Fr. Dennis Spies Print E-mail

Fr. Dennis Spies giving a rousing homily at mass
Fr. Dennis Spies' enthusiasm for our faith as shown during one of his homilies.
 

Greetings to you! Thank you for your warm welcome to this parish. I have experienced a lavishing of welcome. I would like you to know that everyone tells me I am going to "love it here."

My point for mentioning this is to say; this is your way of saying that you love it here. The fact that you love it here is strong testimony to the reality of St. Mary's already being an enthusiastic loving community. This goal is one that St. Paul refers to as a goal of Christianity.

To introduce myself to you, I was raised in Ashkum. To clarify - I grew up on a farm three miles outside of the town of 500 people. Ashkum is well on its way of becoming the next Plainfield, it is up to 750 people already.

I have four sisters and they each have one brother, I was born the fourth of five. I made it through our public school system, wrestled for four years, played football for two years, played tuba in the marching band all four years and was active in theatre three years. My dream was to farm my fathers ground and run his seed company when I "grew up."

Southern Illinois University is where I spent four years of college. My degree from there is a BS in Ag-Business Economics, which is financial management in the college of Agriculture. My primary extracurricular activity throughout college was student leadership and I marched in the college band for two years. The treasure there was marching half-time at Soldier field and Bush Stadium both years.

The Lord was kind enough to let my dream come true. After college I was able to farm my fathers land and run his seed company. Seven years later I entered school to become a priest. Of course, this decision was not easy. God patiently hit me with the "Be A Priest" stick until it finally broke over my head and went into my heart. There were several years of my responding to God with the famous "no way" spoken with conviction prior to my becoming willing to leave the farm.

I must say the priest thing has been incredible so far. I had rather high expectations of what the priesthood was going to be like and the reality has been far greater! Please know that I consider it a privilege and an honor to be here with you and to serve you as your parish priest. Being in a position to serve the Community of Saints has been a dream even beyond any dream I ever had. I look forward to meeting you.

Lots of the Lords love,

Fr. Dennis Spies
 
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