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June 2, 2024By Tanya Connor | The Catholic Free Press
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The mother of a local Catholic rejoiced in a gift she gave.The sister of another expressed gratitude for a gift she was receiving.
Both were talking about their loved ones becoming priests.
One parish brought two busloads for the occasion, which drew more than 275 people to St. Paul Cathedral June 1.
“I feel as if I’ve given my son to the Church, and it’s an honor to do that,” Karen Johnson said right after her son Luke A. Johnson was ordained.
Joan Hodskins, sister of Stephen J. Mullaney, the other man ordained a priest at that Mass, spoke with The Catholic Free Press just before the ordination, for which she and her husband, Roger Hodskins, traveled from Virginia. She said her brother’s first Mass, slated for St. Leo Parish in Leominster the next day, would be on her 66th birthday.
“This is like the best possible gift,” she said. She said her brother, 10 years her junior, “has answered the call that we in our family have known he’s had.”
“I’ve never experienced an ordination; I think it’s as close to heaven as I’ll ever get” before death, raved Martha Sheehan, of St. Rose of Lima Parish in Northborough. People met at their church Saturday and boarded two buses to come to the ordination, she said. She’s 82 and her husband is 86, and they had on their “bucket list” this celebration for Father Mullaney, who served at their parish as a seminarian.
“He’s a wonderful, wonderful man, very smart, very giving, very pleasant, very happy person,” she said. “He knows he’s found his calling.”
She said that, with his experience running a business, he’ll be an asset to any parish to which he’s assigned; “the parishes need educated men like that.”
“I’m sure he’s going to engineer his evangelization very well,” commented Giris Azize, in reference to Father Mullaney, who founded his own engineering business before entering seminary. The two studied together at Pope St. John XXIII National Seminary in Weston. Mr. Azize, of St. Mary Parish in Uxbridge, is preparing to be a priest for the Boston Archdiocese. He said Father Mullaney will be a beautiful priest, a blessing for Worcester.
“I’ve got so many emotions,” Father Johnson’s mother said after his ordination. “We’re proud of him. This morning I asked him if he was excited or nervous and he said, ‘I’m ready – to serve.’”
And she’s ready to see others do the same.
“We have to get more men involved” in becoming priests, she said.
Terry Leger, of Holy Family of Nazareth Parish in Leominster, rejoiced in how God’s plan evolves with older priests like Father Mullaney.
“He can be a witness for other men ... who are older,” she said.
Her husband, Christopher Leger, said Father Mullaney can show them “it’s not too late” to become a priest.
The Legers said they were Father Mullaney’s classmates at St. Bernard’s High School in Fitchburg.
“I just think, ‘What a blessing for our class,’” said Mary Beth Philbin, another member of St. Bernard’s Class of 1986, and a parishioner at St. Anne Parish in Southborough. “How suitable it is” that the smartest person in the class, for which Father Mullaney was valedictorian, is giving his life to the Lord. She said she hopes he’ll celebrate a Mass for alumni and present students.
Other people also expressed support for the new priests – and priests-to-be.
“We were blessed to have three seminarians at our parish,” said Cindy Murphy, of St. Denis Parish in Douglas. Last year they attended the ordination of Father Peter Bui, this year they came for Father Johnson (they’d also met Father Mullaney), and next year they hope to attend the priestly ordination of Deacon Jonathan E. Amidon. She said they didn’t want to miss Saturday’s ordination.
“We were camping down in Rhode Island, but we came up,” said her husband, Bernard Murphy.
“This ceremony was like nothing I’ve ever been to,” Father Johnson’s uncle and godfather, Joseph Albergo, said of the ordination. “Tears in your eyes.”
He said he’s happy for his nephew, and added, “That’s a really tough gig,” with years of study for the priesthood and now “you’re dedicating your life to God.”
He called his nephew a “very nice kid” who “never got in trouble” and said that when the young man decided to pursue a priestly vocation “it really didn’t surprise me, because of the kind of person he was.”
To announce that decision, Father Johnson and his parents came to his house in New York, where “my whole family” was gathered, Mr. Albergo said. “I was proud that he did that ... came to me in person, like a man.”
Father Johnson’s mother rejoiced that “the whole family” came to the ordination, some from New York.
Family is important to Father Johnson, said his godmother, Georgia Albergo, Mr. Albergo’s wife.
“I knew since he was little that he was going to be a priest ... because he’s just had the morals ... nothing but kindness in his heart,” said Betty LaPlante, another of Father Johnson’s aunts, a member of First Congregational Church of Westminster.
Ada Rivas, who knew Father Johnson from his assignment at St. John, Guardian of Our Lady Parish in Clinton, said she experienced Saturday something that she never experienced at another ordination: “When they were blessing him ... the blessing came to me too.”
