Celebrate Priesthood!

By Tanya Connor | The Catholic Free Press

WORCESTER – Local clergy, religious and laity, as well as a pope, were celebrated at the sixth annual “Celebrate Priesthood!” gala Tuesday in St. Vincent Hospital’s atrium. The evening is to recognize diocesan priests and support the Priests’ Retirement Fund.
Waiting to go into the gala, Joseph Duggan, of St. Joan of Arc Parish, said he was hoping to see priests he hadn’t seen in awhile. They get transferred, they’re busy and one hates to bother them, he said.
Offering the invocation, Msgr. John E. Doran, a retired priest of the diocese, noted that that day was the Feast of St. John Paul II and said people today are energized by the former pope’s example of service to families, youth and the sick.
Msgr. Doran said priests were gathering that night in union with their bishop, bishop emeritus, religious men and women, deacons and the faithful of the diocese.
He prayed that priests would be renewed by the support shown them there, renewed to proclaim the word, celebrate the sacraments and be present to all in the diocese.
Those present chatted informally over “Taste of the Diocese Tables,” which offered food and drink prepared and served by different ethnic groups, restaurants and other people.
“When we have things like this, we have to dress for the people to know where you have come from, because Africa is huge,” said Lydia Maina, of St. Peter Parish/St. Andrew the Apostle Mission, who helped with the African Ministry table. She noted that her outfit bore the colors of the Kenyan flag – green, white, black and red – and said they stand for the country and its people and history.
    Raymond L. Delisle, diocesan chancellor and director of Communications Ministry, thanked those helping with the night, acknowledging ethnic groups in their own languages.
    Bishop McManus thanked Mr. Delisle and Michael P. Gillespie, director of the diocesan Office of Stewardship and Development, who do much to organize the event. He announced that Bishop Reilly, bishop emeritus of the diocese, was there.
     “Bishop Reilly and I are both Providence boys,” he said, adding that he’s known the bishop emeritus since his own youth. “He was an example then to all of us… My biggest cheerleader was my mother, until she died. My second biggest cheerleader was Bishop Reilly.”
    Bishop McManus said priests have served the diocese well since it was established in 1950, and that he was delighted that seminarians, who are the present and the future, were there.
    He told about making his debut celebrating Mass in Portuguese for Brazilians at St. Mary of the Assumption Parish in Milford Saturday and seeing St. Paul Cathedral  “jam packed” Sunday for a Mass celebrating the first anniversary of the canonization of the Salvadoran archbishop St. Oscar Romero.
    “There’s so much dynamism,” Bishop McManus said. “We’re not only celebrating priesthood; we’re celebrating you, the people of God.”
    After a video presentation of priests who died in the past year, Bishop McManus led a prayer for Bishop Rueger, retired auxiliary bishop of the diocese, who also died during the year.
    Priests and seminarians then joined the bishops around the podium to sing the “Salve Regina.”
    Last year they were joined by priests from Diocese of Les Cayes in Haiti who’d come to visit their twin parishes here.
    “It was marvelous that Bishop McManus invited them last year” to attend the gala, said Sister Marie-Judith Dupuy, the Sister of St. Anne who directs the Haitian Apostolate, which oversees the twinning. That showed that her this would be the perfect time to have them come for their twinning visits, she said.
     But this year they could not come because of turmoil in Haiti, she said. So she had photos taken of Bishop McManus with twin parishes’ pastors to send to the Haitian priests.
    Father Thiago Da Silva, ordained last June and now serving as associate pastor of St. Mary’s in Milford, gave the benediction, saying God promised never to leave his people without a shepherd. He prayed that priests will remain loyal to their spouse, the Church, strong in their vocation, with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, following in Jesus’ footsteps and becoming instruments of his grace. He thanked God for the gift of the priests and bishops.
    Candace Jaegle, of Blessed Sacrament Parish, also expressed gratitude and called the gala wonderful, as she spoke with The Catholic Free Press afterwards.
    “I’m just so proud of Worcester; we have so many holy priests,” she said. “Our bishop is by the book; he prays at Planned Parenthood” (where abortions are performed). “I thanked him tonight.”

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