long to be with him, our feet are firmly planted on his good earth. Just like Jesus. He, after all, never shunned the world, or labelled it as a distraction to be avoided. He did not abandon it or encourage his disciples to do the same. Quite the opposite, Jesus spent long periods of time in a reverent gaze on the book of creation, and pulled his parables constantly from the good things of the earth; wind and water, fire and wheat, bread and birds and lilies. Look at these things, he encouraged us and sees them as so many flagstones leading to “My Father’s House.”

Now we look to Christ on this great Feast of the Ascension and he is going back to that Heavenly Place. Jesus’s word in John 12:32, “When I am lifted up I will draw all men to myself” is a beautiful line pointing to the Cross, but perhaps just as gloriously it lights a way to the Ascension. Like the disciples, with feet on the earth, we allow our hearts to be uplifted and moved by this Word who came and dwelt among us, but who has no where to lay his head. He is a presence that is never stagnant, but dynamic. In him we live and move and have our being, and it’s a being on the move. As the philosophers say we are all “homo viator”— persons on the journey. Jesus made the disciples at Emmaus believe, even after their seven mile walk, that he “was continuing on” and indeed he was. And isn’t his Ascension still more of a beginning than an ending of his revelation on earth? As the line from C.S. Lewis’ Narnia books echoes, it’s always “further up, further in.”

The Ascension of the Lord is the bookend to complement the Descension of the Lord; that first touch at the Annunciation. Cardinal Jospeh Ratzinger wrote:

“The incarnation is only the first part of the movement. It becomes meaningful and definitive only in the cross and the resurrection. From the cross the Lord draws everything to himself and carries the flesh – that is, humanity and the entire created world – into God’s eternity” (Ratzinger, A New Song for the Lord)

That eternity is now unveiled as the very real body of Christ pierces the clouds and carries our hearts up with his. And oh how they are burning within us! His body and blood, soul and divinity now draw all things up and everything is holy now, and everything is made new. The water and wind and rain that touched him are now taken up. The fruit and the bread and the walks and talks and a thousand other things he experienced here are now part of There. You can in fact “take it with you” when all of it has been assimilated harmoniously in holiness.

Now we see more clearly what this world and our time here is really meant to be all about. Again, C.S. Lewis wrote, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”

This article is written by Bill Donaghy and featured on the Ascension Press blog. It is used with permission.

(https://media.ascensionpress.com/2018/05/09/things-are-looking-up-the-catholic-vision-and-the-ascension-of-jesus/)