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By Erika Anderson, Staff Writer
ATLANTA—Celebrating a combined 125 years of service, four
priests serving in the archdiocese marked their golden and silver jubilees of
priesthood this year.
Supported by Archbishop John F. Donoghue and dozens of their
concelebrating brother priests, golden jubilarian Father Clarence Biggers,
OCSO, of the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, and silver jubilarians
Father Joseph Mullakkara, MSFS, parochial vicar at St. Lawrence Church in
Lawrenceville, and Father John Henley, who is retired, gathered at the
Cathedral of Christ the King June 7 to reflect on their lives of service and to
renew their vows to the priesthood. Father James Miceli, pastor of St.
Mary’s Church in Rome, is also a silver jubilarian.
In his homily, the archbishop reminded the priests of their
ultimate goal.
“The tugging at the heart that goes with remembrance is a
powerful force, but it is not to be resisted. We mark the 25th and 50th years
of our service, of our priesthood, and think with satisfaction on the fact that
we have survived,” he said. “But we also know, that only the rarest
will live to see their 75th—sometime, for most of us, after that 50th, the
ship will set sail, and though our friends long to be with us always, they will
not put their hand to stop the sailing, the embarkation that awaits us all, and
the final putting behind us the wake of all our labor, our earthly victories,
and the indelible memories of just how much we depended upon Christ, to fill
our sails, and to propel us until the journey’s last day.”
He asked the priests to remember those priests who had gone before
them and to give thanks to God for the years of service represented by the
jubilarians.
“We do not need to call them by name—everyone here has
thoughts of those who were of our priestly family near to heart—those who
dwelt and labored with us—but who now pray for us every moment, as they
glorify God, as they rest in heavenly contentment-rest from their long or
not-long, but fulfilled-in-Christ priestly lives,” Archbishop Donoghue
said. “But here, among the living, I am also moved to think of service
that has been rendered, and that is still vital and ongoing among us, in the
person of our jubilarians, who tally among them 125 years of priestly ministry
to the people of God, and to His and our Holy Catholic Church.”
The archbishop referred to the jubilarians’ years of service
as years paved by discipline and sacrifice and especially dedication to the
“virtuous practices of poverty, chastity and obedience.”
“Each must work these practices out according to his own
style of commitment, and we see in our friends just how varied priestly
spirituality and service can be—home-bound or well-traveled, taken up late
or early, lived in the parish, the religious house, or in the monastery,”
he said. “But it makes no difference to Christ how we offer to help him
bear His cross, and it makes no difference to Him in the triumph which He
graciously calls us to share.”
“What binds us to Him is not where or when-it is how—and
the how is built upon these great pillars of Gospel life—poor-ness in
things of the earth, but richness in the gifts of heaven—chastity in the
ways of procreation but fecundity in the generation of grace—obedience to
the revealed truth of God’s law and commandments, but freedom, unbounded
freedom, to serve the Holy Spirit, Who cannot be bound, and Who cannot be
tamed.”
The archbishop concluded his homily by applauding the
accomplishments of the jubilarians, as well as those yet to come.
The golden jubilarian is:
Father Clarence Biggers, OCSO
Father Biggers is an Atlanta native. He grew up in Sacred Heart
Church in Atlanta and attended the Sacred Heart Seminary boarding school for
boys in Sharon and Marist School in Atlanta. Father Biggers entered the minor
seminary of the Marist Fathers in South Langhorne, Pa., and professed his vows
as a Marist there on Sept. 8, 1944. He was ordained a priest in Washington,
D.C., at Marist College, on June 8, 1950.
Father Biggers’ ministry began at Holy Name of Mary Church in
New Orleans and continued at Marist parishes in West Virginia until 1959. From
1959-64, Father Biggers served in Atlanta as a parochial vicar at Sacred Heart
and later as a pastor of St. Joseph’s Church in Marietta. From 1964-67, he
served at St. Joseph’s Church in Paulina, La., and in 1967 he returned to
Atlanta to serve as a parochial vicar at Our Lady of the Assumption Church.
