CHICAGO — Father Luke Poczworowski, OFM Conv., died Jan. 10, 2018, here. He was 80.

Born in Chicago on Dec. 16, 1937, to Stanley and Mary Poczworowski, he was raised in St. Michael the Archangel Parish. 

 

After graduating from Mount Carmel High School, he entered the novitiate of the Conventual Franciscans in Lake Forest.

 

He continued his education at the University of Dayton and then studied theology at Assumption Seminary in Chaska, Minn. He was ordained at the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul, Minn., on Feb. 22, 1964.

 

In the Rockford Diocese, he served as pastor of St. Anthony of Padua Parish in Rockford, 1994-2005.

 

He was also a former pastor of parishes in Peoria, Wenona, Lostant, Minonk, Rutland, and Toluca  in the Peoria Diocese, and St. Mary of the Assumption in Fort Madison, Iowa.

 

Father Luke served as provincial of the St. Bonaventure Province of the Conventual Franciscans from 1987 to 1994.

 

In 2014, he moved to Milwaukee and lived in residence at the Basilica of St. Josaphat.

 

He served as province vocation director, formation director, and treasurer; chaplain for the Felician Sisters at their motherhouse in Chicago; and religion teacher.

 

In a 2014 interview with The Catholic Post, the newspaper of the Peoria Diocese, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood, Father Luke said he enjoyed being a priest and being a Franciscan.

 

“Community is very important to me,” he said. 

 

Father Luke counted celebrating Mass, baptisms and even funerals as graced moments in his ministry because those are occasions he could enliven the faithful “with the Holy Spirit and give them what they need to stay close to the Lord.”

 

His body was to be received on Friday, Jan. 19, at St. Ita Church, 5500 N. Broadway in Chicago, with visitation from 4 to 8 p.m. A wake service is planned at 8 p.m.

 

A funeral Mass will be celebrated at 11 a.m.. Jan. 20, at St. Michael the Archangel Church, 8237 S. South Shore Dr.,  in Chicago. Burial will be at Holy Cross Cemetery in Calumet City after the Mass.