A night to be remembered

With only four weeks remaining in my present assignment as the Parochial Vicar of St. Anthony of Padua parish here in Effingham, the time has come to begin saying my farewells.

This evening the mission parish attached to St. Anthony's will host a dinner and reception in my honor. The parishioners there wanted to hold it on a day convenient for me and for them, and early enough so as not to interfere with celebrations here or with my packing and moving. They really are a very thoughtful lot.

Though I have never enjoyed any canonical attachment to the parishioners of Annunciation Parish in Shumway, I have very much enjoyed ministering among them these past four years. I will miss them.

This evening will be somewhat strange, because even as I will, using the words of Bilbo Baggins, bid them all a very fond farewell, I will still be with them for two more weekends.

I do think it best this way, though, because such a celebration (?) will afford more time to visit with individual parishioners. After Masses there simply isn't time - or space, really - to visit one on one with parishioners beyond a simple - even if heartfelt - greeting.

The next four weeks I expect to be a bit of a blurr and a whirl of emotions.

Pictures from the Vigil

I thought I might share with you a few pictures taken during the celebration of Baptism last night.

"We ask you, Father, with your Son, to send the Holy Spirit upon the waters of this font."

"I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."

"When the Lord comes, may you go out to meet him with all the saints in the heavenly kingdom."

"Give her the Spirit..."

"Be sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit."

On the Vigil

Each year I look forward to the great Vigil of Easter, the mother of all holy vigils (as St. Augustine famously put it). This year was no different, particularly because I would Baptize Sandy (pictured at left) at our mission parish, Annunciation (most often called St. Mary's), in Shumway, Illinois.

Holy Saturday itself is a quiet day for priests, but there is much to be done. Most of the work is mental and spiritual preparation and so a priest is busy about holy things (much more so than usual).

I went to the church early yesterday morning to begin setting a few things up in quiet, only to be met a few moments later by a few parishioners who had the same idea (that's part of why I love it out there; the people realize what needs to be done and simply do it).

It took a little more than an hour to put everything in order for the evening's celebrations, including the decorating of the altar, preparing the paschal candle, polishing a few items of brass, arranging various items at the font, etc. It seemed strange that it took so little time and I left wondering what I had forgotten (as it turned out, nothing, I'm happy to say).

When the servers arrived that evening they were rather lively and rambunctious, which isn't very common for servers at the mission parish. I took this to be a sign of Easter joy and I welcomed it.

This may be attributed in part because I told them that around the fire and around the font things might be a bit "chaotic" because there wasn't a great deal of room in which to work and you could never quite be sure where people would be. But, I said, this was part of the glorious festivity of the day.

All went well for the Vigil and I was struck by the simplicity of the rite of Baptism once we arrived at the font. What from all external appearances could not be simpler confers something that is both simple and great: eternal life.

A blessed Easter to each of you!

Bible study resumes

This evening I went to our mission parish to resume my Bible studies that are quite popular there. I was hoping to wait until after the harvest, but the farmers aren't quite sure when that will be; some of them may be out already, and others might not be out for a while. Tonight we had 20-25 people present (out of 250).

This being the Year of Saint Paul I knew that I wanted to focus on Saint Paul for a bit. I wasn't quite sure, though, how I wanted to go about it, until I found a book by Fr. Mitch Pacwa, S.J.: Saint Paul: A Bible Study for Catholics.

In this book written for this Jubilee Year, Fr. Pacwa examines Saint Paul's teachings on the Sacraments, with the exception of the Anointing of the Sacrament (the Apostle doesn't have much to say about it).

After a quick perusal of the book I decided it would be perfect to help prepare six Bible studies going through Saint Paul's teaching on the Sacraments. This would serve the double purpuse of focusing on the Apostle during his year and of reflecting more on the Sacraments. I think it went well this first night.

Those who came kindly gave pemission to record my presentation on my new digital voice recorder. The quality is good, but now I have to find a way to get it from the recorder onto my computer. I apparently don't yet have all of the necessary cables. I'll try to remedy that in the morning.

If I can figure out how to do it, I will post this evening's Bible study as a podcast.

Holy Week Schedule

St. Anthony of Padua Parish

Effingham, Illinois

Holy Thursday

Confessions, 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.

Mass of the Lord's Supper, 7:00 p.m.

Good Friday

Confessions, 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.

The Lord's Passion, 1:00 p.m.

Holy Saturday

Confessions, 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.

Vigil in the Holy Night of Easter, 8:00 p.m.

Easter Sunday

Mass, 7:30 a.m., 9:15 a.m. & 11:00 a.m.

Annunication Parish (St. Mary's)

Shumway, Illinois

Holy Thursday

Mass of the Lord's Supper, 7:00 p.m.

Good Friday

The Lord's Passion, 7:00 p.m.

Holy Saturday

Vigil in the Holy Night of Easter, 8:30 p.m.

Easter Sunday

Mass, 8:30 a.m.

The joys of a country parish

This evening as I was walking into the church after greeting people after Mass at the parish of which I hope to become pastor, I saw something quite beautiful.

A family was at the foot of the sanctuary with a little boy who, I'm guessing, was two or three years old.

Dad told the boy to say goodbye to Jesus and he said, "Bye, Jesus!" Then, as they were crossing in front of the pews about to exit the church, the little boy waved his hand to the tabernacle and said, "Bye, Jesus!"

Why wouldn't I want to be pastor here?

Shumway Parish to Host Bible Study

Annunciation Parish in Shumway, Illinois will host a Bible study led by the Rev. Daren J. Zehnle, Parochial Vicar of St. Anthony of Padua Parish in Effingham, Illinois.

The Bible study will be held from 7:00 – 8:00 p.m. in the church basement on the following Tuesdays: July 24th, August 14th, August 28th, September 11th, October 2nd, October 9th and October 23rd. Additional dates will be added later in the Fall.

The Bible study is free to all who attend and attendance is not required at all of the meetings; participants are free to come and go as they may.

During the course of the Bible study the passages from the Scriptures proclaimed during the Sunday Masses will be explored, as well as other topics of interest to the group. The topic of angels will be discussed on October 2nd, the Memorial of the Guardian Angels on the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar.