Beloved Happenings - 2025

Fall Retreat - Nov. 15

Our topics for the day are:

Called to be disciples of hope and Christ’ Love.
- Where is God in all the chaos?
- Transforming fear into love.
- New life emerging out of our vulnerability.

This Month's Events

Mass

Sunday @ 11am

2nd Saturday @ 5pm

Advent Book Study Wednesdays at 6:30 PM Cherished Belonging by Fr. Greg Boyle

Contemplative Prayer Thursdays at 6:30 PM

UP Pride Parade

We joined Uniting Pride and the rest of Champaign-Urbana for the Pride Parade and Festival on Saturday, Oct 25th. It was an amazing event, filled with love spread from the marchers to the crowd and back to the marchers! We are always so excited to see how you deck yourselves out to see how we have decked ourselves out. This year the theme for our float was "Linked in Love" and boy did we feel the love! We won "Best Marching Group" and gathered over 200 links for our Chain of Love and Unity at our booth. Thanks again to everyone who waved, cheered, or stopped by to say hello and make a link!

Contemplative Prayer

We began gathering in June to sit in silence with each other for contemplative prayer. Since for many of us, this is a new practice, we have been doing a short opening sit of 5 minutes followed by a discussion of the elements of centering prayer and then closing with a 10-minute sit. As we get more comfortable with the practice, we will increase to 20 minutes.

New people to contemplative prayer are always welcome, as none of us are ever masters of this form of prayer.

Urbana Farmer's Market

We went out of a chilly May morning to meet with members of our community at our farmer's market. We saw locals who we knew, meet new people in town, and in general had a great time visiting with everyone who stopped by to say "Hi". See you all next month!

Palm Sunday

On Palm Sunday, we gathered for the traditional Palm Sunday readings done in a less traditional setting. We interspersed images, foot washing, Eucharist, and a version of the stations of the cross as they appeared in the readings. It was powerful.

Micropantry

This Lent we opened a micropantry for our neighbors. We have already had to fill it several times (including several times in one week near the end of April), so we know that it has been found by those in need. Many thanks to our community members for helping to keep it stocked!

Lenten Study

During Lent, we read "The Mystics Would Like a Word" by Shannon K Evens. This book covered modern topics through a lens of the teachings of 6 women mystics - Teresa of Avila, Margery Kempe, Hildegard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich, Catherine of Siena, and Therese of Lisieux. We read two chapters each week and had in-depth conversations on the topics and the mystic on each Wednesday of Lent.

Maryknoll Informational Meeting

We gathered in February to hear from member Susan Nagele about the Maryknoll Lay Missioners and to discuss how we might be able to assist in their much-needed work in promoting nonviolence.

As the new year began, we settled in to our regular masses on Sunday, along with our Second Saturday evening mass. Crowds are beginning to increase, with most seats being filled on Sunday, along with as many as a dozen people on Zoom. It's amazing that we have only been in this space for a year and have really made it feel like our home.

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