St. Patrick's in Tolono

I'm giving a parish mission this week at St. Patrick Church in Tolono, IL. Fr. John Cyr was kind enough to record my Sunday homily and to post it on their web site. They also have a Facebook page with some photos from the mission including this one.

When I travel to different parts of the country for parish missions, I like to spread the message of the Apostleship of Prayer wherever I can. Yesterday morning after visiting a few shut-ins, Fr. Cyr was kind enough to take me to St. John's Newman Center at the University of Illinois where I met some of the staff and left some of our materials. According to a Wikipedia article, this Newman Center is the largest in the United States. They even have a residence hall for 600 students and while we had lunch there I had the opportunity to meet with Msgr. Gregory Ketcham, the director, as well as some of the FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students) missionaries who work there. In fact I had a "small world" experience as one of the young FOCUS missionaries turned out to be friends with some good friends of mine, Pat and Fran Coy, a deacon couple from Hill City, South Dakota. Today I'll be helping to celebrate the sacrament of reconciliation with students from St. Thomas More High School of Champaign who are on retreat.

After being around the home office in Milwaukee for most of August, it's nice to be on the road again and experiencing how the Lord is at work in different parts of the country.