Sunday August 2, 2009 Fr. Pat Grile

50^th Anniversary Mass

WOW!! Right? Well do you want the long or the short of it? Well I’ll try to keep it short.

You know this beautiful feast of Alphonsus, that’s what this parish is named after. St. Alphonsus Ligouri. And he founded the Redemptorists back in 1732 in Italy. And Alphonsus was so overwhelmed by God’s love for him, that God’s love was so generous, so lavish, so splendidly given. And he realized how much God loved him. St. Alphonsus realized that God not only loves me, but He loves everybody else in the world. And if God loves all of us, how is that love made known?

And for Alphonsus, he had three main symbols, I guess you could say it that way, in which he expressed this love of God. He said God loved us so much that He sent His Son, Jesus. God became a human being in His Son Jesus. And we use the image of a crib to symbolize that.

Then Alphonsus realized that Jesus, once He came among us, walked among us, cried with us, laughed with us, and then ultimately died on the cross to give you and me the gift of redemption, to overcome sin, to overcome death. And the second symbol is the cross.

And then Alphonsus realized that Jesus didn’t just leave us. Not only did He come among us, die for us and rise, but then He gave us that beautiful gift of the Eucharist that we have here today. You and I receive the body of Jesus Christ Himself in the beautiful gift of the Eucharist. That’s what we are here this morning to celebrate in a powerful, beautiful way. Jesus is going to come to each and every one of us, in the Eucharist, the table. And another symbol, Alphonsus realized too, he had a great devotion to Mary, the Mother of Jesus.

For over 50 years this love has been poured out into the parish community. You here this morning are witnesses of that. Many of our members have died and gone on to heaven, to eternity. So many of you have come back to celebrate with us this day as well. But you are the spirit of Alphonsus, this parish community. As we remember our past, we celebrate our present and we believe in the future that God’s love will continue to be made manifest and poured out into all of us. So that’s why we are happy today to celebrate God’s outpouring of love before all of us and in all of us.

We could go on forever talking about all the things that happened these past 50 years but hopefully you would do that as you mingle around afterwards and you get to talk with all of these other Redemptorists. Many others couldn’t be here today with us. Fr. Stenger is saying Mass over at St. Theresa’s Home in New Hope. Fr. Stillmock has a wedding down in Omaha with his family. But as you look up here on this table you see many men who have served here over the last few years.

Fr. Dowd was pastor here from ’71 to ’78. Stand up Fr. Dowd. (cheers) And then, let’s see who followed Fr. Dowd, Fr. Dan Lowery who has gone on to heaven but we have his brother here, Fr. Will. (cheers) Fr. Will is our Energizer bunny, he just keeps on ticking, you know. Then in 1981 Fr. Shea came from St. Louis. (cheers) He was pastor from 1981 to 1987. And then after Fr. Shea the other Fr. Grile came—Fr. Harry Grile came and he was pastor. (cheers) People keep saying, “He’s much taller than you.” I say, “Size isn’t everything.” And then after Fr. Harry left then Fr. Donaldson came as pastor and then I came. But in the meantime we had Fr. Monroe who was here from 1990 to 1999. (cheers) Fr. Tuan Pham was here from 2002 to 2005, right? (cheers) Then our little munchkin was here for 2 years. (cheers). Then Fr. Dick Quinn was here twice before (cheers) ’68 to ’71 and ’78 to ’81, right? And of course Fr. Jimmy who was here before, went away and then cam back for a short time and now is moving on. (cheers). And Padre Bill is here. Deacon Dave and let’s see. Fr. Bob Halter who, you probably don’t know this man, but he’s one of our provincials consultants. He’s representing the whole Denver Province because they wanted to make sure they recognized St. Al’s. And down over here in the balcony, or the lower section, Fr. Brian Johnson, (cheers). Fr. Brian Gilles, I haven’t seen him this morning—oh he’s at St. Bridget’s saying Mass this morning. We are helping out at 6 other places today besides St. Al’s so you see why the guys are dragging a little bit that’s because, that’s part of the story.

So you see that the spirit of Alphonsus just isn’t in the Redemptorists, it’s imbued in you too. And I think that’s the beauty of it. That this parish we know and believe will continue on for another 50 or 100 years, long after we’re gone, many of us too will see it in a different perspective. But God’s love.

One of the mottoes of St. Alphonsus, Psalm 130, “With the Lord there is plentiful redemption.” There’s enough God-love to go around. We’ll never run out of God’s love and you see it here this morning.

So let’s celebrate this day, this 50^th Anniversary. Mingle with each other. Eat, dance, sing your hearts out. Laugh, cry, do all these beautiful things because we are just here to enjoy the wonderful gift. And our patron St. Alphonsus made sure the sun was shining today too. He’s always looked over the Fun Fair hasn’t he? It was never rained out.

So once again, welcome to everybody who’s come from far and near. I know we have people from all over the world here. It is so great. And all the different cultures we represent. From the youngest to the oldest, charter members to the most recently arrived. You’re all part of St. Al’s so celebrate the goodness of who you are.

To Fr. Bill: Now how are you going to summarize all that?

Fr. Bill: It’s his fault. He said it was going to be short. Yea, we said we would summarize it for those who don’t speak English, we don’t want to leave anyone out. But I will keep it very short and just his message about love and about Alphonsus’ spirit.

Spanish translation by Fr. Bill

Vietnamese translation by Fr. Jimmy