Last week, I had the wonderful opportunity to celebrate mass with priests from the Society of the Divine Word at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Greenville, Mississippi. Before going to seminary and being ordained as a priest for the Diocese of Jackson in 2008, I taught Spanish at Greenville High School as a member of the Mississippi Teacher Corps. During that time, I was a parishioner at Sacred Heart Parish, so going back now as the vicar general of the Diocese of Jackson and as a priest in the Diocese was a very special experience that brought back a lot of memories. Father Eric Groner, the priest while I was a parishioner there, also got to come back for the mass. I had my first mass there at this parish as a priest on June 1, 2008. This is a place that touched my life in a very profound way and a place that brings back a lot of memories. This mass was in honor of the founding of the Society of the Divine Word in the Netherlands in the late 19th century by German priests who were forced out of their homeland due to religious persecutions. And this mass was also to honor the founding a seminary at this site in Greenville that was the first seminary in the United States to accept African American men as seminarians in preparation for the priesthood. It was a joy to be celebrating in Greenville that day.
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