Canon Ian Smith’s Ruby Jubilee was celebrated in style on 15 June: exactly forty years since he was ordained to the priesthood – and in the same town!
Friends and former parishioners, religious, and curates flocked from right across the Diocese and beyond to the Mass at St Joseph’s Church in Keighley, to celebrate Fr Ian’s anniversary and wish him ‘ad multos annos’!
As a very fine organist himself, it was a happy and welcome coincidence for Fr Ian, that the organist for his Jubilee Mass was Patsy – who had actually played at his Ordination and for his very first Mass at the former Church of Our Lady of Victories in Keighley! Patsy and her husband John were just two of the Keighley parishioners who have been ‘reunited’ with Fr Ian in recent years, as since his retirement, he has been celebrating Mass most weekends to help his friend Fr Anthony Rosso, who is Parish Priest of the Keighley and Haworth Parishes of Our Lady of Lourdes and St Joseph.
Patsy played for Fr Ian’s first Mass – and for the Canon’s Ruby Jubilee celebration!
Concelebrating Mass with Fr Ian were Fr Christopher Angel (now Parish Priest at St Stephen’s in Skipton) and Fr Anthony Rosso, who had consecutively been his Assistant Priests at the Huddersfield Parish of the Holy Redeemer. Fr Anthony preached a moving Homily on the same Gospel reading which had been proclaimed at Fr Ian’s Ordination, relating Our Lord’s exhortation to St Peter to ‘feed my sheep’ to the spiritual sustenance, leadership and support the Canon has given to seminarians, curates and parishioners over the past four decades.
Fr Ian converted to Catholicism after spending four years in South Yorkshire as a Vicar in the Church of England; joining him in the Catholic Church shortly afterwards was his young altar server, a certain John Wilson, now Archbishop of Southwark! Fr Ian’s example has brought many people into the Church and he has helped several men on their discernment journeys towards vocations to the priesthood, including our current seminarian, Stephen O’Hara, whose mother was there at the Ruby Jubilee celebration.
Congratulations to Fr Christopher Angel, who celebrated his 20th Anniversary of Ordination on 17 June!
Amongst the congregation of about 200 who enjoyed the post-Mass party in the St Joseph’s School Hall, were a large number of lay faithful and families who had made the journey from Huddersfield where Canon Smith had been a popular Parish Priest for almost a quarter of a century: first at St Brigid’s in Longwood and later, after some diocesan reorganisations in 2007, Fr Ian brought the remaining churches together into Holy Redeemer Parish, which consists of the town centre church of St Patrick’s, where he had a superb organ installed, and established a music programme and Parish Youth Choir, and the churches of Our Lady of Lourdes (Sheepridge) and Holy Family (Slaithwaite).
Fr Christopher, Alistair and Sr Kosi were members of Fr Ian’s ‘team’ in Huddersfield
Huddersfield’s longstanding SVP stalwarts, volunteers, and parishioners came to celebrate with their former Parish Priest!
Fr Jonathan Hart also attended as a longstanding friend and now the Parish Priest at St Wilfrid’s in Ripon: the last parish in which Fr Ian had been Parish Priest before his retirement.
Applause for St Joseph’s parishioner Jill’s beautiful cake!
With a superb cake, and so many cards, presents and words of appreciation – Fr Ian’s greatest gifts have, of course, been those he himself has given to the Lord in friendship and service to the People of God, throughout his 40 years of devoted ministry!
Fr Christopher Angel, Canon Ian Smith & Fr Anthony Rosso
Ad multos annos!
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