Today we say goodbye to our beloved pastor and associate pastor. Father Jack and Father Paul, we will miss you dearly but we are excited for you both as you take the next step on your journeys.
Father Jack, you always seemed to know just what we needed to hear in your homilies. You entertained us, laughed with us, comforted us, and taught us so much about our faith. Your love of the Catholic faith and its traditions and your passion and loyalty to St. Peter Parish is contagious. You have touched our lives and our hearts and we are forever changed. Now it is your time to slow down and enjoy your retirement years but we know we will see you around Kirkwood town. You will remain in our hearts and our prayers always.
Father Paul, we grew deeper in our faith from your thought-provoking homilies. You jumped right in and carried a heavy load when Father Jack and Father Greg had health challenges. You made sure that we could still receive the sacraments even if that meant doing several Masses, a funeral, reconciliation, and anointings all in one day! Your energy and persistence are inspiring. We will miss you and will pray for you as you share these gifts with the people of St. Francis of Assisi. Please come back to see us when you can!
Last week we were blessed to celebrate Father Greg's farewell Mass as he returned to St. Peter to celebrate one more Mass with us.
Father Greg, your love for the priesthood, your history lessons, and your entertaining stories will always be remembered. Your kindness and dedication to our parish were such a gift. We wish you many more years of good health and joy in this new phase of your life.
To all three of our faithful priests...
Good-bye! God be with ye....until we meet again!
Msgr. Jack's Final Bulletin Article
Good bye, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Good night…
The above words were taken from the “Sound of Music” musical when the Von Trapp Family sang in the music festival at Salzburg right before their escape from Austria and the Nazi government immediately before World War II. I have become intrigued with expressions of farewell in various languages of the world. So many of them have a religious connotation attached to them. For example, “adios” in Spanish means, go to God until we meet again” and in Italian, “adio” means the same thing. Our own expression of farewell in English is, “Good-bye” which literally means “God be with ye…until we meet again.” What nice expressions those are and they are perfect as I write to you today.
So this is my last bulletin article to you as your pastor and I have to say it is bitter-sweet. Oh yes, I have certainly been looking forward to my retirement for years now. I have been painting and sprucing up my condo at Briar Hill Farm off Ballas Road and moving in gradually over the last few months. However, as the actual date of my retirement drew nearer and nearer I began to have, “cold feet” as they say. It took me six weeks to write my letter to the Archbishop that I wanted to retire. We are supposed to write him of our plans the day we turn 75 so he should have received it on February 24th. I didn’t write it until April 10th. When I got the call from him that he accepted my retirement and when the letter making it official arrived, I felt remorseful. I have loved my life as a priest for 49 years and of being a pastor for 33 and of being YOUR pastor for the past 16 and one half years. I have spent 22 years of my priesthood at St. Peter Parish. That is an amazing statistic in this day and age to be in one parish that long. I can’t imagine not being your pastor anymore but “knowing when to hold them and knowing when to fold them,” as Kenny Rogers used to sing, is a sign of a good leader.
And then when the announcement that Father Matt O’Toole is going to be your pastor, I was elated because he is a good man and has a keen sense of history and a good mind and is a brilliant preacher but at the same time the thoughts of giving someone else the keys to the church made my retirement and my departure so real and so near. The very idea of not being your pastor anymore filled me with sadness and overwhelmed me with much nostalgia and so many great memories.
With the diagnosis of the cancer last February, I came to realize more than ever that you are truly my family and how much I have become so dependent on you for so many things and now more than ever. Your prayers and your words of encouragement and affirmation and for my health have been a life line for me and filling me with energy.
My assignment to Saint Peter almost seventeen years ago was never an assignment. It was a homecoming. My mother lived here at the time I came back as pastor and so did many of my nieces and nephews and great-nieces and nephews. Three generations of my family have graduated from Kirkwood High School. I was assigned to St. Peter as a “baby” priest back in the early 80’s. My mother’s funeral and my brother Bill’s funeral were celebrated here. My brother is buried in St. Peter Cemetery. And that is where I plan to be buried whenever the Lord calls me home.
I have told you and my brother priests that I consider myself a hugely spoiled priest to have had the experiences in the priesthood that I have had but none have been better than to be back home in Kirkwood and St. Peter Parish. I can’t tell you how much I have enjoyed baptizing your children, offering them their First Holy Communion, hearing their confessions for the first time, interviewing them and preparing them for the Sacrament of Confirmation and then anointing you, your parents and loved ones when they were sick and burying them when the Lord called them to our true home.
I have loved laughing with you, working with you, singing with you, eating and drinking with you, praying with and for you and crying with you. I am a rich man and a blessed man and the ordained priesthood of Jesus Christ that I have been privileged to share in has been magic and so wonderful, it is beyond words for it has given me entry into your homes and into your lives at moments of great joy and immense sorrow and every emotion in between. I have been considered an honored member of your family simply by being your shepherd and pastor. And I have been loved so loved by you and that has been the greatest gift of all. So I thank you, the St. Peter Parish Family, for accepting me, warts and all, faults and failures and all, and for taking me into your lives. We have shared this moment of history together in this venerable parish, this remarkable parish, this amazing parish, this beautiful parish. I have loved being your priest and your pastor and I have loved YOU!
