March 6, 2022 – Parish Retreat! – Franciscans of the Eucharist

During my journey as a seminarian, I actually left the seminary in 2014, during my second theology year at Mundelein.  This led me to go and discern if I was called to the life of a Franciscan Friar.  So in September of 2014, I joined and lived with a group of Franciscans for about five months.  The group is called “The Franciscans of the Eucharist of Chicago.”  They are a fairly new order of Franciscans that started in 2010.  They live and serve in West Humboldt Park, a poor inner-city neighborhood of Chicago.  They fixed up an old church that is now their mission center called, “Our Lady of the Angels.”

Obviously, I discerned that God was not calling me to the Franciscan life but to live as a parish priest.  However, I have continued to remain friends with this Franciscan community. Thus I have asked them to come and give a Lenten “Parish Mission/Retreat.”  Two of the sisters, Sr. Stephanie Baliga and Sr. Jess Lambert will be coming the weekend of March 12-13 to speak in our parishes.

They will give the same “Retreat Talk” at each parish.  They will also give a little spiel at a few of the Masses, and also will speak on Sunday evening, at 7:00 pm at the youth group in Hampton (and we are encouraging other youth to attend).

The schedule for that will be as follows.

Sat. March 12, 2022

St. Mark’s, Iowa Falls

•   3:30 – Franciscans give “retreat talks” at St. Mark’s in Iowa Falls*
• 5:00 pm – Mass at St. Mark’s, Iowa Falls – Sisters will give a short reflection at end of Mass (esp. talking about work of Mission)

St. Mary’s, Eldora

• 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm – Franciscans give “retreat talks” at St. Mary’s in Eldora*
  

Sunday, March 13, 2022

St. Mary’s Ackley

• 8:00 am – Mass at St. Mary’s, Ackley – Sisters give a short reflection at end of Mass (esp. talking about work of Mission)

St. Patrick’s Hampton

• 10:30 am – Mass at St. Patrick’s in Hampton – Sisters give a short reflection at end of Mass (esp. talking about work of Mission)
• 11:45 am – 1:15 pm – Franciscans give “retreat talks” at St. Patrick’s Hampton* (Lunch provided)

St. Mary’s Ackley

• 3:00 pm–4:30 pm Franciscans give “retreat talks” at St. Mary’s in Ackley*

Youth Group St. Patrick’s Hampton (Other Youth Groups welcome)

• 7:00 pm – Sr. Stephanie and Sr. Jess go to St. Patrick’s youth group to hang out with them, talk about their vocations, etc.

* I strongly encourage you to try and make it work to attend one of these retreat talks!

Peace,

-Fr. Kevin