Jubilarian Mass

Father Dan Juelfs
Homily from the Jubilation Mass
May 22, 2023

Our psalm response this evening, “Sing to God, O kingdoms of the earth.” I think it’s a very appropriate response as we gather to celebrate the Mass for Jubilarians, those of us who are celebrating specific or signal kinds of years, numbers of anniversaries. That we come together to sing to God in thanksgiving. Sing to God in recognition of the gifts that have been shared with us. Sing to God in, as they say, thanksgiving for the ways in which God has guided and directed each one of us over the last number of years. For me, coming up celebrating 50 years of priestly ordination, an opportunity, as I’ve been thinking about and kind of preparing for this over the last couple of months, to stop and reflect upon what’s happened. What things have I experienced? What things has God put into my life in ways that I certainly wasn’t expecting. Certain things that have been a part of my life that caught me by surprise in lots of ways. And the gifts that God has shared with me to be able to respond to them.

I think one of the, for me, one of the important gifts in particular, I think even though I’ve got my back to them, I’m going to be speaking to some of the younger priests, but the gift of the Jesus Caritas fraternity. The opportunity of getting together with fellow priests on a monthly or maybe six weeks, two-month basis depending on what our lives and our schedules look like, to do a review of life. To compare what’s going on in our lives. To ask questions. Ask each other, “this is what’s going on. What do you think it means?” And I thank Father Ray Deisch for that gift because he’s the one, who in 1975, introduced the priests of our diocese to the Jesus Caritas program. The first time that any of us had ever heard of it.

And, he, Father Deisch, Father (William) O’Connell and myself were part of that, the ones who were in that very initial group. My age catches up with me. I’m the only one still alive of those people that started the Caritas back in 1975. But Bill and I and Ray were together for 40 years before Ray passed away. 

That experience of having those people who had been around the block of time or two, I was two-years-in  when we started it — a parish with two missions in an eighth-grade catholic school. I was well over my head, and I could depend on those guys when we got together. I could bounce things off of them and they’d help me through it. Help me understand what was happening. Help me to think through and to recognize how I could better handle it or whatever the situation might happen to be. But that, that sense of fraternity of priesthood that we share, all of us here, but very particularly with whatever small group of people that we meet with regularly, gave me, all of us I think, the opportunity to come to know what God has in store for us or how to understand what it is God has sharing with us. 

And so many things in my life, over the years and the ministries that I got involved in were the results of someone saying, “why don’t you do this? I think you’d probably like that.” It got me involved in marriage encounter which consequently worked its way into marriage tribunal because people knew me, and they knew what was happening. And the priests who knew what I was doing in terms of marriage encounter said, “We think you understand that whole process and you’d probably be good to work with the tribunal.” Thirty-four years later I finally retired. 

Those kinds of things were part of how God guided and directed my ministry. Guided me and put me into places that I wouldn’t have done on my own without that initiative, without somebody saying, “how would you like to do this?”

Other ministry aspects, other things that I got involved with in a certain sense had nothing to do with church or parish, but emergency services. Becoming involved in them and being the chaplain for Pennington County firefighters for 20 years. That gave me an experience and a contact with people I wouldn’t have had any other way. Gave me the opportunity to see God working and people’s lives in ways that I simply wouldn’t have had that experience without being put in that position. Being invited to and having God giving me grace to say, “yes,” to allow myself to share in those things. 

So, I say as we come together this evening, I think it’s time, a good time to sing to God, O kingdoms of the earth. Sing to God in thanksgiving, appreciation, recognition of all of the ways that God gifts us. All the ways that he calls us to continue to proclaim his presence and his love and our world. As I say, more often than not, in ways that I certainly hadn’t planned on doing or hadn’t expected to be doing. But people invited me. God gave me the grace to say “yes,” and allowed me to share that part of people’s lives and to share God’s presence from God’s love in those kinds of ways.