The arrival of the SUV on Walnut Street, late Saturday afternoon, marked the start of a double celebration.

Out stepped Timothy Cardinal Dolan, Archbishop of New York’s Roman Catholic Archdiocese who stood outside the steps of Walden’s Most Precious Blood Church to mark two occasions: the installation of a new pastor, and the church’s 125th anniversary.

The Cardinal greeted the altar servers and “Brother Knights” of Columbus who waited outside for his arrival. He then disappeared inside the church to change into his liturgical vestments, only to reappear a few minutes later, this time accompanied by 10 priests and one deacon, all similarly vested.

The Cardinal smiled at the bucolic surroundings of a country church in small-town America, an image he likened to a Normal Rockwell scene.

“This is a gem,” he said, asking if this had been Walden’s only Catholic Church.

No, he was told by Fr. Joseph Fallon, a former pastor. The original Most Precious Blood Church was a wood-framed building, where the current parking lot now exists. The current brick church was dedicated on July 5, 1896.

The Cardinal led Fr. Thomas Colucci, the new pastor, and the procession of priests and servers into the packed church. Other celebrants included Monsignor Kenneth Loughman, retired pastor of Most Precious Blood, Rev. Matthew Rieman, Pastor of Holy Name of Mary in Montgomery, Rev. Paul Obiji, weekend associate at Most Precious Bood and Rev. Raymond Pavlick, weekend associate at Infant Saviour Church in Pine Bush.

Inside, the Cardinal greeted the parish congregation.
“I hear Father Tom brag about you,” he said. “You’ve got a great gem here.”

Father Tom took a non-traditional path to be the pastor of a country church. Stops along the way included a firehouse in the Bronx, lower Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001, and a Benedictine Monastery.

Colucci, a Rockland County native, entered the New York Fire Department in 1985. His 20-year career in the department brought him to three firehouses in the north Bronx, mid-town Manhattan and lower Manhattan. He was at ground zero on 9/11 when the second tower collapsed. His firehouse lost five men, and he knew 100 of the 343 firefighters who died in the attacks. The weeks after were spent digging through the rubble, recovering bodies and attending funerals for the fallen first responders.

“You saw the worst in humanity that day, but then you saw the best,” Colucci said in a 2019 interview with the Wallkill Valley Times. “Everybody said ‘where was Christ that day?’ And I just said in the people that responded, not just firefighters, police, EMS people, nurses, doctors.”

He planned to enter the seminary upon retirement, but then he got into an explosion on the job. He retired from FDNY in 2004. Recovering from a major head injury, he decided to enter Mt. Savior Monastery near Pine City, NY.

His daily life at the monastery included prayer seven times a week, waking up at 4 a.m., and daily chores. His chores involved cooking and manual labor, such as mowing the lawn and plowing snow, because he was the youngest monk.

He eventually left the Benedictines and entered St. Joseph’s Seminary in Dunwoodie, NY. He was ordained a priest in May of 2016 in what was considered a major media event as the first retired NYC firefighter to join the priesthood. His entire family and some 300 uniformed firefighters attended. Some of them also journeyed up the Thruway for Saturday’s installation.

His first assignment was at St. Mary Mother of the Church in Fishkill as a parochial Vicar. His first day at Most Precious Blood in Walden was March 1, 2019, when he was assigned as a parish administrator. The next step, traditionally is to be declared a pastor by the cardinal after a period of about a year.

This time, the wait was a little longer than usual.

“I forgot!” The Cardinal said during the Saturday’s mass.

The Archbishop would be reminded of his omission during an earlier visit to Walden this past summer when, he joked that “some crabby lady in the front row” said “well if you like him so much, why don’t you make him a pastor?”

It brought laughter from the congregation and perhaps a chuckle from the “crabby lady” who had returned to the front row on Saturday.

During his homily, the Cardinal reflected on the day’s scripture reading from the Gospel of Mark:

And in his teaching he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplaces and have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”

“And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him and said to them, “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

He then addressed the people of Walden for their unwavering support for 125 years.

“I want to thank all of you and your ancestors,” he said, “for your generosity.”