Pilgrimage Procession and Evening
Prayer
Commemorating the 130th
Anniversary of the Return of the
Servant of God Father Augustus
Tolton to Quincy
Dear brothers and sisters,
It was one hundred and thirty years
ago this morning that the recently ordained Father Augustus Tolton returned to
Quincy from Rome. Because I, too, recently returned to Quincy from studies in
Rome, it is a day to which I feel a special affinity and a special closeness to
Father Tolton.
In order to welcome him home, the
priests then in Quincy chartered a special railroad car to bring Father Tolton
from Springfield to Quincy. The train was named the “Q,” and when it pulled
into the station at Front and Vermont streets, a brass band greeted Father
Tolton by playing his favorite hymn, “Holy God, We Praise Thy Name.”
As he disembarked, a large crowd
cheered and waved in greeting to the first black priest in these United States
of America. Father Tolton climbed into a carriage, drawn by four white horses
and decorated with flowers, and a procession with the band and the people moved
from the train station to St. Peter’s church, then at Eighth and Maine streets. As the procession moved along, the people
shouted, “Father Tolton, Father Augustus Tolton! Welcome home! Welcome home!”
When the procession arrived at St.
Peter’s church, Father Tolton entered the sanctuary, blessed his mother for the
first time as a priest, and began giving his blessing to the hundreds of people
who came to welcome him. They received him well and welcomed him gladly as a
priest, though there was earlier some confusion concerning his person. In a
brief notice concerning his return published in The Quincy Journal the
day before, we read:
Father
Tolton explains the report of his death, which was current a couple of months
ago, as having arisen from a mistake in reading the cards he sent out in memory
of his first mass. As the notice contained the words ‘In memoriam,’ he supposed
it was taken as a death announcement.”[1]
This is but one small example of
how, in many ways, his life was fraught with misunderstanding, a circumstance even
present at his return to Quincy.
Father Tolton offered the holy
sacrifice of the Mass for the first time in Quincy the following day at St.
Boniface church, a celebration The Quincy Daily Journal called “the
grandest service ever held in Quincy.”[2] It
was a day on which, as Father Tolton later recalled, “everyone received me
kindly, especially the Negroes, but also the White people: Germans, Irish, and
all others. I celebrated Mass on July 18, in the Church of Saint Boniface with
more than 1,000 whites and 500 colored people present.”[3]
Father Anselm, the rector of St.
Francis College - which would later become Quincy College and then Quincy
University - preached a sermon on the priesthood. Taking a text from Saint Paul
as his launching point, “This is how one should regard us, as servants of
Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God,” a text very dear to my own heart
(and from which I have taken the title of my blog), he expounded on the duties
and the necessity of the priesthood (I Corinthians 4:1). Afterwards, he said to
those gathered, “Rejoice today because another priest has been given to us.
Rejoice, and today when he holds in his hands that of which God has said, ‘This
is my beloved son,’ pray for the church and that you may live and esteem and
treat him as is due a priest.”[4]
Our celebration today may lack
something of the pomp and grandeur of that one one hundred and thirty years ago
today and our numbers may not be so high, but our devotion is no less than theirs.
We, too, have come to honor the first black priest in our country and to give
thanks to God for the gift of his heroic and faithful witness.
Father Tolton ministered in Quincy for
nearly three and a half years before he left for Chicago to be away from an
intolerable situation of prejudice. After he arrived in Chicago, Father Tolton
wrote these words to a friend:
My
gratitude to those people of the Gem City is threefold. Some of the white
friends and benefactors of St. Joseph’s church did not forget their colored
priest Father Tolton. They did not let him go away empty handed from the Gem
City, but as a token of respect they have made him a suitable donation, asking
him to remember them in his prayers, and promised to do three times more if he
would only remain with them. Catholics will love and respect a priest
regardless of nationality; at least that is the spirit of those people in the
Gem City who knew me for twenty-nine years or more. Never will I forget the
happy hours spent in the little St. Joseph church. I wish them all the
blessings that can be bestowed upon them, for that charitable spirit that they
have always shown toward me and the colored children.[5]
Three days after his departure from
Quincy, Father Tolton was voted the second favorite priest in Quincy, despite
the fact that he was no longer in the city. In fact, he missed being voted the
favorite priest by just eleven and a half votes.[6]
All
these years later, we have gathered to keep Father Anselm’s words; we have
gathered to esteem Father Tolton and to treat him as is due a priest, to treat
with respect and honor one who served so faithfully as a dispenser of the
mysteries – of the sacraments – of God. We have come because, as the Pope
Emeritus Benedict XVI reminds us,
the true stars of
our life are the people who have lived good lives. They are lights of hope.
Certainly, Jesus Christ is the true light, the sun that has risen above all the
shadows of history. But to reach him we also need lights close by — people who
shine with his light and so guide us along our way.[7]
In
Father Tolton, we see the light of a good life that illuminates before us the
path of Jesus Christ.
Throughout
his life, Father Tolton remained “content with weakness, insults, hardships,
persecutions, and constraints, for the sake of Christ” (II Corinthians 12:10).
We have no record of him bemoaning the difficulties he encountered. We have no
record of him drawing public attention to the harsh treatment he received from
a fellow priest. In all things, he seems to have imitated Christ the Lord and
remained a humble and long-suffering servant who united himself to Christ. This
Servant of God allowed the love of the Lord to motivate his life and to this
love he dedicated his life. His fidelity to the Church is a clear proclamation
of the Gospel, and an invitation for all people to enter into and to know the
merciful love of the Lord.
In
this he is a model for each of us; never did he cease his proclamation of the
Gospel, not even when he encountered discrimination and prejudice. As Father
Roy Bauer has said, “Some people could easily judge that his life was not a
success, but God calls His servants to be faithful, not successful!”[8] The fidelity of Father
Tolton cannot be doubted, and for this reason he is a model and continual
reminder for us that, as Saint Paul says, “when I am weak, then I am strong”
(II Corinthians 12:10). This, I suspect, is why he remained so popular in
Quincy even after he left for Chicago; this is why we remain attached to him today
and have come to commemorate his return to the Gem City.
Father
Tolton entrusted himself completely to the Lord and we now pray that he will
soon be declared Blessed and raised to the dignity of the altars, a cause which
continues to move slowly forward. Let us pray that, through his example and
intercession, the Lord will raise up many more such servants of Christ in our
Diocese, that each of the Lord’s altars may have a priest to administer the
mysteries of God. Amen!
[1] “Our Colored Priest,” The Quincy Journal, 17 July 1886.
[2] “Solemn High Mass,” The Quincy Daily Journal, 19 July 1886.
[3] Augustus Tolton, Letter to
Cardinal Checchi, September 1886.
[4] “Solemn High Mass,” Quincy Daily Journal, 19 July 1886.
[5] Quoted in “Father Tolton,” The Quincy Daily Journal, November 13,
1889, page 4.
[6] “Lucky Ladies,” Quincy Daily Herald, November 17, 1899.
[7] Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi, 49.
[8] Roy Bauer, They Called Him Father Gus, Part Twenty-nine.
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