Have you come across the 40 Day Generosity Challenge? Last year I came across this Lenten resource, and wanted to find a way to introduce something like it at Cathedral. You can find out more information here, https:/40acts.org.uk/. In general it invites participants to challenge themselves each day with a task which would engage them in acts of stewardship.

We have created our own Lenten challenge called the “Discipleship Challenge.” It is based on the idea that when we make small goals and have a friend to hold us accountable, transformation occurs. The Discipleship Challenge invites you to find a friend and challenge each other to be disciples. Each week during Lent we will suggest a challenge. The challenges are based around the CRS Rice Bowl and the Lenten Prayer Booklet we have provided you. The goal is to complete the challenge and then hold the other person accountable by calling, meeting, or emailing and asking how they did or are doing with the challenge. Accompaniment can have the power to transform. When we minister to each other, God is present. He shapes us into disciples who make other disciples. We are in this together.

Cathedral staff is committed to walking through Lent with anyone who may not have a partner. Please contact the offices if you would like to participate, but need someone on staff to join you. We welcome your feedback during the challenge and look forward to hearing your witness stories along the way! Please send any questions or thoughts to Katie Price at [email protected].

Katie Price is the Coordinator for Stewardship for the Cathedral and coordinates stewardship for the Diocese.

Yes it’s later this year but the time is finally upon us as this coming Wednesday, Ash Wednesday, marks the beginning of the holy season of Lent. Like many things in life, what you get out of Lent will depend on what you put into it and, with Lent, attitude is everything. I will confess that in my younger days that I saw Lent as nothing more than a forty-day slog through drudgery and Friday nights of limited options for going out to eat; once again, attitude is everything. So how do we see/approach Lent?

Lent is a great love story.

It may not seem to be so on the surface but what is the season all about? If we first focus on sacrifice, self-denial, and penance, then we will be placing our focus in the wrong area. Lent is a great love story because it is about a God who has a love for us that is unbreakable, unrelenting, and inexhaustible, even though we are guilty of rejecting his love time and time again. The selections that the Church gives us from the Scriptures demonstrate this. We are reminded that God has chosen us to be his own and that he has done this in a wonderful way in his only Son through baptism. Through sin, we have squandered the grace that God has given us through this sacrament, but Lent is about a call to return to that grace again. This is what the first four and a half weeks of the season speak to, from Ash Wednesday until the Fifth Sunday.

The second part of Lent continues to tell that same great love story but recalls how this love of God was perfectly manifested in the Paschal Mystery of Jesus, that is, in his passion, death, and resurrection. The fifth week of Lent transitions us to Holy Week which ends with the triumph of Easter. It is at this glorious feast that we renew our baptismal promises, having focused on allowing God to renew the grace of that same sacrament in us throughout Lent.

Sacrifice and self-denial are our responses to the gift of God’s grace that is offered to us for our renewal. The penances and pious acts that we may choose to adopt are not ends in themselves, but acts by which we seek to root out in our lives what does not belong so that the grace of God may find a welcome place deep in our lives. The same is true about the reception of Ashes on Ash Wednesday. The ashes we receive are nothing more than the ash of old palms that has been blessed. There is nothing mystical about the ashes in themselves. What is important about the ashes is that we receive them as an outward sign of an inner desire to change our lives, to be converted back to right relationship with God. The reception of ashes and pious acts of sacrifice and self-denial must come from a genuine desire to change; if not, then these acts are empty.

There are many things that we can do for Lent: add daily Mass to our daily routine, pray the Stations of the Cross, ready the Scriptures daily, participate in giving to CRS Rice Bowl, give alms in the special collections for charity, give your time to a good cause, add time for daily prayer, and the list goes on and on. Whatever you may do or not do, make whatever choice you do in the hope of growing deeper in the love that God has for you. Lent is not about what do I have to give up but rather how can I respond to the Lord’s call to turn back to him. The first reading on Ash Wednesday from the Prophet Joel says: “even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart.” Make sure that this coming Lent is about your journey deeper into the grace, love, and mercy that is freely offered to us by our God through Jesus.

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

I have a brochure entitled, “Why do we ‘have’ to go to Mass?”. The cover photo portrays a young child facing backwards in the pew and looking bored. My husband, a convert, long ago also asked the same question about the “obligation” of going to Holy Mass. Each question came from a different orientation, i.e., boredom versus obligation. Of course, the answer is because it is one of the Ten Commandments to Keep Holy the Lord’s Day! It is not an obligation so much as it is a commitment to honor the Lord’s Day.

