“CathedralGLOW” to offer up-close look at renovation

It’s going to be very powerful. It’s going to be a very prayerful time.”

Maureen Quinn, diocesan director of Religious Education, Youth and Young Adult Ministry

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People who visit the Cathedral of St. Joseph the night before its rededication are in for an up-close, personal and intensely prayerful experience.

They’ll be able to explore the building and examine such items as the new altar, ambo and tabernacle in ways that would otherwise be inappropriate once the building is officially consigned to sacred purposes.

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to wander and pray in the Cathedral, to step into the sanctuary and areas that you typically do not go, and see it all up-close,” said Maureen Quinn, diocesan director of Religious Education, Youth and Young Adult Ministry.

The event, known as the CathedralGLOW, will be held from 5:15 to 8 p.m. on Thursday, May 4, 2023.

People of all ages, especially children, young adults and families, are encouraged to attend.

It will begin with a barbecue at 5:15 p.m. in the pavilion at Memorial Park, across Main Street from the Cathedral. After dinner, participants will proceed to the Cathedral for prayer, exploration and illumination.

“Many times,” said Mrs. Quinn, “we go into holy places with beautiful imagery, but we don’t know why or what we’re supposed to be gaining from all of it. This night will help us find purpose in this whole place.”

The music and message will be geared toward young people, but participants of all ages are welcome.

The focus will be on the communion that Catholics experience as one body, symbolized by one Cathedral that belongs to everybody.

“It’s a place where everyone can find refuge,” said Mrs. Quinn. 

Dramatic effects from the Cathedral’s new lighting system will guide participants to places throughout the building for prayer and teaching.

Kevin Myers, director of worship for the St. Thomas More Newman Center Parish in Columbia, will direct a small choir from Fulton, Sedalia and Marshall, which will lead the singing in English and Spanish.

The choir will also include Shannon Cerneka, youth minister, music teacher and campus minister at St. Peter Parish in Fulton, and half of the popular Catholic evangelization duo known as OddWalk.

The people will explore the baptistery and baptismal font, hear the story of Venerable Father Augustus Tolton, and reflect on the Sacrament of Baptism.

The participants will pray together there and renew their baptismal promises.

At the new shrine devoted to the Sacred Heart, the group will pray a decade of the Divine Mercy Chaplet and hear a testimony of God’s endless love.

From there, they will move to the Our Lady of Guadalupe shrine, to hear Emma Crippen, a FOCUS missionary on the campus of the University of Missouri, share her testimony on evangelization, followed by the choir singing a hymn in Spanish in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

The group will hear and think about Psalm 84, which includes the phrases, “How lovely your dwelling, O Lord of hosts!” and “Better one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere.”

The choir will chant the psalm and lead the singing of a related praise and worship song called “Better As One Day.”

“It will be really beautiful to emphasize that the Church is a prefiguring of the heavenly banquet, and that it is constantly moving all of us toward heaven, where we’re called to spend eternity,” said Mrs. Quinn.

Near the sanctuary, the participants will hear a reading from the Book of Acts, including how the people of the early Church “devoted themselves to the teaching of the Apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of the bread and to the prayers” (2:42).

That verse is rendered on large letters on the tensile ring that surrounds the inside of the Cathedral.

The group will then seek the prayerful intercession of the saints whose relics will be placed in the new altar during the Rededication Mass.

Father Paul Clark — diocesan vocation director; director of seminarians; chaplain at Helias Catholic High School; and moderator of youth and young adult ministry — will then explain the significance of the altar, ambo, tabernacle and other essential items in the sanctuary.

The group then will be invited to come forward and “wander, contemplate and experience this prayerful space,” contemplating on the parts of the Cathedral that help them feel closest to God.

Prayer leaders will be available in each location to pray for or with each person.

The evening will close with the lights being turned off and the people processing out of the Cathedral by candlelight.

“It’s going to be very powerful,” said Mrs. Quinn. “It’s going to be a very prayerful time.”

Other ways to participate

The people of the diocese are invited to tune in to a livestream of the Vespers Service in the Cathedral the evening of May 4, and the Rite of Rededication the morning of Friday, May 5.

The livestream links will be posted at diojeffcity.org and on the diocesan social media outlets.

Also, everyone is invited to come experience the newly renovated Cathedral during an open house planned for Sunday, May 7 from 1 to 4 p.m.

Closer to the banquet

Advance registration for the CathedralGLOW, although requested to ensure that enough food is prepared, is not required. Participants are asked to park in the Memorial Park parking lot.

Mrs. Quinn believes taking part in this event will stir in people’s hearts a desire to claim the Cathedral as their common spiritual home and return frequently.

“There’s some real excitement building about this,” she said. “Because you’ll actually get to see it. You’ll get to experience this holy place.”

She noted that many people talk about how they can pray anywhere, so they don’t need to spend time in church.

“But there’s something significant about these holy places that we come to pray in, especially communally, and how it brings us more intentionally closer to the heavenly banquet,” she said.

Mrs. Quinn emphasized the unprecedented opportunities this event will bring to explore what’s destined to become a pilgrimage destination for generations to come.

“This is truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” she stated. “It will not happen again.”