The 75th anniversary Mass of St. Joseph Parish in Mechanicsburg will long be remembered by parishioners who arrived for the celebration and found the church without power on a rainy Pentecost Sunday morning.
Absent of electricity due to a neighborhood outage, the anniversary Mass celebrated by Bishop Timothy Senior on June 8 began in muted ambient light cast through the stained-glass windows and the glow of candles on the altar.
“Come, Holy Spirit, come! And from your celestial home shed a ray of light divine!” the bishop quoted from the “Veni, Sancte Spiritus” – a sequence sung to the Holy Spirit on Pentecost Sunday – as he greeted parishioners at the start of Mass.
Acknowledging the lack of power, the bishop told the congregation that “the power of the Holy Spirit is nevertheless moving in us.”
“This is the day we celebrate the birth of the Church – how appropriate to recall on Pentecost Sunday the founding of this parish and the years of forming disciples and following our Lord Jesus Christ,” he said.
Though it has been a parish since 1950, the history of St. Joseph’s dates to the 1860s when 15-year-old Mary Brindle led devotions in her home for the few Catholics living in the Cumberland Valley. Her years of persistence in asking the bishops of the Diocese to supply a place of worship for the small congregation resulted in the first Mass being celebrated in a local home for 16 people in 1879.
In 1900, St. Joseph Chapel on Arch Street became the first Catholic Church in Mechanicsburg; the chapel was named for the patron saint of laborers, a fitting name for a town founded by mechanics who fixed wagon wheels for travelers.
St. Joseph’s was a mission of St. Patrick Parish in Carlisle until 1950, when it became a parish in its own right. Its first church and school were dedicated in 1953. The population quickly grew, and in 1977 St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish was created from St. Joseph’s, which broke ground in 1980 for its current church to seat nearly 1,000 worshipers. In 1989, Blessed (now Saint) Katharine Drexel Parish was formed from St. Joseph’s, one of the largest parishes in the Diocese.
The parish’s 75th anniversary Mass was also marked by the celebration of the Sacrament of Confirmation for five parishioners, sealed with the gifts of the Holy Spirit as Bishop Senior confirmed them in front of the parish community: Ashley D’Arcy, Alan Fetrow, Paige Smock, Vicki Zawoysky and Alex Otteson.
In a perfect moment, power returned to the church as the candidates were called forward and presented to the bishop by the parish’s administrator, Father Kenneth Roth, and Bishop Senior began his homily.
“It certainly must be the Holy Spirit!” the bishop exclaimed, as the congregation erupted into applause.
“When you think about the graces of the Holy Spirit working in and forming a parish community through those many years – we give thanks to God for that,” the bishop said in his homily. “The celebration of the Eucharist, baptisms, first Holy Communions, Confirmations, weddings, anointings of the sick, the vocations from this parish – priesthood, consecrated life, marriages – commending our loved ones to Almighty God: it’s the life of a vibrant parish community.”
In the day’s Gospel reading (John 20:19-23), Jesus greets the disciples in the Upper Room by saying, “Peace be with you.”
“Is there any better greeting we can have?” Bishop Senior asked. “We know how much we all need peace. We need peace in the world. There is division in the world, hostility, religious persecution, bigotry. We need peace. We need peace in our families, peace in our communities. The peace that is a gift of the Holy Spirit.”
The presence of the Spirit transformed the apostles’ fear into courage and joy, and soon they go out and proclaim the Gospel, the bishop said. “It’s the same Spirit that comes to us,” he said.
“The first gift of the Holy Spirit is peace – peace for the world and for ourselves. The manifestation of the Holy Spirit in our own lives is to be instruments of peace,” he said.
At the conclusion of Mass, Father Roth expressed his gratitude to Bishop Senior for celebrating the anniversary Mass and for joining parishioners at the annual picnic that followed underneath event tents on the parish grounds.
The bishop likewise thanked Father Roth for his ministry at St. Joe’s, as the priest will become the pastor of St. Joseph Parish in Danville on June 16. The congregation offered Father Roth a standing ovation as a sign of their gratitude.
After the Mass, newly-Confirmed Alex Otteson, who chose Anthony as his Confirmation name, brimmed with joy.
“I’ve been a member of St. Joseph Parish for 25 years now. I am so happy to finally be Confirmed,” he said. “I love the people here, the priests. I love the music. This is a great place to be. I won’t ever forget this moment.”
Alex’s brother David was his sponsor. “It was a cool experience to be with him on this journey,” David said. “He’s talked for awhile about wanting to be Confirmed, and it was awesome for him to finally have the opportunity. He’s been so excited for it, and I’m glad I was able to stand there with him.”
(Mass photos by Chris Heisey, picnic photos by Jen Reed, The Catholic Witness.)
By Jen Reed, The Catholic Witness