Personally, I never had either of these feelings because I always felt it was an honor to go to Holy Mass (BTW, when did we drop the “Holy” Mass part?). Every Sunday on the way to Holy Mass I say to myself, “I GET to go to Holy Mass today.” It is an invigorating expectation! As I genuflect to the Altar and Tabernacle, I’m excited!

After Vatican II lay people were encouraged to participate more fully in the Liturgy. I finally got the courage to volunteer as a Lector/Reader and Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion. What a gift that has been in my life. I GET to give Jesus to others. I GET to serve Him more dearly. I GET to speak His words in this Holy place, our Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception What a blessing!

Rebecca and husband, Woody, have been Cathedral parishioners since the mid-1990’s and led the Cathedral Bible Study group for many years. She assists Sr. Francella with home and hospital visits. Rebecca has served as CCCW President, Springfield Deanery President, Springfield Diocesan CCW President, Chicago Province Director, and National

Last weekend at each of the parish Masses I preached on the subject of abortion. Abortion is the most brutal act that is allowed in our “advanced society” because abortion targets the most innocent and the most defenseless among us. This heinous act also arouses strong passions in people, passions both good and bad. Sadly, we have allowed this satanic act against the sanctity of human life to become a political football. Human rights, of which the right to life is paramount, should not be political issues as they, along with human dignity, are the gift of God and not the purview of the state except that the state is morally obliged to protect these gifts of God. In an 1864 letter to the editor of the Frankfort Commonwealth,

 President Lincoln wrote, “if slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.” The same sentiment is even truer regarding abortion; if abortion is not wrong, nothing is wrong.

In my homily, I stated that ending abortion will ultimately not be achieved by legislative acts or judicial rulings; these things will only limit it. Abortion will only end when each of us, together, build a culture of life. This Sunday’s gospel gives a blue print for the Kingdom of God, for how to build the foundation of that culture of life. Jesus tells us in Luke’s Gospel to you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you (6:27-28). He further states: Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give, and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you (6:37-38).

 We must be living billboards in every aspect of our lives concerning our Lord’s words in the Gospel. If we want a culture of life then each of us must do our part to build it; love begets love and mercy begets mercy.

The words of the Lord Jesus can seem like a tall order because they are, especially if we think that we can fulfill the Gospel command on our own. Saint Paul tells us in his First Letter to the Corinthians this Sunday just as we have borne the image of the earthly one, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly one (15:49). While we are earthly creatures, we have been adopted in Christ as heirs of the Kingdom of God through baptism. The grace of God is always seeking to be at work in us, to bring to perfection the image of God that we were created in. If we cooperate with the grace of God then we will more and more bear the image of the heavenly one and this will be made manifest in our thoughts, words, and actions. If we would build the culture of life, if we would fulfill the Gospel command, then we must allow the grace of God to work in and through us each day so that we might always be a new creation for both the glory of God and for his work of renewing the face of the earth.

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

Today’s Gospel challenges us:

 love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you…and lend expecting nothing back.

We are presented with a challenge to live as disciples and stewards. An intentional disciple is one who doesn’t feed into their enemies agenda, rather finds mercy and grace. They are not interested in mediocre faith, rather they seek to pray more, serve more, and give more. When challenged they accept, take to the streets and talk the talk, but more importantly walk the walk of the Gospel message. This Gospel rings loud and clear the mission assigned to us. It is not easy. It is not one we can take lightly. However, it is a mission worthy of everything we’ve got.

In light of today’s culture, this challenge is ever-present in our day-to-day lives. It doesn’t take me long on Facebook to run into negative posts concerning human dignity and decency. Today, let’s take this Gospel as a challenge to live our faith courageously. What does courageous look like? Perhaps it is sharing a meal with someone who needs a friend, passing up the extracurricular activity to make it to Adoration, making the time everyday to pray as a family or perhaps it is simply sharing a piece of faith formation online with your friends.

If you remain silent, silent in your invitation to others, silent in your witness of the Gospel, silent in your own home…what credit is that to you?

 Katie Price is the Coordinator of Stewardship for the Cathedral and the Diocese of Springfield.

From a very young age we’re taught the value of accruing knowledge , relationships, popularity, and success—a storing up and clutching onto good things that can help us sail effectively toward a happy life. We’re groomed not to dispense of anything we own or acquire that has value, but instead to cultivate it, protect it, hold onto it with tireless resolve. What we have and collect—our education, gifts and talents, intellect, possessions—we are expected to use strategically to our advantage. We become hoarders so we can navigate the world and be victorious within it.

