Congratulations to Fr. Harry Brown, C.PP.S., who this year is celebrating the 60th anniversary of his ordination.
Fr. Brown, a native of Wapakoneta, Ohio, entered the Society in 1946 and was ordained on May 31, 1959. Fr. Brown has been a pastor, preacher and teacher during his life as a priest. He has also been very active with Marriage Encounter.
After his ordination, Fr. Brown ministered at Holy Rosary and Precious Blood parishes in Dayton; St. Edward Church in Cleveland; and Holy Ghost Church in Vinita, Okla. In 1963 he was appointed to Brunnerdale, the Congregation’s high school seminary in Canton, Ohio. There he served as assistant magister spiritus, prefect of discipline, vice rector then, from 1972 to 1978, its principal. Throughout that time, he was also the school’s Latin teacher.
In 1978, Fr. Brown became the associate pastor of St. Anthony Church in Falls Church, Va. He began his ministry with Marriage Encounter in 1979, and in 1984 was named the director of family life ministry with the Diocese of St. Petersburg, Fla. working in the Chancery under the bishop. In his many years with Marriage Encounter, he has been part of the team for 193 weekends. In a 17-year span, he preached at Marriage Encounter weekends in almost all of the 50 states.
In 1996, he was named pastor of St. John the Baptist Church in Glandorf, Ohio. In August of 2009, he was appointed to ministry at the Sorrowful Mother Shrine in Bellevue, Ohio where he is still active at 87 years of age.
The Missionaries of the Precious Blood will celebrate Fr. Brown’s anniversary in addition to the milestone anniversaries of eight other priests and religious brothers in a Mass marking the Feast of the Precious Blood on July 1 at the St. Charles Center.
“We’re inspired by the lives of service of these men. They said yes to God through their vocation to religious life many years ago, and continue to say yes to this day,” said Fr. Jeffrey Kirch, C.PP.S., provincial director of the Cincinnati Province of the Missionaries of the Precious Blood. “May God bless them with many more years in which to live out that call.”
The Missionaries of the Precious Blood is a religious society of priests, religious brothers and lay associates founded in 1815 by St. Gaspar del Bufalo. Society members work as missionaries in parishes in the U.S. and abroad, in education and in a wide range of apostolates, promoting the cause of God’s reconciliation worldwide by proclaiming the Word.