ENCOUNTER
Turn to Jesus. Open your Heart to Him. Experience the peace he can bring.
“Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, ‘Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?’ They came out of the town and made their way toward him.”
– John 4: 28-30
Pastoral Ministry Days 2023
March 5-7, 2023 | Terra Sancta Retreat Center
Fr. Luke Spannagel
Diocese of Peoria | National Eucharistic Preacher
Father Spannagel grew up in Pesotum, where he and his family lived in the former rectory of St. Mary Church. “I can tease that I’ve spent more years in rectories than not,” he said.
His father, John, attended to the buildings and Father Spannagel mowed the grass around the church and the cemetery. He said he’s sure that being able to go into the church anytime he wanted played a role in his vocation.
He attended the University of Illinois and received a bachelor’s degree in landscape architecture in 1998. He went on to Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland, where he earned a master of divinity and a master of arts in sacred theology.
He was ordained on May 24, 2003, at St. Mary’s Cathedral by Bishop Daniel R. Jenky, CSC.
In addition to ministering as chaplain at St. John’s Catholic Newman Center at the University of Illinois and St. Francis of Assisi Newman Center at Western Illinois University in Macomb, Father Spannagel has served as parochial vicar, administrator or pastor of faith communities in Hancock County, Raritan, Bloomington and Downs, and Urbana, and was pastor of his Rock Island parishes for three years.
