by BRIGID CONROY
Hamilton diocese’s clergy and many laity gathered on June 22 at the Jubilarian Mass in St Matthew’s church in Silverdale to celebrate a combined 135 years of faithful service to the Lord in his vineyard.
Hamilton Bishop Stephen Lowe, one of the jubilarians, used the first reading from Jeremiah to illustrate how priests are called.
The Lord told Jeremiah not to be afraid and say that he is only a boy, because it was God who sent him (Jeremiah). “‘Then the LORD put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the LORD said to me, ‘Now I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant’,” the verses read.
In his homily, Bishop Lowe brought to mind the ordaining bishops of each of the jubilarians, and how the touch of each bishop, “was the touch of the Lord, which configures us to Christ . . . which holds the assent of the Church, as one considered worthy, despite our frailties”.
Bishop Lowe then acknowledged the jubilarians, the first being Father Paddy Keane, who was celebrating 60 years of service as a priest.
When Fr Keane was ordained as a priest in 1961, he was one of 19 ordained on the same day. He is the only one of the 19 alive today. He came from Ireland, where he was ordained to go to the ends of the earth, to serve originally in Auckland diocese, and then Hamilton, when the fledgling diocese was established in 1980.
Father John Jolliffe, SM, celebrated 50 years of service as a priest in the Oceania branch of the Marist Fathers. He was ordained in 1971.
He has spent many years in the Tokelau Islands, Western Samoa and American Samoa, New Zealand, Thailand, and even Antarctica, his “missionary endeavours stretching from the equator to the pole”, said Bishop Lowe.
Bishop Lowe was ordained in 1996 in his home parish of Hokitika, and celebrated 25 years of service as a priest in the dioceses of Christchurch and Hamilton.
Acknowledgement was also given to Father Richard Shortall, SJ, who celebrated 50 years, and has been working in Hamilton diocese as a spiritual director. He was, unfortunately, stuck in Victoria, Australia, due to Covid-19 restrictions.
Bishop Lowe concluded that today there is the temptation to be successful, and that is true of the priesthood also.
However, he said, what we should instead focus on is the beautiful call to unity in Christ.
The bishop said Jesus’ prayer was so important to the apostles, and also for us “so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you have sent me”. (John 17:21)
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