Cardinal Timothy Dolan celebrated a Solemn Vespers service the evening of Thursday, November 6, at St. Joseph’s Seminary in the Dunwoodie area of Yonkers, as part of the seminary’s annual Alumni Night.  

The gathering, “for priest-alumni and priest-friends of Dunwoodie,” honored Monsignor Francis Bellew, seminary class of 1966, who received the Terence Cardinal Cooke Alumni Award for Distinguished Service as a Priest. Monsignor Charles Fink, a former spiritual director of the seminary, received the “Come Follow Me” Vocation Award for Promotion of Priesthood and Religious Life. 

Monsignor Thomas Sandi, class of 1973, delivered the Historian’s Report, keeping things on the humorous side. He said at one point that many years back, there reportedly was one seminarian who “was so holy that he appeared to the Virgin Mary.”   

More than 130 alumni and priest-friends attended the Solemn Vespers, held in the Main Chapel and followed by a reception and dinner that drew about 170. 

Solemn Vespers is a formal, sung evening prayer service, part of the Liturgy of the Hours. It is a public prayer that sanctifies the day through praise and intercession. 

“Gratitude,” Cardinal Dolan said at the start of his homily, noting gratitude is “in my heart this evening. First of all, gratitude for this great turnout – thank you. Thanks be to God. It’s good to see you…We feel at home here. This is good for us to be here this evening.”  

Cardinal Dolan also noted, “Secondly, gratitude for the gift of one another. It’s on occasions like this that we sense very tangibly the communio of the priesthood, the fraternity of the priesthood. We belong to a fraternity that is eternal and infinite.” He added, “And we remember our brothers (in the priesthood) who have died.” 

The cardinal asserted that he has gratitude also “for the virtue that St. Peter mentions tonight (1 Peter 3:8-9). Here he calls us to be like-minded – like-minded, that’s important. We come from different places, different backgrounds, but we are like-minded in what is most important, and we’re grateful for that motive; our motive, our drive, our minds are the same: namely, Jesus and his Church; there’s our focus – love for Jesus and his Church is the passion of our lives.”

In accepting their awards, the recipients expressed heartfelt words of gratitude, with Monsignor Bellew noting, “I’ve had a very rich ministry. I was in one parish for 21 years.” Monsignor Fink said, “I’m very happy to be here tonight, and I’m very grateful to all of you. God bless you all. Thanks so much.”  

Monsignor Bellew is a retired priest of the Archdiocese of New York. Monsignor Fink is a retired priest of the Diocese of Rockville Centre. 

St. Joseph’s Seminary and College, founded in 1896, is the major seminary of the Archdiocese of New York. Since 2012, it has also been the major seminary for the Diocese of Brooklyn and the Diocese of Rockville Centre.