From a rational vantage point, it makes complete sense. It seems an absolutely necessary mindset to have in order to be successful in the world. These things, in their goodness, can point to God and allow for happiness. When I review the many good things in my life—my family, group of friends, job, health, home in San Diego, access to delicious food at will—sometimes I’m met with an overwhelming sense of comfort and contentment. For me, such a realization invites me to thank God, acknowledging that such things can work as refreshment on life’s journey. These moments, as good and nourishing as they can be, though, also have the capacity to dim my reliance on God. I can easily take comfort in the things around me, becoming resistant in handing them over to God should he ask for them.

 Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding
and my entire will,
All I have and call my own.

 You have given all to me.
To you, Lord, I return it.

 Everything is yours; do with it what you will.
Give me only your love and your grace.
That is enough for me.

 —The Suspice, St. Ignatius of Loyola

This prayer from St. Ignatius is one of the most difficult prayers to say. I can muster the effort to rattle off the words, half-heartedly and with shallow earnestness, but to pray them from the heart— to say and mean them in their fullest—is very difficult for me. I don’t know if I’ve ever been able to say those words and truly mean them. There is something inside me that tears when I say them, tempting me to rein in the words.

If we scramble to store up things in this world without a firm anchoring to God we begin to ironically lose these things anyways. Our memory can be held captive by regret and denial. Our understanding can become clouded, darkened by the ceaseless motion to grasp at our own notion of happiness. And our liberty and will—the very vehicles that allow for our freedom and autonomy—can become enslaved to anxiety, worry, and fear. We can replace our authentic selves—children loved by God—with a composite of excess possessions and shallow accomplishments. We may only become what we earned, what we were given by others, what the world says we are after a stringent accounting of our “assets.” The whole becomes buried by its parts.

An article in Psychology Today titled “Is the Intense Pressure to Succeed Sabotaging Our Children?” examines the stress placed on children to do well academically. The article serves as a somber warning against the unmitigated pressure placed on many students today to gain admittance to a good college in order to set themselves up for a successful career and life. Tragically, a failure to meet such a lofty goal can sometimes even result in suicide:

 There are so many alternative roads to happiness and fulfillment beyond acquiring wealth and driving a fancy sports car. Why do so many people in our society put a premium on the superficial value of material possessions and status symbols? Everyone knows that friends, family, being healthy, and having a sense of purpose are ultimately the most important things in life and the keys to fulfillment.

This article only highlights stress placed on students in regard to their schooling. Of course, this same mindset that idolizes a harrowing drive toward success spans across all ages and facets of our culture.

Yet Christianity stands athwart the blinded quest to accrue and collect. It speaks instead of returning back to a childlike state of dependence, offering up all we own to a loving Father. It calls for a radically different way of understanding our identity and place in the world.

But how can we expect to give away our liberty, memory, understanding, and will? Aren’t those the very things that constitute our unique being? They are the crux of our identity, the intersecting of those four aspects of our person literally makes us who we are—and give us the capacity to procure a self-directed and happy life. St. Ignatius’ prayer calls to mind the hard-to -swallow words of John the Baptist:

 “[Christ] must increase; I must decrease.”

Some in our culture may be familiar with the phrase—reading it and repeating it with a feathery understanding. However, entering into a state of decrease—a state of relinquishing our freedom, gifts, and very identity—for the sake of God is a monumentally countercultural thing. Of course, the God we proclaim does not exist within a zero sum paradigm. Our loss, for the sake of him, is never truly a loss. It becomes a gain. And as we concede our identity—at least the one we’ve clumsily crafted for ourselves—we learn that he puts the pieces of who we are back together in the right order. We begin to see ourselves as we are: we begin to see we are worthy simply because God says so, emphatically.

The question still remains: Why do many of us struggle to pray and mean the words of The Suspice?

 If we trust that God will reward us a hundredfold, then where is the holdup?

If I’m honest, it’s still a problem of trust. And when I do manage to say the words and mean them, as much as possible, I still struggle to allow God to do with my offering what he wills as opposed to what I will. I can be guilty of assuming that if I give up my understanding, then I’ll receive back my understanding times one hundred in return. It becomes a conditional relinquishing. I’ll do that God, only if you do this.

Of course, maybe he will reward us as we hope, and we can be certain by our faith and understanding of God that he will bless us in some way (as the phrase goes, God will never be outdone in generosity), but the blessing may not come in more understanding. That may only come in the life after this one. Or perhaps, it may come in the form of a deeper faith that doesn’t always question God’s ways—not a blind, irrational faith, but one that accepts the limits of human understanding and the lack of clarity to see what God is really up to.

