A Golden Jubilee Mass recognizing Father Gary Young’s 50 years of priesthood took place Sunday, May 17, 2026, at St. Vincent Church in Nazareth, Kentucky. The celebration marked five decades of ministry. For Father Gary, it was another chapter in a vocation that unfolded through classrooms, conversations, friendships, and the quiet persistence of a calling he once tried to ignore.
The Golden Jubilee Mass took place on the Feast of the Ascension at St. Vincent de Paul Church, where Sisters, Associates, friends, former students, and members of the Resurrectionist Community gathered in thanksgiving for his 50 years of priesthood. The liturgy reflected both celebration and gratitude, with music, Scripture, prayer, and stories tracing the path of a vocation shaped through decades of ministry.
Father Gary was joined at the altar by Father Eric Wagner, CR, who concelebrated the Mass at St. Vincent de Paul Church in Nazareth. Both priests are members of the Congregation of the Resurrection.
Click here to see more photos from the day.
Father Eric shared greetings on behalf of the Congregation of the Resurrection and read a letter from the provincial leadership recognizing Father Gary’s 50 years of ministry. “You have served not simply as a priest, but as a counselor, teacher, and brother,” the letter stated. “Holiness and humanity go hand in hand.”
Barbara Flores, SCN, provincial, opened the celebration by reflecting on Father Gary’s nearly 30 years at Nazareth and the way he lived the charism of the Resurrectionists through hospitality, presence, and attention to others.
“You called people by name,” she said. “In that noticing, you created belonging.”
She spoke about the way Father Gary welcomed people to the Eucharistic table and how his ministry carried an understanding that every person mattered. Whether through daily Mass, conversations after liturgy, or quiet moments with Sisters and visitors, she described a priest who noticed people often before they asked to be seen.
She also reflected on his support for women religious and the mutual relationship he shared with the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth over the years.
“Thank you for your belief in us as Sisters of Charity of Nazareth,” she said. “Your priesthood is a blessing.”
Father Gary’s Story
Over lunch in Bardstown earlier this spring, Father Gary told a story that did not seem, at first, like a vocation story. It began with a hospital floor, an X-ray machine, and a Brother who took one look at him and said, “You’re not going to do this for the rest of your life.”
He laughed when he recalled it.
The Brother insisted he enroll in an X-ray program. He went along with it.
“What the heck,” he said, remembering.
It was one of several moments when his life seemed nudged rather than directed.
Fifty years into his priesthood as a member of the Resurrectionist Community, Father Gary still described his vocation not as a single decision, but as something that followed him quietly until he was ready to face it.
“The nag didn’t go away,” he said.
He was not a seminarian straight out of high school. He tried religious life briefly in Boston and left.
“I wasn’t ready,” he said.
He returned to work, teaching and a life that might have settled into something predictable. But the question of priesthood remained.
By the time he entered the Resurrectionists, he was 30. By the time he was ordained, he was 35.
What drew him to the Resurrectionists was not only their spirituality but their commitment to education.
“Education mattered,” he said. “It was a way of shaping people, not simply informing them.”
That instinct became one of the defining threads of his ministry. He taught in classrooms, built programs, and formed relationships that lasted long after students graduated.
“I’ve married twenty-five or more guys from their class,” he said, laughing at the way time changes our roles.
Kentucky entered his life gradually.
While working at a hospital after X-ray school, he became friends with Bill Martin of Augusta, Kentucky. Through stories, visits, and friendships, the state slowly became familiar to him. He later served for three years in campus ministry at the University of Louisville after asking his Resurrectionist Community if he could try that form of ministry.
Over time, Kentucky stopped feeling temporary.
“It was more like recognition,” he said.
“I miss Kentucky.”
After returning to Chicago for several years of teaching and academic work, Father Gary eventually asked to come back to Kentucky. He later taught at St. Catharine College and Bellarmine University while remaining active in ministry. Around that same time, Nazareth was looking for a priest, and Father Gary saw an opportunity to combine teaching with pastoral work among the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth.
At Nazareth, something in his life found alignment.
For nearly three decades, he became part of the daily rhythm of the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth. He celebrated Mass, accompanied Sisters through transitions and discernment, and remained present in the kind of ministry built less on programs and more on relationships.
