Thursday (Nativity of the BVM)


  • Slightly earlier-than-usual departure; Morning Prayer on the road (no worries, memorized short form).
  • After a cameo appearance at the office, I had tires on the asphalt for Mattoon, in the east central part of the diocese, a little beyond 90 minutes from Springfield. Had an 11am scheduled rendezvous with Fr Ken Truelove, priest-in-charge of Trinity Church there, as part of my project of spending time with parish clergy on their own turf, if possible, apart from my regular scheduled Sunday visitation.
  • Mattoon, sadly, is a little shopworn, having lost a ton of manufacturing jobs since its heyday in the 1950s. Even though I-57 was routed past Mattoon, nearly Charleston (10 miles to the east) has fared better and passed Mattoon in population, owing principally to the presence there of Eastern Illinois University. Fr Truelove drove me around both communities, and we had a nice lunch at a place called What's Cookin' in Charleston.
  • Rolled back into Springfield just before 4:30, so I stopped by the office, and even managed to be productive: Chose hymns for the Synod Mass, roughed out the broad strokes of my homily for the Walsingham pilgrimage in Danville, and returned a phone call concerning one of the clergy pastoral situations about which I wrote yesterday.
  • Evening Prayer in the cathedral.

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