Gracias, merci beau coup, danke schoen, grazie, thank you! So Adios, adio, Slán, Good-bye…let’s all go to God and God be with ye until we meet again.
Monsignor Jack 0822
The above words were taken from the “Sound of Music” musical when the Von Trapp Family sang in the music festival at Salzburg right before their escape from Austria and the Nazi government immediately before World War II. I have become intrigued with expressions of farewell in various languages of the world. So many of them have a religious connotation attached to them. For example, “adios” in Spanish means, go to God until we meet again” and in Italian, “adio” means the same thing. Our own expression of farewell in English is, “Good-bye” which literally means “God be with ye…until we meet again.” What nice expressions those are and they are perfect as I write to you today.
So this is my last bulletin article to you as your pastor and I have to say it is bitter-sweet. Oh yes, I have certainly been looking forward to my retirement for years now. I have been painting and sprucing up my condo at Briar Hill Farm off Ballas Road and moving in gradually over the last few months. However, as the actual date of my retirement drew nearer and nearer I began to have, “cold feet” as they say. It took me six weeks to write my letter to the Archbishop that I wanted to retire. We are supposed to write him of our plans the day we turn 75 so he should have received it on February 24th. I didn’t write it until April 10th. When I got the call from him that he accepted my retirement and when the letter making it official arrived, I felt remorseful. I have loved my life as a priest for 49 years and of being a pastor for 33 and of being YOUR pastor for the past 16 and one half years. I have spent 22 years of my priesthood at St. Peter Parish. That is an amazing statistic in this day and age to be in one parish that long. I can’t imagine not being your pastor anymore but “knowing when to hold them and knowing when to fold them,” as Kenny Rogers used to sing, is a sign of a good leader.
And then when the announcement that Father Matt O’Toole is going to be your pastor, I was elated because he is a good man and has a keen sense of history and a good mind and is a brilliant preacher but at the same time the thoughts of giving someone else the keys to the church made my retirement and my departure so real and so near. The very idea of not being your pastor anymore filled me with sadness and overwhelmed me with much nostalgia and so many great memories.
With the diagnosis of the cancer last February, I came to realize more than ever that you are truly my family and how much I have become so dependent on you for so many things and now more than ever. Your prayers and your words of encouragement and affirmation and for my health have been a life line for me and filling me with energy.
My assignment to Saint Peter almost seventeen years ago was never an assignment. It was a homecoming. My mother lived here at the time I came back as pastor and so did many of my nieces and nephews and great-nieces and nephews. Three generations of my family have graduated from Kirkwood High School. I was assigned to St. Peter as a “baby” priest back in the early 80’s. My mother’s funeral and my brother Bill’s funeral were celebrated here. My brother is buried in St. Peter Cemetery. And that is where I plan to be buried whenever the Lord calls me home.
I have told you and my brother priests that I consider myself a hugely spoiled priest to have had the experiences in the priesthood that I have had but none have been better than to be back home in Kirkwood and St. Peter Parish. I can’t tell you how much I have enjoyed baptizing your children, offering them their First Holy Communion, hearing their confessions for the first time, interviewing them and preparing them for the Sacrament of Confirmation and then anointing you, your parents and loved ones when they were sick and burying them when the Lord called them to our true home.
I have loved laughing with you, working with you, singing with you, eating and drinking with you, praying with and for you and crying with you. I am a rich man and a blessed man and the ordained priesthood of Jesus Christ that I have been privileged to share in has been magic and so wonderful, it is beyond words for it has given me entry into your homes and into your lives at moments of great joy and immense sorrow and every emotion in between. I have been considered an honored member of your family simply by being your shepherd and pastor. And I have been loved so loved by you and that has been the greatest gift of all. So I thank you, the St. Peter Parish Family, for accepting me, warts and all, faults and failures and all, and for taking me into your lives. We have shared this moment of history together in this venerable parish, this remarkable parish, this amazing parish, this beautiful parish. I have loved being your priest and your pastor and I have loved YOU!
Gracias, merci beau coup, danke schoen, grazie, thank you! So Adios, adio, Slán, Good-bye…let’s all go to God and God be with ye until we meet again.
Monsignor Jack 0822
St. Peter Parish Documentary and Tribute
A big thank you to Will and Dave Linhares with Shoebox Studios who created this documentary of St. Peter Parish along with a short tribute movie for Fr. Jack to celebrate his time spent with St. Peter and his tremendous impact on the parish.
Farewell Masses
Thank you for your generosity!
Thank you to everyone who contributed to the gifts for Msgr. Jack, Father Paul and Father Greg!
