Features Editor

HIGHLANDS – At 125 years and counting, it is clear that Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish was built to stand the test of time.

And, at the June 29 anniversary celebration marking the 125 year milestone, generations who live their lives as Catholic faithful in the warm embrace of this parish made that plain for all to see and hear.

Around 500 churchgoers attended the anniversary Mass celebrated by Bishop John M. Smith. Father Robert Tynski, pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help and neighboring St. Agnes Parish and former OLPH pastors Father David Delzell, Father James Thompson and Father Edward Jawidzik were among those who concelebrated with Bishop Smith.

During his homily, Father Tynski spoke of OLPH as a “model of discipleship” where the faithful have gathered year after year for the Eucharist and Sacraments, to pray, to study and to serve those in need.

The parish, he said, has been an influence and an “active partner” in the Highlands for all the years of its existence, baptizing countless members, marrying countless more, “calling people to the witness of faith” and blessed with “wonderful” pastors, clergy and religious who gave their all to the Church community.

He commended the parishioners for their steadfast devotion.

“The faces you see here are those of people who seek to live the gospel message. They are people who have given so much. They are the strength of the parish. They are basic human beings who heard the call and answered it.”

In his remarks, Bishop Smith praised Father Tynski as a “wonderful, loving, prayerful pastor” and the “beautiful parish and the beautiful liturgy” which seemed to flow from the heart of the parish.

Music, beautifully performed and carefully selected moved some parishioners to tears, baskets of hydrangeas – the quintessential summertime shore flower – caught the eye and provided breathtaking background for the celebration of the Eucharist.

A particularly poignant moment came when, during the Offertory, representatives of each of the 12 ministries within the parish – including the Knights of Columbus, the Altar Rosary Society, the food pantry and community garden, the St. Jude Thrift Shop and the youth groups and music ministry – carried lighted candles to the altar, representing the service the parish offers to the community.

After the Mass and during the gala dinner-dance that followed at the Shore Casino, some 300 parishioners shared their love of OLPH – as it is often called around the Bayshore – and their vision of a bright future for the parish. Many of them spoke of their deep devotion to the parish and the ministries that have developed and flourished there throughout one century and parts of two others.

Take Thomas Colleran Thompson, for instance. Like many parishioners, he had special words of thanks and praise for the Church and the school that flourished there for so many decades. Like many others, he has high hopes for Mother Teresa Regional Elementary School which evolved out of Our Lady of Perpetual Help School and St. Agnes School just up the road in Atlantic Highlands.

“This is a great day in the history of OLPH,” Thompson said after the Mass. “We have been parish members since my grandparents, Thomas and Ellen Colleran, arrived from Ireland in the 1880s.”

Over the decades, he said, his family witnessed such “great things” as the start of the OLPH School in the 1950s and “the arrival of the Sisters” who educated scores of children there in the decades that followed. “Now we see great things with the opening of Mother Teresa School.”

On a day for reflection, many parishioners remembered their abiding family connection to OLPH. “I feel my family and I have been blessed (to belong to) Our Lady of Perpetual Help,” said Dorothy Kovic whose seven children received their Sacraments at OLPH and graduated from its school.

Now she’s so pleased that legacy is being passed on to her grandchildren.

Adrienne Monahan Belicose talked about “being in the parish since I was a child. I went to OLPH School. So did my children and grandchildren. I have been a member of the choir for 38 years. It has been a wonderful and faith-filled journey.”

Lois Rogers is available at lroger@dioceseoftrenton.org