Saints in the Making — By NATHAN FRANKART

Peace of Christ to you! As is usually the case for my summers, I have been traveling! Most recently, I got a rare opportunity to travel to the Diocese of Wichita for a very special event — a pilgrimage to Pilsen, Kan.

Pilsen is, in every sense of the word, small. It has no lights, stop signs, school or corner store. The only structures are houses and the church. It’s not even incorporated! So what does Pilsen have that would inspire me to take a 14-hour road trip and endure a 60-mile walking pilgrimage to it from Wichita? It very well may be the birth town of a saint someday.

Servant of God Fr. Emil Kapaun, an Army Chaplain who died in a POW camp during the Korean War, has become a symbol and inspiration to the Catholics of Wichita. His dedication to serving the men entrusted to him in the camp transformed the hearts and minds of the soldiers whom he served. Eventually, the stories from the POWs led to the opening of his cause for sainthood in 1993. After being introduced to Fr. Kapaun by my spiritual director, I found what I believed to be a spiritual friend in his witness and story. I knew that I had to see his tomb, located in the cathedral for the Diocese of Wichita, and his home church, located in Pilsen. Together, myself and 300 other people from 25 different states walked across Kansas roads enduring heat, humidity and storms, praying that Servant of God Emil Kapaun may intercede for our intentions, and for the furthering of his cause to sainthood.

Fr. Kapaun, like Pilsen, was not extraordinary in appearance. His life was not marked by miracles or conversion, but rather has been exemplified through his heroic witness to Christ and his love in the prison camps. We may not be placed in extraordinary circumstances, or in positions of great authority. But if we enter in our daily lives with that same desire for holiness and service, it will not matter the size of our town. When we live out the Gospel, we are telling the story of salvation and the love of God. The soldiers of Korea told that story to the world because it was told to them by the life of Fr. Kapaun. May we all do the same!