THE FABRIC OF FAITH: PRIEST LOOKS BACK ON 50 YEARS OF LIFE IN THE MINISTRY

PERRYVILLE, Mo. -- Charles Herbst got his talent for sewing quilts from his mother, and his 50-year profession from God.

Herbst, a former pastor of St. Vincent de Paul parish in Perryville, marks 50 years as a priest this year.

Although health problems have mostly confined him to an apartment at St. Mary's Seminary for the past year, the 76-year-old priest said he hasn't left his ministry. As a senior priest in residence at St. Mary's, he is still teaching, albeit mostly by example.

"He never complains," said Cleora Blair, a former parishioner of Herbst's. "He has suffered a stroke, diabetes and cancer, but he still never complains."

Herbst grew up in St. Louis with a devout Catholic mother and a father who was marginally Pentecostal, he said.

When Herbst decided to go to seminary in St. Louis, he wasn't immediately certain he wanted to be a priest. But he knew he wanted to teach.

"I wanted to be around young people, helping them to form their convictions," he said.

Two years into seminary, Herbst said his calling was clear.

He spent the first 17 years of his priesthood in Washington, D.C., Denver and St. Louis. It wasn't until 1967 that he came to St. Vincent de Paul in Perryville as an associate priest.

Wherever he went, Herbst used the art of quilting to build relationships, Blair said. She recalled how Herbst made friends with her mother at the seminary cafeteria. They both loved quilting, she said.

"He was coming to our house for Christmas, Easter, just about any holiday," Blair said. "He's been like one of us, almost."

Herbst handled the weddings for two of Blair's five children, and she said he made quilts for them as gifts.

Herbst left Perryville in 1970 to pastor a church in Louisiana, and it was not by choice. He said he traveled more as a priest than he would have preferred.

"He got homesick in Louisiana," Blair said.

Herbst would come and go from Perryville three more times in the next three decades. In total, he has spent 20 years in ministry in Perryville, 11 in St. Louis and 12 in Denver.

Herbst's submission to the will of church authorities that moved him around the country made Blair respect him more. Few priests would travel that much without complaining, she said.

A love of quilts

Mary Agnes Otte got to know Herbst through his compassion to her mother-in-law in the 1970s. As she was dying of cancer, he would visit her at home and talk about quilts.

In the 1980s, Herbst taught Otte's son, Stephen, while he attended seminary. Herbst was an influence in her son seeking the priesthood, although never finished school. Stephen Otte died from Hodgkin's disease at 22.

Herbst still accomplished something in her son's life, Otte said. "He has faith in people, and he gave them faith in themselves," she said.

Over the past decade, Herbst has served at times as an itinerant pastor in small, rural churches struggling to build congregations. At a church in the tiny town of Sereno, Mo., Herbst made quilt patches when he couldn't sleep at night.

He also found time to join some of St. Vincent de Paul's female parishioners on Wednesdays for a quilting circle. They would take his patches and finish a complete quilt.

Herbst can't make it on Wednesdays anymore. Maneuvering his walker is too difficult on the church's stairs, he said.

But parishioners still come to him, and he has yards of fabrics stacked on metal shelves in his room at the seminary. He dabbles at quilting with two sewing machines.

It takes some time for Herbst to remember his favorite sermon topics, but he recalled "our blessed mother," a tribute to Mary, mother of Jesus Christ.

"I always tried to get across the idea that she was a very ordinary yet extraordinary person," he said.

Others may say the same about him, but he wouldn't.