Gratitude for Fr. Bernie on His 50th Anniversary

In his usual humble, low-key manner, Fr. Bernie Baris recently celebrated his Golden Jubilee as a priest and 55 years as a religious of the Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette! He has been a true blessing to many communi-ties over the years, including the La Salette shrine, retreat house, and two parishes served by La Salette priests. Most recently, we have been blessed to have him as our week-end assistant priest for St. Martha Parish and St. Mary Parish. Fr. Bernie is also the director of the La Salette re-treat house, treasurer for their province, and member of an international board for the La Salette community around the world. When he started helping us almost three years ago, we immediately noticed he had a “pastor’s heart” in the way he celebrates Mass and cares for the people of our parishes. He understands the dynamics of family life and living as people of faith in the midst of a culture that is often not supportive. He is so down to earth and humble that he is like a member of each of our families, and I am honored to call him a friend.

Parishioners typically hold big celebrations for priests’ 25th and 50th anniversaries. However, when Fr. Bernie marked his 40th anniversary, he joined a recent trend among priests and chose to move his bigger celebra-tion up to his fortieth anniversary while he was still a par-ish priest. Therefore he has kept this 50th anniversary simpler, having a more modest celebration of his anniver-sary Mass at La Salette retreat house, where he is the di-rector. He invited a relatively small group of family and friends, which I attended on behalf of our collaborative parishes. He chose to focus not on himself but on the blessing each of us is to each other in living out our voca-tions. We requested the opportunity to celebrate his anni-versary in some way in our parishes, but for the reasons above, he declined any kind of formal celebration.

That said, we are honoring him this weekend with the bulletin cover and in our prayers of the faithful. I am sure any notes or cards you might like to send would be a won-derful way of honoring the gift of his vocation as a priest and religious in the Church:
  In the spirit he brought to his anniversary Mass, may we offer thanks for the ways Jesus calls each of us to follow him in our own life vocations, and how each of you bless the lives of priests and the other vocations you interact with as you live your faith!