Yesterday I presented the St. Jude the Apostle Award to over 70 recipients from most of the parishes and missions of our diocese. This annual award instituted some ten years ago is given to a person or couple who in the mind of their pastor, parish council or parish staff works tirelessly and quietly for their parishes throughout the years. I often say when I give these out, “If you wanted the award you probably should not have received it, but if you feel humbled and honored to receive something you never thought of, then this day and this medal is for you.” We award it during solemn evening prayer on the Solemnity of Jesus Christ our King who precisely as “king” came to serve and not to be served. Pilate never got it when he questioned Jesus about his “kingship” but all of those receiving the St. Jude award yesterday understand it perfectly. I list of this year’s recipients by parish and/or mission appears or soon will appear on the diocesan web-site. At the same time as the awards, there were 46 alleged “saints” on the field at Raymond James Stadium (all from New Orleans of all places) while I had 74 at St. Jude’s Cathedral. How sweet was that!

Saturday night I was fortunate enough to preside at the 50th Anniversary  Closing Mass for Tampa’s St. Lawrence parish. An almost full church for Mass and over 400 for dinner in Higgins Hall afterward indicates the special place this parish occupies in the hearts and minds of its parishioners. It has had only two pastors in its fifty year history, Monsignor Laurence Higgins and for the past three years, Father Thomas Morgan, a graduate of St. Lawrence elementary. Both men were greeted by long and sustained applause for their pastoral zeal. The Sisters of St. Clare who originally staffed the elementary school were represented at the Mass and were also warmly acknowledged. A great parish with a great history closing its first five decades with the prayerful hope for many more great years, Congratulations to them.

+RNL

Recently the Diocese of Venice celebrated the golden anniversary of its first bishop, now retired, Bishop John J. Nevins. Founded in 1984, the Diocese of Venice was created mostly out of territory which once belonged to the Diocese of St. Petersburg with only Collier County (Naples and Marco Island) coming from Miami and several interior counties (Hardee, DeSoto, and Glades) coming from Orlando. After flying up and down the coast from the Skyway Bridge to Florida City, the Apostolic Delegate to the United States  (Pope’s representative) chose Venice to be what we call the “see city” or home of the Cathedral of the new diocese. He chose an auxiliary bishop from Miami, John J. Nevins to serve as its first bishop which he did for twenty-three years.

Bishop Nevins is special to a number of us in this diocese. He was the Vocation Director of Miami when I was accepted as a seminarian for that archdiocese. In the initial interview he got after me about my weight at the time and I thought to myself, “people in glass houses shouldn’t throw rocks.” But he and admissions board accepted me.

He was the Rector of St. John Vianney College Seminary at the time I was ordained and many of our current priests in this diocese were students there during his time (Fathers Muhr, Tapp, Morgan, Weber, Rebel). He had a knack for what might be termed “baby talk” and would often approach you and disarm you with something like, “Hi, brother in Jesus” or “Hi, holy man – you’re going places.” Sometimes he would approach a seminarian who had been with him four years in the seminary by asking, “Are you new here?” I suspect he did a lot of this to gauge the response.

In 1979 he was ordained an auxiliary bishop of Miami while serving as the Rector and with the new duties expected of him, I took his place as the fifth rector of that seminary. He lived on the seminary property and we became close.

Venice owes Bishop Nevins a lot for his time as their bishop. He took a large geographical area and built the Church up amazingly. He opened about fifteen new parishes in his time as bishop. To staff these new parishes he turned to sources for priests outside of the state and sometimes even the nation. He was always a man of good humor with a love of history. When he was a child, the late Norman Rockwell drew him in color for one of his famous covers for The Saturday Evening Post and the good bishop also was a contestant on an early TV program called Ted Mack’s Amateur Hour. Both parents were born and raised in Ireland and he loved the Irish.

My dear friend is suffering the ravages of aging but his mind is still sharp and his sense of humor remains in tact. His successor, Bishop Frank Dewane had a special celebration of his fiftieth anniversary two weeks ago when I was in New Orleans so I drove down to Venice to take Bishop Nevins to dinner last night. I told him that the priests, deacons, religious and people of his neighbor to the North were praying for him on his golden anniversary and he said, “I hope so, brother. I hope so.” And of course he greeted me  with, “Hi, holy bishop.” What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him I suppose but I sure wish I could do some of the things as well as he has done them.

We have five retired bishops at the moment in this state – all wonderful men with great histories of service: Bishop John Snyder, the former bishop of St. Augustine, Bishop Norbert Dorsey, the former bishop of Orlando, Bishop Nevins, Bishop Agustin Roman, the retired auxiliary bishop of Miami, and Bishop Gilberto Fernandez, retired auxiliary bishop of Miami – big shoes for those of us still “walking the walk” to fill. Ad multos annos to Bishop Nevins especially and to all my retired brothers.

Now it is off to Mount Rushmore.

+RNL