Meet David and Lydia Spillman: “Prayer is an Essential Pillar of Our Relationship”

David and Lydia Spillman first crossed the threshold of St. Francis Solanus when they were freshmen at Quincy University. It was a time of remodeling and scaffolding for the church.

“Our experiences were different, but we were both in awe about how beautiful it was,” David says. “We had never been to a Franciscan parish before. While we were students, we would go to Mass there whenever we couldn’t go to the chapel, and once we got married, we decided to stay in Quincy and make St. Francis our parish.”

Over five years ago, Lydia and David first met through campus ministry at Quincy University, and today prayer has now become a pillar of their relationship. It was a night prayer group that brought them together with others every night at 10 p.m. to pray the Liturgy of the Hours.

“We knew each other for about a year through that, and there were maybe 25 of us who went pretty consistently,” Lydia says. “Then we both did Totus Tuus in the summer after freshman year. We came back and realized what a big part the faith played in our lives. We bonded over those experiences.”

“We knew each other for about a year through that, and there were maybe 25 of us who went pretty consistently,” Lydia says. “Then we both did Totus Tuus in the summer after freshman year. We came back and realized what a big part the faith played in our lives. We bonded over those experiences.”

The couple started nurturing a shared prayer life by praying for 10 minutes in the chapel every day, and then they slowly added reading a chapter from the Bible every day.

“It took a while to make the faith truly a central part of our relationship together, but now I would say prayer is an essential pillar in our life,” David says.

On May 29, 2021, Lydia and David were married in the Quincy University chapel across the street from St. Francis, but their involvement in parish life began while they were still students as they attended daily Mass at St. Francis once or twice a week and then joined the Rosary Group.

“During my freshmen year of college, I still didn’t know how to pray the Rosary, and in my sophomore year I found out about this Monday night Rosary Group at the church,” David says. “I thought I should just try it.”

For David and Lydia, the first step in becoming more involved in the faith community was simply wanting to grow in their faith. They wanted to grow closer to Christ and “make it to heaven together.”

“Be courageous and try something out even if you don’t know anyone,” says Lydia, who now teaches theology at St. Francis School. “We didn’t know anyone when David started with the Rosary Group, and then we invited all of them to our wedding! We’ve found a lot of joy in the things we participate in at the parish.”

“Be courageous and try something out even if you don’t know anyone,” says Lydia, who now teaches theology at St. Francis School. “We didn’t know anyone when David started with the Rosary Group, and then we invited all of them to our wedding! We’ve found a lot of joy in the things we participate in at the parish.”

David and Lydia would like to thank the parishioners of St. Francis Solanus for their witness to living out the faith.

“We learned so much about what it means to live the faith,” David says. “Thank you also to the friars who watched over St. Francis for so long and who were so great in how they lived and preached the Gospel.”