ST. FRANCIS CHAPEL ATTRACTS `ADORERS' IN PERPETUAL WORSHIP

When Pat Wagoner gets home from her cleaning job Saturday nights, she would like nothing better than to have dinner and go to sleep. Instead, at 10 p.m. she goes to the chapel at St. Francis Medical Center. There she takes part in the perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

For an hour, she sits in the chapel in the presence of a gold, sunburst monstrance containing a host -- consecrated bread in which Roman Catholics believe Jesus Christ truly is present.

Wagoner is one of 550 volunteers from 10 Southeast Missouri parishes who have been spending an hour apiece each week for the past year making sure someone always is at the chapel.

Today, Bishop John J. Leibrecht of the Springfield-Cape Girardeau Diocese will celebrate a special Mass marking the one-year anniversary. The bishop was here as well to start the perpetual adoration on Oct. 4, 1993, the Feast of St. Francis.

Today's Mass will be celebrated at the Bavarian Halle in Fruitland at 6 p.m., followed by a dinner.

The adorers, as they are called, come from parishes in Kelso, New Hamburg, Chaffee, Oran, Benton, Jackson, Scott City and the three parishes in Cape Girardeau. Each one has signed up to come to the chapel for an hour each week, making sure that all 168 hours of the week are full.

Substitutes are available in case of emergencies.

"These are people who love the Lord and get up and go in the middle of the night," said Joan Eggimann, who helped organize the observance.

The adorers can do anything they want in the small chapel -- pray, read or just enjoy the peacefulness.

Though some religious orders maintain a perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, the practice is a rarity locally. The last one occurred during World War II, says the Rev. James Seyer, a retired priest who grew up in Cape Girardeau.

"The beautiful thing about it, to quote the bishop last year, is that people of all denominations and faiths are impressed by the devotion, that somebody is constantly there," Seyer said.

The intent, implicit in the title, is that the adoration never will cease.

The hospital chapel was chosen as the site for the perpetual adoration because it already is secure. When the doors are locked at 8 p.m., the adorers enter through the emergency room.

Arthur Kelley, director of pastoral care at the hospital, calls it "a very great blessing to us. There are prayers being offered up for our sick in the hospital 24 hours a day."

Only a few times over the past year has the adoration been interrupted, said the Rev. John Cantore, a priest and chaplain at the hospital. A storm prevented adorers from getting to the chapel one day last winter, he said. The adoration also is suspended during the chapel's daily Mass.

The effect of the adoration is hard to judge, Cantore said. "It's not something you can put your finger on sometimes, except for the subjective effect it's having on the people who come to pray."

Anybody -- not just Catholics -- is welcome to come to the chapel at any hour, the organizers say.

Wagoner volunteered because she doesn't think there is enough prayer in the world. "I feel like the world is kind of going astray," she said. "A sacrifice on my part I thought maybe would help -- somehow, some way."

She picked 10 p.m. because it is more of a sacrifice for her. "It has brought me closer to God," she says of the past year. "To me that's a miracle in itself, to become more spiritual."