PHOTOS & AUDIO: Redemptorists celebrate jubilees

Redemptorists, family and friends gathered July 14 at the St. John Neumann Residence at Stella Maris in Timonium, MD, to celebrate with our jubilarians. Fr. Dennis Billy took time during his homily to express his own gratitude for being part of the celebration. He’s spent much of the last two years fighting an aggressive form of leukemia:

The fact that I am alive and standing here in your presence to celebrate this great day of jubilee with you is, to my mind, a symbol of the fellowship we share by virtue of being “confreres” (literally, “brothers with” Christ and with one another”) in this world-wide missionary order founded some 280 years ago.  And I stand here to express my gratitude to God for Life, for our Redemptorist vocation, and for fellowship we share as brothers in Christ and sons of St. Alphonsus.

When you think about it, GRATITUDE is what this jubilee celebration is all about. We gather together each year as Redemptorist priests and religious to give thanks to God with our confreres, family, and friends for the wonderful way he has worked in our lives …. We give thanks to God for our Redemptorist vocation, which has allowed us as priests and brothers to live the charism of preaching the Good News to the poor and most abandoned throughout the world. 

We look back on all that they have done in the past 25, 40, 50, 60, 65, 70 years … and recognize that in the end it has all been a work of God, and that they have been the ones he has chosen to be instruments of his grace and heralds of his Word. 

Our Gospel, from Matthew, reminds us that Jesus is the master and head of our household, and that, because of him, we have nothing to fear. This FEARLESSNESS is one of the marks of a true Redemptorist. It is what enables us to take on great challenges and not count the cost. It is what enables us to take risks in ministry and to try to do great things for the Lord, even when it simply means, like our beloved St. John Neumann, doing simple, ordinary things in an extraordinary way. It is what enables us to be true disciples, men willing to follow in the footsteps of Jesus in the spirit of St. Alphonsus and a host of other Redemptorists who have gone before us. It is what enables us to embrace the crosses life brings us with open and willing hearts. It is what enables us to face the challenges of life and of death with courage. It is what enables us to persevere—and to do so with an open spirit and, yes, with a deep sense of gratitude to God for our vocations, our Redemptorist family, and the people we serve. 

Click here to READ Fr. Billy’s entire homily (PDF).  Or click "PLAY" below to listen: