MT. STERLING — Father Thomas Henseler knew he was going to be busy the last few weeks before his retirement on July 1 as parochial administrator of Holy Family Parish, in Mt. Sterling, where he has served since 1993, and as parochial administrator of St. Thomas Parish, Camp Point, where he has served since 2007.

Like his father before him, Father Henseler is an avid collector of a variety of items — antiques, cars, pottery, religious items and much more.

In his 19-plus years in Mt. Sterling, he filled the two-story Holy Family rectory with furniture and other items from his collection. A fiddleback vestment, worn by priests prior to Vatican II, was one of the items that hung on display in the rectory parlor.

But now, preparing to retire to an apartment in Peoria, Father Henseler arranged for a public auction to sell much of his diverse private collection. It was held June 30, in the St. Mary school gym. What Father Henseler had not anticipated when preparing for the auction was he would have five funerals within nine days, the last of which was his youngest brother's in Rhode Island.

Father Henseler grew up in Canton in a family with nine children. He was ordained a priest in 1963 by Bishop John Franz at the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception in Peoria. His first assignment was as an assistant at St. Patrick Parish in Peoria, the same parish where Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen had served as an assistant in 1926. "But he was there only six months, and then they sent him on to a school in Belgium to study," said Father Henseler.

In 1968, when Father Henseler was an assistant at St. Patrick and the parish was having a celebration, "I invited Archbishop Sheen to come back for it, and he did! He stayed with us in the rectory for three days, and he gave me his beretta. I gave it to the Peoria Museum."

From St. Patrick, Father Henseler went to San Diego to serve as a chaplain for the U.S. Navy. "It was right when Vietnam was starting to wind down," said Father Henseler. "If ever someone needed support, those poor soldiers did."

His first back home assignment was pastor at Visitation Parish in Kewanee and then he went to St. Thomas Parish in Peoria Heights as pastor, where he served for 19 years.

The Cursillo movement arrived in Peoria in the 1960s, but in the 1970s it was experiencing some problems, and Bishop Franz appointed Father Henseler its spiritual director with the mandate, "Change it or it will cease," according to a historical account of the Cursillo movement in Peoria.

Under Father Henseler's leadership, the movement returned to the original tenets and structure of Cursillo and the problems were resolved.

Father Henseler was appointed the first director of permanent deacons in Peoria, "and at that time 85 percent of the permanent deacons had made the Cursillo," Father Henseler said. He served as the permanent diaconate program director from 1976 to 1991 and was head of the Peoria Cursillo program from 1974 to 1992.

In 1993, Springfield Bishop Daniel L. Ryan incardinated Father Henseler in the Springfield diocese, with the mandate to start Cursillo in the diocese.

In 1994 he brought the Cursillo movement to Quincy, and the very first weekend he was spiritual director. He has served as spiritual director of the Quincy Cursillo movement since 2003, and has served as weekend spiritual director at least 14 times.

Father Henseler had major involvement in transplanting Cursillo to Switzerland in 1983 and in developing from scratch the Walk to Emmaus program, the Protestant version of the Cursillo, according to a historical account of Cursillo in the Peoria diocese. "Cursillo is very much ecumenical," Father Henseler said.

Since 1996, Father Henseler has made annual trips to Hong Kong to assist in Walk to Emmaus weekends there.

A few days after the sale, Father Henseler was back at the rectory in Mt. Sterling, sorting through some of the boxes left in the rectory.

"I will remember the relationships I've had in the Springfield diocese, the warmth of the community here, and the reception from priests of the Springfield diocese,' he said.