Editor’s note: Dozens of photos from this celebration may be viewed and, if desired, purchased by clicking on the camera icon in the left margin of this page. Photos have also been posted on our Facebook page.

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URBANA — In a memorable evening billed as a “Heart-to-Heart” between Bishop Daniel R. Jenky, CSC, and Catholics of the Champaign vicariate, the operative word was “love.”

Bishop Jenky used the word nearly 100 times in an extended homily June 6 that included a very personal reflection on his own faith life and continuing conversion.

And the hundreds of area Catholics, representing 18 parishes, who came to the Krannert Center at the University of Illinois on Monday night demonstrated their love for Christ, the church, and their bishop through their presence and enthusiastic participation in the third annual “Catholic Connected: Beyond the Pew” event.

“Jesus is asking you as he is asking me, ‘Do you love me?'” said Bishop Jenky at a Mass concelebrated by nine priests of the region and featuring music by a nearly 60-voice combined choir from area parishes. He called putting love first in our lives “the Christian formula for happiness.”

Asked his “hopes and dreams” for the Diocese of Peoria, the bishop said they would include that “all of us who believe in Jesus make God present and visible by living lives of steadfast love sustained in the awesome power of Jesus’ resurrection.”

And Bishop Jenky ended his homily — which included a reflection on the Gospel of John — by challenging those at the evening’s “banquet of love” to “for the very first time or the millionth time, surrender to God’s love, be consoled and nourished, challenged and changed by the loving heart of Christ.”

BISHOP GETS PERSONAL
In thanking Bishop Jenky for his support and presence, Father Joseph Hogan — pastor of St. Patrick’s Parish in Urbana and St. Mary’s in Champaign, and a member of the Catholic Connected planning team — said in remarks at the end of Mass that they may have just witnessed “the longest homily of the bishop’s life.”

The spontaneous applause from the assembly indicated their view that it may also have been among his best.

It was certainly among his most personal.

Responding to a request from the planning committee, the bishop shared his own story of faith, from watching his father kneel each night saying prayers in Polish to his experiences as a city boy on the working farm of the Holy Cross novitiate in Vermont as he tested his vocation.

“We were encouraged to hunger for the experience of God, and to seek personal union with God,” Bishop Jenky recalled.

He told of a specific January evening during his novitiate when — as he prayed late at night on the top bunk of his dormitory room and contemplated his future — he “suddenly, powerfully, unexpectedly felt the rush of God’s love.”

“For the very first time in my life, in a moment of unmerited grace, I simply said ‘yes’ to God, without any holding back or without any qualification,” said Bishop Jenky.

“Despite my great personal confusion, my sins and my many weaknesses, I knew that the endlessly good God loved me,” he continued. “And God’s love meant everything, and everything else only had meaning because of God’s love.”

Bishop Jenky acknowledged that through the years he has sometimes, like Peter in the Gospel story, denied Christ through a lack of faith, hope, and love. But, like Peter, he has been graced to again embrace his vocation “and continue steps of conversion.”

“Knowing God’s perfect love frees us from imposing divine expectations upon imperfect spouses, parents and children, brothers and sisters, friends and fellow believers, jobs, professions, and possessions — even our parishes and our various communities,” said Bishop Jenky.

“A GREAT SPIRIT HERE TONIGHT”
It was the first time that Jim Rose of St. Boniface Parish in Seymour had heard the bishop preach, and he was impressed. “It’s wonderful to have the bishop come down,” agreed his wife, Leslie.

Mary Long, a member of St. Patrick’s Parish in Urbana and the Catholic Connected planning team, said it was “wonderful” and “touching” how the bishop shared his personal conversion story.

“I found there to be a great spirit here tonight,” she told The Catholic Post. Adding to that spirit was the choir, directed by Heath Morber and Laura Theby and featuring instrumentalists Chris Holman (piano), Rob Hopkins (violin), Robin Thomas (trumpet), Matthew Kole (flute) and Maureen Reagan as cantor.

“It’s terrific that people take time to put an evening like this together and then attend,” said Reagan.

Young people from area parishes served as lectors and servers, and the opening procession through the theater seating was led by an honor guard of Knights of Columbus members in full regalia. Banners from many of the representative parishes hung from the balcony rails.

Msgr. Albert Hallin, vicar of the Champaign vicariate and pastor of St. Boniface, Seymour, and St. Joseph’s, Ivesdale, welcomed the assembly. He called celebrating the Eucharist with the bishop an opportunity to “celebrate and reinforce our Catholic identity,” and said the experience “thrills our hearts and raises our souls.”

And as those attending lingered following Mass at a reception, it was evident that the prayer voiced during the liturgy for a “strengthening of our fellowship so we may be an ever clearer sign of Christ’s body in our world” was already being answered.

“Catholic Connected: Beyond the Pew” was supported by a grant from the Diocese of Peoria’s Sheen Endowment Fund. Sponsors included Provena Covenant Medical Center, C & A Inspirations, and the Knights of Columbus.

Also serving on the planning team were Katie Dorsey, Janet O’Brien, Jo Church, Gary Scaff, Stephen and Becky Reinhart, Joseph and Rosemarie Marlatt, Christy Shurter, Kathy Smith, Cindy Magsamen, Joy Pace, Dennis Menke, Shawn Reeves, Ken Crawford, and Janet Brown.