On Oct. 4, 1969, Father Biggers joined the Trappists at the
Monastery of the Holy Spirit where he continues to serve as a confessor at the
retreat house and as the only native Atlantan monk. He also served at St. Pius
X Mission, which was built on the grounds of the monastery until the current
St. Pius X Church in Conyers was built.
During his ministry, Father Biggers has been active with the
Knights of Columbus, Fourth Degree, and the OLA Council 660. He also served as
the priest director of the former St. Michael’s Single Adult Club.
The silver jubilarians are:
Father James Miceli
Father Miceli was ordained May 24, 1975, by the late Archbishop
Thomas A. Donnellan. From 1975-78, he served as a parochial vicar at the
Cathedral of Christ the King. During this time, he worked two days a week in
the archdiocesan chancery office in Midtown.
Father Miceli served as the vice chancellor from 1978-82 and,
after returning from a leave, was assigned as a parochial vicar at St. John
Neumann Church in Lilburn where he served from 1988-90. In 1990, he was
assigned to St. Mary’s Church in Rome, where he continues to serve as
pastor.
In addition to parish duties, Father Miceli served on the
Pastors’ Task Force on Finance from 1992-93. He served as the dean of the
Northwest Rural Deanery from 1995-96 and again from 1997-2000. He currently
serves as a judge for the Provincial Court of Appeals, where he has served
since 1996.
Father John Henley
Ordained May 24, 1975, by Archbishop Donnellan, Father
Henley’s first assignment was as a parochial vicar at the Cathedral of
Christ the King, where he served for two and half years before he was
transferred to Sts. Peter and Paul Church in Decatur. During this time, Father
Henley served on the personnel board of the archdiocese, assisting with the
transferring of priests in new assignments, with the archbishop’s
approval. A request was made by Father Doug Edwards, at that time the pastor of
St. Joseph’s Church in Dalton, for an assistant priest to help in the
four-county area of Whitfield, Murray, Gilmore and Fannin counties. During this
period he was in residence at St. Anthony’s Mission in Blue Ridge. Prior
to his seminary training, Father Henley had lived for five years in Mexico. He
began celebrating the Mass in Spanish each Sunday at St. Anthony’s and
then would drive to Dalton to attend to the pastoral needs of the Mexican
people of the area.
He then served nearly nine years as the pastor of St. Luke the
Evangelist Church in Dahlonega and its mission of Christ Redeemer in
Dawsonville.
After a three-year sabbatical in Rome beginning in 1990, Father
Henley returned to serve the Hispanic communities at St. Anna’s Church in
Monroe and St. Matthew’s Mission in Winder.
Father Henley retired in 1997 to help a friend, Father Clifford
Norman, at an orphanage, school and retirement/nursing center called Santa
Maria del Mexicano. He is currently staying with a friend in Buford until he
obtains a new visa to return to Mexico.
Father Joseph Mullakkara, MSFS
Father Mullakkara took his perpetual profession of vows in May
1972 as a Missionary of St. Francis de Sales. He was ordained to the priesthood
Aug. 3, 1975, at Holy Cross Church in Muttuchira, Kerala, India, in the
Syro-Malabar Rite of the Catholic Church.
His first assignment was as a professor at the minor seminary for
the Missionaries of St. Francis de Sales, where he served from 1975-80. He then
served in the Archdiocese of Bangalore, India, as the manager of a farm, school
and mission church from 1980-85.
From 1985-90, Father Mullakkara served as the pastor of St.
Mary’s Church in Kolar, also in the Archdiocese of Bangalore.
In 1990, Father Mullakkara moved to Atlanta where he began serving
as a parochial vicar at St. Patrick’s Church, Norcross. In 1994 he was
assigned as a parochial vicar at St. Lawrence Church in Lawrenceville. In 1995,
he returned to St. Patrick’s, where he served as a parochial vicar until
Aug. 31 of this year, when he was transferred to his present assignment as a
parochial vicar at St. Lawrence Church. |