“I love the Sisters,” he said simply.
Those who know him described a priest who preferred questions over quick answers. He often looked for what he once called “an angle,” not in the sense of manipulation, but in the sense of possibility.
At Nazareth, that often meant helping people see beyond obstacles and toward the deeper purpose of their work and ministry.
He believed strongly in listening, collaboration and creating space for people to participate fully in the life of the Community.
That same instinct shaped his ministry beyond Nazareth.
He once recalled a wedding where Catholic and Baptist families struggled over what could and could not be included in the ceremony. Rather than draw lines, Father Gary encouraged shared participation and mutual respect.
“You cannot have a unity if you say to the other half, you’re not part of it,” he said.
The line captured much of his ministry over the past 50 years.
Father Gary also remained a reader and writer, someone who moved naturally between books and people, between language and lived experience. In his novel “The Bone Yard,” he wrote, “Somehow both fit together … fiction and facts … to produce a solution.”
The observation felt connected to his own ministry. He did not separate story from truth, but understood that meaning often emerged in the space between them.
His theology remained rooted in tradition, but also in experience and listening.
“I’m not going by the book,” he said thoughtfully. “It’s a tradition. And my own feeling. But something new is happening.”
That “something new” was often found in ordinary moments. Conversations and relationships. The quiet work of showing up.
Across Kentucky, Chicago, Missouri, and beyond, those relationships accumulated over decades. Former students. Families. Parishioners. Sisters. Colleagues. People who still call years later.
At Nazareth, those connections took on particular depth.
As the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth and the wider Community gathered May 17 to celebrate his Golden Jubilee, what stood out was not only the length of Father Gary’s ministry, but the way he lived it. Not through grand declarations, but through presence.
A life spent listening closely, walking with people, and remaining open to where God was leading next. And carrying, over five decades, the conviction that what mattered most was not always what was written down, but what was lived.
Sister Jacky Jesu, SCN, reflected on that witness during the celebration as she offered words of gratitude on behalf of the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth. “You have not only been a chaplain, but also a brother, companion, mentor and friend,” she said.
She also thanked Father Gary for the care he showed Sisters through daily Mass, prayer, and quiet presence during important moments in their lives.
During his homily at the Mass, Father Gary spoke about the winding path that led him to priesthood. He recalled leaving religious life as a young man because he knew he was not yet ready. He spoke about studying radiologic technology in St. Louis, working alongside hospital staff, and learning lessons about teamwork, suffering, and trust that would later shape his ministry.
“The secret of my happiness is the Resurrectionists,” he said.
Again and again, his stories returned to the people who redirected his life. A Brother who pushed him into X-ray school. Hospital coworkers who taught him compassion. A Resurrectionist seminarian who helped him during a forgotten college exam and eventually introduced him to the community that became his home.
Father Gary described vocation as trust. “Trust is almost like a variety of magic,” he said.
He also reflected on the women religious who shaped his faith as a child, especially the Sisters who taught him liturgy and prayer long before the changes of the Second Vatican Council. He remembered handwritten translations placed carefully on glass slides so parishioners could understand and participate more fully in the Mass.
“What do we owe them?” he asked during the homily. “Do we say thanks and walk away? Or do we continue what they began?”
For many present, the day was about honoring decades of relationships built quietly over time through ministry that often happened in classrooms, hospital rooms, chapels, and conversations rather than public recognition.
As the congregation gathered around the Eucharistic table, the celebration reflected the kind of priesthood Father Gary described throughout his life. One shaped less by titles and more by accompaniment, humor, teaching, listening, and remaining present to people where they were.
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Resurrection Prayer
O Risen Lord, the Way, the Truth, and the Life! Make us faithful followers of the spirit of Your Resurrection. Grant that we may be inwardly renewed; dying to ourselves in order that You may live in us. May our lives serve as signs of the transforming power of Your love. Use us as Your instruments for the renewal of society, bringing Your life and love to all people, and leading them to Your Church. This we ask of You, Lord Jesus, living and reigning with the Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God forever. Amen. -Congregation of the Resurrection