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April 19, 2020By Tanya Connor | The Catholic Free Press
AUBURN - With their vehicles decorated with posters, some with streamers or balloons, members of North American Martyrs Parish paraded by the rectory Sunday to show appreciation for their pastor of three decades - Father John F. Gee.
“He picked the perfect vocation … That’s why we’re doing it,” said Zeb Chase, who suggested the parade after participating in a “birthday drive-by” for a family member just before Easter.
“He’s just the best of the best - you could see how loved he is,” Donna Wrenn, parish council president, said after about 150 vehicles had driven by, the occupants tooting their horns and waving.
Father Gee watched them, frequently waving himself, from an upstairs window.
“The people here have been wonderful to me,” he told The Catholic Free Press afterwards. “It’s been a real home for me.”He said he had no idea they were going to hold the parade, and commented on their thoughtfulness in going out of their way to do so.
Parishioners wanted to let their pastor know “we miss him,” Mr. Chase said. Father Gee doesn’t communicate with people via Zoom, like he and his wife, Michele, do with their grandchildren, he said.
“He’s got to be lonely in that big rectory by himself,” Mr. Chase reasoned.
Mrs. Chase said they wanted to let their pastor know they love him.
“Father Gee is an exceptional human being,” she said. “He’s extremely humble. He is a good shepherd and he has a marvelous sense of humor. … He’s totally given himself to the parish, and we feel like a family” with him as the father.
“He’s not just a good priest; he’s a good man. He makes everybody feel welcome,” including newcomers. “He knows everybody’s first name,” she said.
“I got red, white and blue streamers because he’s a Red Sox fan,” said her husband.
The parade was announced on Facebook and Flocknote and Mr. Chase called people he knows who do not use social media and asked them to call people they knew to come and participate.
“I never thought it would be that great,” he marveled afterwards.
Pamela Ashmankas, religious education assistant for the parish, said Father Gee doesn’t use Facebook and Flocknote, so she figured making the announcement there wouldn’t spoil the surprise. She said parishioners wanted to show appreciation for him and his service to the parish and diocese.
“I think people need to do that for him,” she said last week, especially since they haven’t seen him. Father Frederick D. Fraini III has been a sacramental assistant at the parish, livestreaming Masses since coronavirus restrictions, she said.
The young people and adults certainly seemed to enjoy praising and greeting their pastor, bearing homemade signs expressing their love, some sticking half their bodies up through sunroofs, some blowing bubbles out their vehicle’s window.
“He’s very special … He married us on his birthday,” Anne Noel said. She and her husband, Michael “Big Red” Noel, are from Millbury. “We had to find the right church,” she said.
And North American Martyrs was it?
“Absolutely - Father Gee,” she replied.
Her 16-year-old son Paul said he wanted to “thank him for everything, because he did my first Communion, and my sister’s.”
Instead of driving, Sari Bitticks walked by the rectory - with her St. Bernard, Gryffindor.
“Father Gee blessed him when he was a tiny, tiny baby,” two years ago, she said. “Father Gee blessed him and look what happened.” (Gryffindor is hardly tiny anymore!)
She said Father Gee has blessed all her dogs for the past 20 years. One, a rescue, was expected to grow to 16 pounds, and weighs 40, so she figures the priest “got carried away with the blessing.”
She said the parade was fun.
“Anything we can do for Father Gee - he’s done so much for us,” she added, summing up what seemed to be the consensus among devoted parishioners.
