25th Anniversary of Ordination

On June 13, 2021 we celebrated my Dad's 25th Anniversary of Ordination with a Mass and reception at Our Lady of Victory Church. He has been serving at Our Lady of  Victory in some capacity consistently since we moved to Halethorpe in the 70's. He has lead the RCIA, prayer groups, bible studies, been a catchiest, member of the parish council, liturgy committee, and school board. At my mom's prompting he began the deaconate program and was ordained a permanent deacon for the Archdiocese of Baltimore on June 15, 1996. Jim and I were living in Aurora, CO at the time and we used our one week of vacation to fly out to Baltimore for the ordination. Since that time he has served at OLV as a deacon, ministering at wakes, funerals, Holy Hour, Adoration, Stations of the Cross, weddings and Baptisms. We were all so blessed to have him baptize all of our children into our faith. As the Anniversary approached we decided it would be fun to gather all of the Baptism pictures and Sacrament pictures that my Dad was in. It was quite a collection.

 

COVID-19 has been complicating celebrations for a year and a half but as preparations began the pandemic was easing and we were able to embrace a large celebration as we had hoped. The OLV parish organized the celebration with the Knights and Women of Victory volunteering. Our family stepped in and helped with the music, planning, serving, decorating and personalization of the party. The parish was also working behind the scenes to establish a scholarship fund in my parents names in honor of their service and dedication to Catholic education. I had been working with Dad on the invitation list and getting the invites out both with physical invites and an online invitation. As I was showing these to my Dad, I had a fake set and a real set that included the Scholarship information.

The day of the celebration all of the family pitched in to set up the hall, decorate the tables, hook up the slide show of photos through the years, decorate the cake. Many of the grandkids joined Mary in the choir to provide music for Mass, grandkids got changed to serve on the altar, they handed out programs. Joe and Magaly brought up the gifts with more of the grandkids. Will and Becky read the readings and Mary the psalm. My Dad proclaimed the Gospel and gave a homily with a wide scope of his faith journey. We participated in the Sacrifice of Mass together. 

Fr Bill and Bill Bernard presented my Dad with the establishment of the Scholarship fund and he was truly surprised and touched.  After Mass Dad asked invited guests to please join in for pictures. Many of his Cardinal Gibbons colleagues came to celebrate, prayer group friends, men's group, parishioners, and family.  It was a blessing that so many of his long time friends and colleagues were able to attend and celebrate with us.

The reception went wonderfully. We shared food and desserts and my Dad went from table to table to greet all of the guests. I made a table to display the Newspaper clippings from 25 years ago and a board of all 23 pictures of the grandkids baptisms. It was a wonderful day and I kept thinking how proud my Mom would be.