Local News
St. Paul Of The Cross Marks 50 Years With Mass, Dance
Published: October 7, 2004 ed Sumampong
ATLANTA—St. Paul of the Cross Church invites all to the culmination of its 50th anniversary celebration with a dinner dance on Oct. 22 and a Mass on Oct. 24 with the theme of “Celebrating the Past; Facing New Horizons: The Journey Continues.”
Anniversary committee chairperson Myrtle Davis said the 400-family, traditionally African-American parish has been planning events since January 2003 and has had a variety of other events leading up to this celebration weekend, including a Caribbean cruise, parish picnics, a mission on grief, a health fair and ongoing history exhibits. “We’ve been busy and worked very hard,” she said.
The dinner dance with formal attire will be held at the Georgia International Convention Center, located at 2000 Convention Center Concourse, College Park. Tickets for the dinner dance are $85. It will begin with cocktails at 7 p.m., during which time the parish liturgical dancers directed by Shenika Sanders will dance, and parishioner and pianist Graham Jackson, whose father Graham Jackson Sr. played for presidents and dignitaries, will perform. The parish adult choir will sing then and during the dinner, which will begin at 8 p.m.
Davis will give the welcome, and WSB anchor Monica Kaufman will serve as mistress of ceremonies. Former pastor Father Emmanuel Gardon, CP, will give the invocation, and he and other former pastors Father Gregory Paul, CP, and Father Tom Brislin, CP, will also speak about their time at St. Paul. Joseph Laster III, a 13-year-old parishioner, will play the violin, and a video of parish life over the past year will be shown. Vicar general Msgr. R. Donald Kiernan and Father Terence Kristosak, provincial for the Passionist Order that staffs the parish, will speak. Closing remarks will be made by the pastor, Father Jed Sumampong, CP, who is from the Philippines and previously served in San Francisco. Music for the dance will be provided by Bill Odum and his band. Loretta Jacobs, co-chair of the banquet committee along with Jacquelyn Chandler, will present 50th anniversary souvenir journals to attendees.
The Mass on Sunday will be celebrated at 11:30 a.m. by Msgr. Kiernan. The former pastor of 15 years, Father Melvin Shorter, CP, has been invited to be the homilist.
Chandler has been a member of the church since 1967 and has enjoyed planning the celebration.
“Any friends of the church who’d like to attend, they are welcome…It’s our big celebration,” she said. “I have looked at this as a labor of love in that I helped plan the 40th, and now I’m helping plan the 50th. There are so many young people involved, and I’m seeing many young people hoping they’ll be around to plan the 100th for the church.”
She commented on how the church is “facing new horizons” in becoming more ethnically diverse, but is still predominantly African-American. Over the past 14 years she’s seen more members join the church who are from African nations, including Nigeria and Ghana, and from Hispanic countries. She’s found it’s “very positive” for the parish, as they’ve gotten involved and shared their culture through things like food and dress. They also have a priest from Uganda, who lives at the rectory for three-month intervals on sabbatical. Their Legion of Mary group made 2,000 rosaries for him to take back to his parish.
“Our church has grown tremendously in many cultural aspects over the last 50 years,” Chandler said.
Father Sumampong said that the parish has an aging congregation, with about 50 children and 25 youth, and that many drive from outside the parish boundaries to come there as it’s not in a very Catholic area. He has been holding a novena during Masses leading up to the anniversary.
“It’s just to heighten consciousness of parishioners for our celebration of the many blessings and graces bestowed by God,” he said. “We’ll just take our future into the hands of God. It’s a very good, alive parish.”
Davis volunteers at the parish with the Catholics Returning Home program, where she’s rewarded to see people return and get involved like one young lady who now regularly attends Mass and wants to begin a junior Knights of Peter Claver chapter. Davis is also active in serving the larger community and, among other things, served for 12 years on the Atlanta City Council and now is secretary/treasurer for the Task Force for the Homeless. While on the city council she developed a strong interest in this issue when it came up in a debate over public restrooms downtown. The task force, she noted, is a strong public-private partnership, as many church groups regularly volunteer.
She joined St. Paul of the Cross in 1956 and has found it to be a place where she can always come “home” and find strength.
“I just think people of faith have a responsibility when things aren’t working and when solutions haven’t been found. It’s our responsibility to try to do what we can to solve problems. I think we’re motivated by our faith to do that,” Davis said. The church “is not only a place of worship but a place of solace, a place where I feel my roots are.”
The church is located at 551 Harwell Road, NW, Atlanta, and can be reached at (404) 696-6704. For ticket information call Jacquelyn Chandler at (404) 344-1131 or the church.