Although we do not give everything to God and ask for nothing; we still always ask for his love and grace. We find that when we understand what it is we’re asking for, the eternal love of an infinite God and his manifestation in our lives, the exchange is quite unequal—infinitely so. We offer what measly gifts we can to God, measly gifts that we cling onto with furious might at times, in exchange for the whole of God’s being.

St. Ignatius’ prayer remains an invitation to let God bless us even more than he already has. In giving ourselves to him, we allow him to use us as he needs—as his divine instruments, his loving children. It may be in the way we had hoped, or it may come through suffering, but regardless, it will come with tremendous blessings. And as we all know, sooner or later, we all do give up our liberty, understanding, memory, and will at that hour of death. The question then becomes, as Henr i J.M. Nouwen reminds us in his book, The Only Necessary Thing: Living a Prayerful Life, this: When we do lose them and have nothing left to offer to God, will we stand before him with open hands of trust, or clenched fists of fear?

 “Dear God,

 I am so afraid to open my clenched fists!

 Who will I be when I have nothing left to hold on to?

 Who will I be when I stand before you with empty hands?

 Please help me to gradually open my hands

 and to discover that I am not what I own,

 but what you want to give me.

―Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Only Necessary Thing: Living a Prayerful Life

 Chris Hazell is the founder of The Call Collective (http:// thecallcollective.com/stay-updated/), a blog exploring the intersection between faith, culture and creativity. He holds bachelors’ degrees in English and Economics from UCLA and currently works as a Lead Content Strategist for Point Loma Nazarene University.

In light of the proposed pro-choice legislation in Illinois and sweeping pro-choice legislation around the country, we wanted to share with you some resources and events in which your support is encouraged! If you are looking to get more involved in fighting for the unborn, assisting women, and strengthening families, please consider joining us. We will be including more information in the coming weeks on how Cathedral will be working to support the pro-life movement.

Crusaders for Life

Calling all junior high and high school students! Are you an advocate for life? Want to get involved in the joyful message of life and meet new people in the Springfield area? Crusaders for Life are coming to Springfield! Come check it out as this chapter is launching on Feb. 23, at 7:30 p.m. at the Sacred Heart Church Parish Center (730 S. 12th Street in Springfield).

The Crusaders for Life work to educate ourselves on the issue of abortion so that we are better prepared to advance the pro-life cause in our schools, workplaces, and families. By fully understanding what abortion does to the unborn and their mothers and fathers, we are less likely to become numb to the fact that it happens every day by the thousands. With this understanding we try to spread the truth everywhere we go by participating in rallies, marches, protests, and prayer vigils. Through joy and prayer, we hope to re-establish the belief that there is beauty and sacredness in every life, born and unborn, and that each life needs to be cherished and protected.

Life Advocacy

Mark your calendar for Life Advocacy Day at the State Capitol on Wednesday, March 20, 2019, 10:00-1:00. Lunch will be provided. Check future bulletins for further information.

Rosary and Pro-Life Stations of the Cross

Saturday, March 9, 2019 – Rosary and Pro-Life Stations of the Cross, St. Agnes Parish, Springfield, 9:00 am. Come and pray for an end to abortion. For flyer and further information go to the following website: http://www.dio.org/plasm/events.html

Who is next? This question was posed by Father John Jenkins, president of the University of Notre Dame, in a February 8^th statement from him regarding recent pro-abortion legislation in New York State. Father Jenkins writes that New York state legislators passed and its governor signed into law a bill sweeping away protections for unborn — and some born — children. New York law now allows abortions any time up until delivery for vaguely defined reasons of “health,” including social well-being. The legislators removed from law provisions that require the mother’s consent, that allow manslaughter charges against an abortionist who causes the woman’s death during an abortion, that discourage self-induced abortions and — shockingly — that require care for a child born alive during an attempted late-term abortion. The New York law has been described by abortion rights advocates as an ‘inflection point’ that will add momentum for expanded access to abortion in seven other states. We can also add our own state of Illinois to that number since in recent days four Illinois legislators have announced their intention to present legislation in this state similar to that in New York and our governor has stated that he wants Illinois to be “the most progressive state in the nation” when it comes to what he terms as “reproductive rights.”

Since this legislation was signed into law by the governor of New York on January 22, the anniversary of the Roe V. Wade decision, pundits from all aspects of the political spectrum have weighed in as well as others, including theologians and other personalities and so on. This matter was compounded by the remarks of the governor of Virginia who stated that children born alive could be killed in certain circumstances after consultation between doctors and families. In a sea of comments and opinions, let us not lose sight of what God has said on this issue through his holy word: the word of the Lord spoken through the prophet Jeremiah: “before I formed you in the womb I knew you (1:5);” the word of the Lord spoken through the prophet Isaiah: “can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you. See, upon the palms of my hands I have engraved you (49:15-16);” the word of the Lord spoken through the psalmist: “you (Lord) formed my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am wonderfully made (139:13-14).”

