By Gretchen Keiser

At the Mass June 3 celebrating Father Pat Mulhern’s 25 years as a priest, the speaker noted that it was the Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Ordinary, just the way he would like it.

Father Mulhern, the pastor of St. Thomas More parish, Decatur, also had a hand in the day’s structure, which was to be a simple outdoor Mass followed by a bring-your-own family picnic, with Irish songs and a family band and dancing by all ages. While the weather forced a relocation of the Mass back inside St. Thomas More Church, it quickly cleared and the picnic and dancing went on outdoors well into the evening.

“They say that Gandhi’s insistence on living a simple life caused endless trouble,” Father Mulhern reflected in the next parish bulletin as he described his worried reaction to the sight of people hurriedly relocating the day’s events.

In an interview during the week proceeding the celebration, he happily treated to breakfast, but as the time narrowed and questions began, he stuck to themes that would be well familiar to his St. Thomas More parish family. “I’m a parish priest. I’m not anything else,” he said. “It’s my primary interest in life. I’m a work-a-day parish priest.”

Sunday after Sunday in the parish, where he has been pastor for the last two and a half years, Father Mulhern has spoken about themes close to his heart: community and the Eucharist, Scripture and community, parish family and community.

With gestures and a booming singing voice, and with humor, he prevents drowsiness in the congregation. The tables were turned on him at his June 3 anniversary Mass.

Sister Sallie Bradley, SND, a former principal at St. Thomas More School, who has known Father Mulhern for 18 years, was the speaker. “How many of us have received constant energy; have been moved to respond at Liturgy - awake? - are you there?’; have realized parish life moves on from Liturgy to action to participation in ministry…”

She turned to the pastor and said, “For all this, Father Pat, thank you. Hello, are you there?”

“We can only say, we, your friends, praise the Lord, glorify Him for steadfast is God’s goodness to us. And may the faithfulness of the Lord endure forever in you and in each of us. We love you.”

A parish priest in seven or more of the archdiocese’s parishes over the last 25 years, Father Mulbern was ordained in Ireland for the diocese of Natchez-Jackson, Mississippi June 21, 1964. But he was virtually unique there as a priest from All Hallows College in Dublin. “I almost died of loneliness,” he said. He came to the Atlanta diocese in 1969, where there was a group of Irish priests, including several from All Hallows. “I did take immediately to Atlanta,” appreciating its bustle, vitality and climate.

Born in Sligo, Ireland, one of seven children of the late John and Eileen Mulhern, Father Pat and his siblings have been far-flung for many years. Of the six children still living, one resides in Ireland, three in England, one in the U.S. and one in Australia. A sister, Helen Cassidy, has lived most of her life in Africa, with her husband and children.

A man of “unending energy,” according to St. Thomas More secretary Karyl Davis, Father Mulhern has cultivated the building of community at the parish since he arrived.

A parish assembly held about two years ago drew a number of suggestions, including the creation of a parish council and parish directory. Committees for buildings and grounds, finance, and liturgy have also been formed and parish involvement in a Decatur night shelter and other work with the poor strengthened.

A folk group to play at the 6 p.m. Sunday Liturgy has formed, with Father Mulhern as one of the singers, unless he is celebrant. More Eucharistic ministers and special ministers to the sick help in the parish’s large hospital visitation program. A May More Festival and October ice cream social outdoors are new traditions.

As in other parishes where he has served, youth and young adults have been a special concern. Sister Sallie Bradley said in past summers he has led spelunking and white water rafting expeditions with parish youth. Father Terry Kane, Immaculate Heart of Mary pastor and part of Father Mulhern’s Tuesday tennis foursome, said his first assignment at the Cathedral of Christ the King he was particularly active with the Cathedral’s young adults. “He’s always really popular with his people…He always seems to gather wonderful people around him,” Father Kane said, adding he’s “the most forgetful person I’ve ever met,” a perpetual loser of glasses and car and door keys.

A jogger, who tries to run daily, he initiated a 5K run in this year’s More Festival and “won in the priest category.”

“I was a little surprised I didn’t come in last,” he said. “There were other people behind me.”

Strongly supportive of the parish school, he shared their delight when they were awarded a School of Excellence designation last year by the U.S. Department of Education. The school surprised him with presents at a Mass June 2, including a book of limericks written by the children about “A Father Named Pat…” From the parish he went to Ireland where he will take part in and speak at a jubilee at All Hallows.

In two parishes where he pastored, St. Mary’s, Rome, and St. Pius X in Conyers, he brought in the Parish Renewal Weekend created by Father Chuck Gallagher, again a way of brining home the “simple, single message…we must have community.” He hopes to have the renewal at St. Thomas More next Lent. He has also served as pastor of St. Bernadette’s in Cedartown and St. John Vianney in Lithia Springs.

At his request, both the school children and the adult folk group at his jubilee Masses sang his favorite song, “His Eye Is on the Sparrow.” Said Sister Bradley: “He does sing because he’s happy. He does sing because he’s free.”