In the past few weeks as I observed my golden anniversary of ordination to the priesthood, May 29, 1971 – May 29, 2021, a number of people have asked me about these 50 years. The truth of the Latin phrase Tempus Fugit (Time Flies) is my experience. In response to these inquiries, I decided to write a reflection on the past 50 years of my priesthood. It will appear in THE CATHOLIC STAR HERALD in a few installments.
This is number 1 – the beginning.
Despite the rapid passing of 50 years, I remember the day of my ordination as if it were yesterday. Early on a glorious, sunny, balmy Spring Saturday morning, my 18 classmates and I were bused from the Seminary in Yonkers to Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan for the 9 a.m. Mass of Ordination celebrated by His Eminence Terence Cardinal Cooke, the Archbishop of New York.
We vested for the last time with Deacon stoles and proudly processed down the long main aisle of the Cathedral into the unknown — life forever as a priest. Among the memorable rituals of the Mass of Ordination for me are the prostration on the cold marble sanctuary floor as the Saints of God were invoked; kneeling before the Cardinal for the imposition of hands, followed by the imposition of hands of nearly 200 priests; the vesting with stole and chasuble. Father John Downes, RIP, the pastor of my diaconate assignment who had had a life changing effect on me, clothed me with a brother’s love in priestly vestments. I could not help but think as he stood before me that if I could be one tenth of what he was as a priest who loved and served the poor; always available to the people; a gentle giant of a man from whom priestly holiness oozed. Positioned around the Main Altar for the Eucharistic Prayer and extending my hand toward the bread and wine for the words of consecration. Fifty years later those moments in the Ordination Mass are still with me.
The first priestly blessing to my mother who knelt before me with great dignity with a broad smile on her face despite her aching heart that my dad, who was gone to God, was not with her. My Irish mother whose formal education ended at the third grade; who at age 12 went to work as a maid in a nearby castle of British gentry; who with her sister was sent to New York at age 19 to send money home to support her 10 brothers and sisters. I should have knelt before her! Blessing my brothers and sister; my Aunt Mae and Uncle Luke, our only relatives in America, nieces, nephew, cousins and boyhood friends.
The return to the seminary for the festive meal. As we newly ordained entered the refectory the schola sang “Ecce Sacerdos Magnus, Behold The High Priest.” First blessings for the seminarians, some of whom were my best friends. Later in the afternoon driving across the George Washington Bridge to my brother’s home in Hackensack where the family had gathered after the ordination. Who would have ever imagined that one day I would live in and be a New Jersey Bishop?
The theologians teach that an ontological change takes place in the man who is ordained a priest. I can attest to that. Since that day, I felt something different in and about myself. I am a priest of Jesus Christ. This kid from the Bronx can act “in persona Christi,” in the very person of Christ. I can make Him present on earth. After 50 years, that internal change continues to be felt. I am the same person with my human weaknesses and sins, but I am a priest of Jesus Christ.
The next day, my First Mass in the parish church where I was baptized; made my First Holy Communion; was confirmed; attended every Sunday; where I went to the parish school; served as an Altar Boy. The church was packed. The preacher was a professor from the Seminary who was one of the finest pedagogues I ever experienced. His Pentecost theme — the priest as bridge builder, pontifex, the connector between God and man as is the Holy Spirit the connector between Jesus and His Church. In the parish hall a typical Irish ceili followed. Live music and dancing, plenty to eat and drink, hundreds of people, and it went on until late in the evening. Monday was Memorial Day. A holiday.
A few days after ordination, the Cardinal gave me my first priestly assignment, which was to the Archdiocese of Santiago in the Dominican Republic. I expected to be sent to Puerto Rico, which was the practice of the Archdiocese. Two classmates and I bravely went off to that Caribbean Island and met with the Archbishop who assigned me to the parish of Tenares in the Cibao region of the country. The pastor of that parish was recuperating from surgery. I would be there alone to care for the pastoral needs of the people. In addition to the main church in the town, the parish included 11 chapels outside the town, one of which was reached on a donkey!
I had had Spanish language instruction, but I was not bilingual. In the day in and day out of life as a priest in that parish I learned quickly how to really communicate in the Spanish language. Also, I learned to eat food to which I was not accustomed; take showers with cold rain water; sleep under a mosquito net; to be without electricity for most of the day; to have no communication to home; to immerse myself in an unfamiliar culture and above all to learn to love a people who were not my own through nationality or race but were my own through Ordination to the Priesthood. Like Saint Patrick who was not Irish but was sent by God to the Irish people among whom he walked with love and brought them to Jesus and to the Church. The people of the parish of San Antonio in Tenares took such loving care of me, their “Padrecito el Gringo” that I never felt lonely, rather loved and needed. I was their Sacerdote (Priest).
I experienced a church different from the church in the United States. A church aggressively adapting to the changes of the Second Vatican Council; a church with few priests; training the laity to responsibly assume their proper role as the church. The simplicity of the folks, especially in the campos (the farms). Once in a homily I referred to the Moon Shot and the congregation got hysterical laughing. They thought I was making it up. “Nadie camino en la Luna.” No one has walked on the moon. So cut off from the world were they but so connected to Jesus and to His church. In theological studies, I learned that the church is One; in Tenares I experienced her unity.
I did my best to learn the language, customs and history of the country. I enjoyed their music; absorbed their culture and even danced the merengue. The Fiesta gatherings in parishioners’ homes reminded me of the every Saturday gatherings in the homes of my parents’ friends where singing, dancing, drinking, laughter and conversation took place. The difference was language, espanol not English with Irish brogues; not Ceili music (traditional Irish music) but Latino rhythms and no ham sandwiches with butter but arroz con pernil (rice and pork).
When word arrived from the Archdiocese with the date I was expected back, I did not want to leave. I returned to New York a priest who had tasted the missions of the Church; the poverty of a developing country; the rich expressions of Hispanic Catholicism, and the beauty of another culture. These have been guiding lights for my 50 years of service as a priest. Following that experience as a newly ordained priest, I was more ready to be a parish priest than when I completed seminary formation.
(To be continued…)