Too often, men and women have bought into the lie of “choice” because of the claim that this will make life better for some…that access to abortion is better for society…that it is “merciful.” In the latter half of 2017, several news stories appeared talking about how Down syndrome was vanishing in Iceland and Denmark, not because of any medical advancement, but because of prenatal screening and the use of abortion. The Gospel today warns us about settling only for the things of this world; of thinking that one can find a utopia here and now. It will not work. A truly perfect society can only be achieved by striving after the things of heaven and true perfection is something that our society fails to recognize. Have you ever been blessed to spend time with someone who has Down syndrome or with children with other special needs? Yes, there are lots of labors of love that must be given by those who care for them, but, if you want to see the face of God, if you want to experience his love in a profound and unconditional way, you will see and find it in these children of God. It is a profound tragedy that many in our society cannot see or understand this.

We have seen failed attempts at man-made perfect societies before. This June we will mark the 75^th anniversary of the Normandy invasion, when brave soldiers, airmen, sailors, and marines fought to destroy the evil cast into the world by Hitler’s Germany. Our armed forces saw the full horror of the Nazis when Dachau, Auschwitz-Birkenau and other camps of the like were liberated. We like to assure ourselves that those are events locked in history, that it could never happen here…but it already has and is in abortion clinics around this country, at Planned Parenthood right here in Springfield.

The Nazi quest for a perfect and racially pure society began with the elimination of those who were unwanted, with those for whom others were willing to look the other way, but then it spread. The Protestant pastor Martin Niemoeller, himself a concentration camp survivor, stated in many lectures after the war, and in differing versions: “First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I did not speak out-because I was not a Catholic. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.” If a society, our society, is willing to allow the murder of the most innocent and the most defenseless, what makes any of us believe that a time cannot or will not come when they might come for me or for you because we aren’t useful enough or look the right way or think the right way, or believe the right way. Some of you probably think that I am being extreme…time will tell.

As Catholics we must always stand for the unquestionable truth that human life is sacred and that it must always be defended, especially the life of the unborn who are the most innocent and the most vulnerable among us. Standing for this truth will not always be popular, but this is not about popularity or politics, about parties or agendas or personal philosophies, it is about a divine truth written into the natural law that life is sacred because life is the act and the gift of God. If you find in your personal life that the faith and politics are at odds with each other then, for the good of your salvation, let the faith win out; there is no political platform or agenda that is going to get any of us into heaven. Regrettably, if Catholic politicians who support the evil of abortion find themselves separated from the Church through a denial of Holy Communion or even excommunication because of their own actions then so be it; these are meant to be medicinal remedies to illicit a change in actions or behaviors and the hope is that these remedies do not remain permanent. Some may feel that this is harsh but there is no more sacred human right than the right to life, especially for the unborn, and abortion is a direct violation of that right. Let us pray for all in government, and for ourselves, to embrace the Gospel of Life over a culture of death.

Together we must build a culture of life. The Supreme Court cannot rule for it and the Congress ultimately cannot legislate it. Yes, the government can and must act in ways that will support a culture of life and strengthen it but human dignity and human rights are granted by God alone, not the state. This culture must be built by everyday ordinary people. This is done by recognizing and respecting the God-given dignity in each person, by seeing people for who they are as children of God and therefore our sisters and brothers – not as a means for our own use or pleasure or as an obstacle or burden. Concerning abortion, sometimes new life comes into the world because of horrific evils such as rape or other sins against human dignity, but allowing a second moral evil in the destruction of an innocent human life will not erase the first evil. For us to simply say no to abortion isn’t enough.

We as the Church must say yes to life and put that yes into action. We must make sure that we are giving people avenues and possibilities to make that same yes for life. If you or someone you know is considering abortion and feels there are no other alternatives, please come to me, or one of the Cathedral clergy, or someone on the Cathedral staff and we will find other ways. If at some point you have made the wrong choice concerning abortion or if you have helped someone to make the wrong choice, know that God has not stopped loving you and that you are not beyond his mercy and his forgiveness.

Together, in all that we think, say, and do, we must build a culture of life. In the Book of Deuteronomy, the Lord says to Moses and to the people “I call heaven and earth today to witness against you: I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live, by loving the LORD, your God, obeying his voice, and holding fast to him (30:19).”