More Than a Millennium of Service

PRIESTS’ JUBILEE  Bishop Serratelli elevates the Host during the Consecration of the Eucharist with priests, who are marking significant anniversaries of their ordination to the priesthood, as concelebrants of the Mass for annual Diocesan Jubilee Celebration June 7 in Our Lady of the Magnificat Church in Kinnelon.

KINNELON  The service to God’s people of the 23 priests who are marking milestone anniversaries this year totals 1,065 years — more than a millennium.

Their years of service have been spent celebrating the Eucharist and giving the faithful Jesus through Holy Communion; baptizing babies; joining men and women together in the Sacrament of Matrimony; bringing the Sacrament of the Sick to those who where ill; forgiving sins through the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and preaching the Good News in parishes across the Diocese. For others, years of service were spent in distant lands, bringing the Word of God to people who had never heard it before.

In honor of their service to the Church and to the Paterson Diocese, Bishop Serratelli was the principal celebrant and presider of a Mass of Thanksgiving at the annual Diocesan Jubilee Celebration for Priests in Our Lady of the Magnificat (OLM) Church here June 7.

Celebrating priesthood ordinations of 65, 60, 50, 40 and 25 years, the priest jubilarians have served or are serving as pastors, parochial vicars, administrators, missionaries, chaplains, counselors and teachers. Three priests were marking their 65th anniversary to the priesthood — Bishop Emeritus Rodimer, Msgr. Leo Carey and Msgr. Brendan Madden.

In his welcoming message, Bishop Serratelli said, “We celebrate the great gift of the priesthood. St. Ambrose once said, ‘The priest is the vicar of God’s love’ and that love is most real and manifested in the celebration of the Eucharist. As priests we exist for the Eucharist, we exist to celebrate God’s self-sacrificial love with others. And so with great joy, we gather with our jubilarians to celebrate the privilege — the gift of holy priesthood.”

Priests from all corners of the diocese attended the Mass to honor their brother priests marking these significant milestones in their priestly lives, along with lay people attending to support the jubilarians. Msgr. John Carroll, who is marking his golden anniversary and is the pastor of OLM, was homilist for the Mass.

In his homily, Msgr. Carroll reflected on the Gospel reading for the Mass, recounting Peter’s meeting with Jesus, in which Jesus asked Peter, if he loved him. Msgr. Carroll said, “Jesus asks Peter three times, ‘Do you love me?’ Although the Scripture does not say it, Peter must have hesitated a little in his answer for Jesus to repeat the question. Peter knew that Jesus had just been crucified and rose from the dead so there must be more to the question. He must have sounded somewhat uncertain when he said, ‘Yes’ as if he wanted to say ‘no’. It is a very human to hesitate when ‘yes’ has such a price. Saying ‘yes’ and ‘no’ is an everyday thing. We say ‘yes’ to visit the children in our schools and religious education programs and ‘no’ to soccer and golf. ‘Yes’ to a meeting and ‘no’ to our friends. ‘Yes’ to prepare a homily and ‘no’ to go out to the theater. For jubilarians, our prayer for you today and all time, is that even when we hesitate and want to say ‘no’, we say ‘yes’. ‘Yes,’ and know that I love you.”

Following the homily, the priest jubilarians in attendance were called forth by Father Richard Bay, pastor of St. Simon Parish in Green Pond. They then made a renewal of commitment to priestly service before Bishop Serratelli to continue serving God’s people. At the closing of the Mass, the priests joined in unison to sing the Marian hymn, “Salve Regina.”

At the end of Mass, Bishop Emeritus Rodimer spoke at the pulpit and reflected on the priesthood. “The Holy Father has given us this extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy to recognize we are not the sum of our mistakes and failures but that we have the capacity and that we have so many gifts that enable us to be images of Jesus. From Hebrews 3:13, it says to ‘Encourage one another daily while it is still today.’ I think as we jubilarians celebrate our anniversaries, it is important to recognize we have the opportunity to be the images of Our Father’s Divine Son. We are not the sum of our mistakes and failures. We are the sum of the Father’s love and the capacity to be our Father’s Son. Congratulations jubilarians.”