Editor's note: For 20 years, Catholics in the Decatur area, hospital colleagues and volunteers have participated in perpetual adoration at HSHS St. Mary's Hospital chapel.The hospital hosted a celebration March 3 with Bishop Thomas John Paprocki, colleagues and the adorers to recognize the anniversary. Volunteer co-chair and Our Lady of Lourdes parishioner Mary Comerford was instrumental in obtaining the memories and reflections below.
Truly the Lord was present in our midst, just as he promised, when on Ash Wednesday, March 1, 1995, we began perpetual adoration in the chapel at St. Mary's Hospital. This momentous time in the life of the church in Decatur, and the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois began on that day when Jesus' love and mercy poured into our hearts. We felt that day, the beginning of the great season of Lent that we would burst with joy as we prayed with praise and thanksgiving for this great gift. The chapel was filled to capacity with priests, Hospital Sisters of St. Francis, staff of St. Mary's Hospital and parishioners from all over the city for the prayer service which inaugurated the perpetual exposition of the sacrament. A small prayer group prayed for seven years for this day, and now it was finally realized. Not too many years after, newly-appointed Bishop George Lucas would write in his Catholic Times column that when he visited the chapel to make a visit, he "found something wonderful there." He continued to encourage eucharistic devotion here and throughout the Springfield diocese during the years of his episcopal ministry.
It began in October 1987 when Dr. Del Hahn and his wife Peggy took one of the first groups of pilgrims from the Decatur area on a trip to Medjugorie, Yugoslavia. Father Carl Kemme, then parochial vicar of St. Patrick's Church in Decatur, accompanied us. The result of this time of prayer and sacred encounters with the Lord, and the devotion to his mother in the prayer and rosary during this trip, was the formation of prayer groups beginning in l988. We would meet in St. Patrick's Church every Monday evening to pray the rosary. At that time, Pope John Paul II was promoting perpetual eucharistic adoration for every parish, so we prayed for this intention for the city of Decatur and the diocese. It is important to note here that Pope Francis has continued to follow this practice of now St. John Paul II in calling for eucharistic adoration.
Members of the prayer group who later became captains for adoration were Dr. Del and Peggy Hahn, Joe and Myra Sepich, Jim and Colleen Keyes, Fred and Mary Jo Vahlkamp, Chuck and Lorraine Schollmeier and Tom Michel. After several meetings with Hahn, Bishop Daniel Ryan approved with the stipulation that we had to have a local priest as our chaplain so Hahn asked Mary Comerford to ask Father Kevin Vann if he would be the chaplain. As dean at that time, he had several meetings with the local priests to explain the importance of using the hospital chapel for eucharistic adoration. It should be noted here that at that time there was not a regularly scheduled Mass in the chapel, and it was little used. Now there is constant life and prayer in the chapel, regular Mass and the hospital now has a priest chaplain as well.
Father Vann agreed to become our chaplain if Jim and Mary Comerford and Ken and Joan Struttmann would be involved. This group, with Father Vann as chaplain, received permission from the administration of St. Mary's Hospital and the sponsoring religious community, the Hospital Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis, to begin eucharistic adoration in the chapel. The environment and set-up were made for this. It must be remembered and acknowledged here of the important role that Sister Mary Ann Falbe, OSF, played in this effort. She was then assistant administrator of St. Mary's Hospital.
Since all Decatur parishes were to be participating, many meetings were held among the city's five parishes and several outlying rural parishes to plan how to implement this task. It was decided to divide the responsibilities between seven captains for each 24 hours. After one year Hahn and his wife felt called to move to Alabama. Jim and Mary Comerford agreed to become the chairmen.
Some of the fruits of perpetual adoration were having the late Dr. Imanuela Joseph and Kevin Kast accept positions in the administration and staff of St. Mary's. Both made their decision to come based on the fact that we had perpetual adoration. Under Kast's leadership the hospital expansion took place. He began the yearly Corpus Christi procession to Central Park with the Blessed Sacrament sponsored by St. Mary's. We also have a Catholic radio station WDCR with studio on the campus of St. Mary's.
Kast was responsible for getting Father Nick Husain to come to St. Mary's as the director of Spiritual Care and Mission Integration. He is in charge of the chapel ministry saying Masses on Tuesdays and Thursdays and the first and third Sundays of the month. He also coordinates and assists with the perpetual adoration team. Now the adorers are an integral part of the prayer ministry, praying for the patients and staff at the hospital.
Our first two chaplains have moved on to higher positions in the church. Father Kevin Vann is Bishop of Orange County in California and Father Carl Kemme is Bishop of Wichita, Kan. Father Rick Weltin is our present chaplain. Our present captains are: Sunday, Erma Rubenacker; Monday, Mary Comerford and Niki Alley; Tuesday, Don Weaver and Janet Walters; Wednesday, Jim and Colleen Keyes; Thursday, Jeanne Letner; Friday, Lorraine Howard, and Saturday, Mary Jo Vahlkamp. Three former captains are deceased: Chuck Schollmeier, Joe Sepich and Kathleen Reedy.
We could not have this great blessing without all of our dedicated people who take part in adoration, keeping their weekly holy hours year after year and the Hospital
Sisters of St. Francis who so graciously agreed to let us use the chapel. This story would not be complete without expressing our gratitude to God for giving us this wonderful gift of Jesus himself, the Splendor of Heaven. We pray that he will continue to bless us with perpetual adoration for many years to come.
It is a great gift and entirely appropriate that, under God's providential care, great devotion to our eucharistic Lord was established at this hospital, since St. Francis himself had a great devotion to the Eucharist! For all of this we give glory to the "Most High God" as St. Francis would say, and thank the Mother of God, the new "Ark of the Covenant" for her care and love.