By Mary Stadnyk, Associate Editor

Since the 2014 unification (merger) of the two parishes that now make up Our Lady of Perpetual Help-St. Agnes Parish, Atlantic Highlands, a number of changes have taken place in order to help the new faith community put its best foot forward. As a way to affirm the progress of the unification and recognize the changes, a special “Unity Mass” was celebrated the morning of Sept. 30.

The sun was shining and warm breezes blew as some 400 parishioners who have known either St. Agnes Parish in Atlantic Highlands, or Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish, Highlands, as their spiritual home, gathered for the Mass which was held in the gazebo in the Atlantic Highlands Municipal Harbor.

Msgr. Sam Sirianni, rector of St. Robert Bellarmine Co-Cathedral, Freehold, was principal celebrant of the Mass. Concelebrants included Father Fernando A. Lopez, pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help-St. Agnes Parish; Father Joseph Quinlan and Father Martin Biglin, both retired priests from the Newark Archdiocese who serve as weekend assistants, and Father Cosmas Maduekwe, a visiting priest from Nigeria.

“This was a beautiful celebration of unity,” Susan Kiley, parish business manager, said of the Unity Mass and the breakfast that followed.

After describing how the Unity Mass was a project that required a great deal of involvement from various parish ministries – the St. Vincent de Paul conferences, the Knights of Columbus, the parish council, the parish staffs and clergy – Kiley explained that it resulted from the many changes that have occurred since the two parishes, were twinned in 2009 and then unified in 2014. The range of changes included scheduling of Masses, locations for religious education classes and the combining of staffs and volunteers to organize other various parish religious education classes and the combining of staffs and volunteers to organize other various parish ministries. Most recently, the parish has had to sell a piece of property at the OLPH site which has been purchased by the town for a new municipal complex. To complete the transaction, the parish had to close its long-standing thrift shop at OLPH and relocate the parish food pantry. Ultimately, the OLPH thrift shop was combined with the one from St. Agnes, and the food pantry was moved to the basement of OLPH Church. 

The idea for the Mass originated with parish council member Tom Gaffey, who currently serves as a member of the parish council.  “The Mass was beautiful and Msgr. Sirianni’s homily was wonderful,” he said. “The people of our parish had come together in unity.”

Muriel Smith, also a parish council member said,  “In a parish that has had so many pastoral changes in the last 10 years or so, to me this was also a loving tribute to Father Fernando and all he is faced with and accomplishing in the parish where we have had demolition and construction, [food] pantry and thrift shop moves, religious education location changed, a huge debt and so many other events and activities a pastor would not normally be facing, even in a twinned parish.

“I feel that people were drawn closer together and were more understanding of the how and why so many changes are occurring,” Smith said.