‘The Answer Was Always Yes’ Father Bernard J. Keigher, pastor of St. John Parish, Lakehurst, plays his guitar during his retirement Mass June 25, sharing a personal composition called “I Wish You Peace.” John Batkowski photos
Father Keigher exchanges warm farewell, memories with grateful flock
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q Parishioners of St. John Parish, Lakehurst, celebrate Bernard J. Keigher’s retirement June 25 with a tearful embrace.
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Lives of FAITH • S11
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JULY 27, 2017 • TrentonMonitor.com •
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u Father Bernard J. Keigher poses with a cake in honor of his retirement. The cake featured a guitar and seashells in recognition of his love of music and the Jersey Shore.
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f years of priestly devotion can be measured by the number of tears parishioners shed at his retirement, then Father Bernard J. Keigher’s ministry has been one for the books. Indeed, there was hardly a dry eye as more than 800 parishioners of all generations gathered to bid him farewell June 25 in Lakehurst’s St. John Church, where he had served as their shepherd for 18 years. During the Mass of Thanksgiving celebrated by Msgr. Richard A. Rusconi, a longtime weekend assistant, Father Keigher, known for his love of singing and musical composition, played his guitar and sang a piece he had written long ago called “I Wish You Peace.” Bearing wishes of their own for Father Keigher, present and former parishioners and friends waited in a long line following the Mass. Many, including parishioner Jean Burrillo, said his warm and personal farewell reflected his pastoral sensibility. Burrillo, who needs assistance to get around, had asked her daughter to bring her to the farewell Mass. “I wanted to say goodbye” in person, she said. “He knew us so well and made it his business to know everyone.” “He deserves his retirement,” she acknowledged, “but he will be greatly missed.”
Keigher grew up in Long Branch and graduated from St. James School and Red Bank Catholic High School in neighboring Red Bank. In an interview, he credited his family and the clergy and religious in both schools for creating an atmosphere where a budding call to the priesthood could blossom. “The whole process started in grade school,” he said. “By second grade in St. James School, I had an inkling that I wanted to be a priest. All along the way, my family and the sisters at St. James fostered that option,” as did Father Richard Leadem, a parochial vicar there, he said. Interests he had to work in the medical field or further develop his talent for music paled in comparison to entering the priesthood, he said. After graduation from Red Bank Catholic, he went to St. Charles Borromeo Seminary and St. Mary Seminary and University, both Baltimore, in preparation for ordination to the priesthood. In 1970, he received his baccalaureate degree from St. Mary Seminary and University and completed his theological studies at the seminary. He recalled that “when I went into the seminary, every summer, I would evaluate the situation and ask, ‘Is this where the Lord wants me to be?’” The answer, he said, was always yes. His year as a transitional Continued on • S14
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Story by LOIS ROGERS, Correspondent