Rest in Peace

     The Diocese of Greensburg in which I minister is a small Diocese served by a small but mighty band of priests.  So when one dies, it deeply affects us.  This past weekend we lost two of our priests.  On Sunday Father Leonard McAlpin died after battling cancer.  He was 67 years old, and had been a priest for 42 years.  And on Monday, Father Henry Murphy, our oldest priest at 95, died peacefully in San Diego, where he lived.  He was a priest for nearly 71 years.

     Len, like many of our priests, was not originally from the Diocese, but came to serve us from Summit Hill, Pennsylvania in the Allentown Diocese.  In fact, he will be buried from his home parish there on Friday of this week.  Having attended Saint Vincent Seminary in Latrobe, he was ordained for our Diocese by the late Bishop William G. Connare.  Father McAlpin served in many parishes and assignments over the years, and was chaplain of Saint Anne Home in Greensburg since 2008 until the present.  One of our priests emailed us with his thoughts of Len, saying that he admired and remembers the humility with which he bore his burden of depression over the years, the reverence with which he celebrated Mass, his articulate and hope-filled homilies and for the exemplary way he accepted the suffering and prospect of suffering that went with his cancer and treatments "Whatever God wills!"  I think that says volumes, and I thank him for sharing those thoughts.

     Murph was a gentle soul, a really great guy.  His service began in the Pittsburgh Diocese where he was ordained in 1940.  He was assigned in a parish of the newly established Greensburg Diocese when we were formed in 1951, and thus became one of us.  Murph was easy going, gentle (the operative word), and a good priest.  A variety of assignments here, a time of service in LA and again in his later years in San Diego, where, until his recent illness, he served as chaplain of a nursing home even in retirement.  Father Murphy loved to travel, and would just get up and go, calling from wherever he ended up.  I remember answering the phone one day in my first assignment in Irwin.  It was Murph calling to see if any changes were out as yet (it was transfer time).  I asked where he was ... he said he took the bus to Florida for a few days.  I remember a few years ago visiting him in California - his mind was sharp, even while his body was beginning to fail.  He touched countless lives.

     To both of these men, our deepest thanks and gratitude.  Our prayers are that they share the rest and the peace that the Good Shepherd has for those who answered the call to be shepherds.  Requiescat in pace.