Scores of parishioners, family members and friends prayerfully looked on as Bishop David M.  O’Connell, C.M., installed Father Harold Cullen as the new shepherd of St. Catharine-St. Margaret Parish, Spring Lake.

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 “I feel very honored to have been appointed pastor of the parish,” said Father Cullen as he reflected on the installation Mass that was celebrated July 20 in St. Catharine Church.

“Already I have the sense that the people are extremely warm, welcoming and faith-filled,” said Father Cullen, as he went on to tell how the community has some 4,000 families, a parish school, St. Catharine, with an enrollment of about 360 students and a religious education program with an enrollment of 450 students.

Father Cullen noted that he has been pleased with Mass attendance, with faithful filling both worship sites and the involvement of parishioners in the various ministries.

“There is a great wealth of talent, faith and potential for growth in all of the ministries and already parishioners are stepping up and offering to assume a leadership role in the parish,” he said. “I warmly welcome these initiatives and I encourage members of the parish to think big and expansively and to understand that with the Grace of God, the sky is the limit to what we can accomplish here.”

During the Mass of installation, Father Cullen said he called upon the members of the parish to pray and reflect on ways that God may be calling them to serve or to be a leader in the parish community.

“I challenged and encouraged them to take the risk of stepping forward with their ideas, hopes and expectations, assuring them that as pastor, I will be wide open to new ideas about how to make us a more Christ-like and vibrant parish.”

Acknowledging his predecessor, Msgr. Thomas A. Luebking, who was pastor of St. Catharine-St. Margaret Parish at the time of his July 6 death, Father Cullen spoke of how moving it was for him and brother priests – Father Garry Koch and Father John K. Butler, to visit the hospitalized Msgr. Luebking and concelebrate Mass around the priest’s bedside.

“Msgr. Luebking placed his hand on my head and blessed me, as he symbolically placed his legacy of 25 years in my hands, in a very emotional moment,” recalled Father Cullen. “I see signs of his presence all over the parish and the parish is a living tribute to his priesthood, his dedication and many talents. I feel called to build on the foundations that he established here in the physical and spiritual edifice of the parish.”

Father Cullen, who celebrates his 45th anniversary of ordination this year, was born in 1944 in Cork City, Ireland. He joined the Redemptorist Fathers and completed his studies for the priesthood in Chuain Mhuire Seminary. He was ordained to the priesthood in the Diocese of Galway, Ireland, by Bishop Michael Browne on Sept. 15, 1969.

Father Cullen arrived in the Diocese of Trenton in 1982 and served in St. Anthony Parish, Hamilton, and St. Mary Parish, Barnegat. In 2005, he was named pastor of St. Jerome Parish, West Long Branch, where he remained until his appointment as pastor of St. Catharine-St. Margaret Parish. He was incardinated a priest of the Trenton Diocese July 12, 2006.