The 2008 Homecoming Liturgy

The Vicksburg Catholic School 2008 Homecoming Mass was held this morning in the St. Aloysius Gym. Rev. Alfred Camp was the Celebrant and Con celebrants were Rev. P. J. Curley, Mgsr Patrick Farrell, Rev. Gerald Hurley and Rev. Malcolm O'Leary.

Before Mass started we had a couple of pictures taken. On the front row left to right Myrtle Loviza Alvarado, Vera Marshall Brown, Vera's husband, George, Ina Lott Whittington, Bob Phillips, Marians husband, myself, Marian Love Phillips, Katherine Meyer Turcotte, Billie Price Clarke and Jackie Melsheimer Doiron.

On the second row is Louis Logue and his wife Wanda.

Seated next to them are Shirley and George Resch.

Vera Marshall Brown giving our Class of 1959 Testimonial.

~Priest, Faculty and Students - The Class of 1959 are appreciative for the invitation to help celebrate the Mass and Homecoming Festivities with you. We will treasure all our lifetime the values instilled in our Class of 1959 by the Sisters of Mercy and the Brothers of the Sacred Heart. We're witnesses to the truth of what we learned back then: that you never have to choose between academic enrichment and moral or spiritual development. From our entire class there is evidence of both our academic and spiritual development in our professions and in our family life. We have doctors, nurses, medical technologist, lawyers, accountants, business owners, computer specialist, real estate agents, government workers, secretaries, and, yes, deer hunters. And we were taught to serve with love. Our retired classmates volunteer - - tutoring, sewing, building houses, and visiting the ill and home bound. Many are family people, parents, and grandparents who pass on not only respect for learning but the spiritual values instilled in us. Our grandchildren uphold those same values. Many of us serve our own churches; some as lectors and commentators, and Eucharistic Ministers. Some sing in Church choirs.

Our class is unique for having been together all our high-school years, and we still laugh together, cry together, play together, and pray together. We "girls" are in the same sorority, and our classmates who do not live in Vicksburg still keep in touch with many of us, who pass along the news.

Some of our class were taught by the Sisters and Brothers even past graduation from high-school. I had the distinction of being in a Catholic environment for 16 years - - 12 years at St. Francis Xavier, then in Nurses' Training at Mercy Hospital School of Nursing. When I furthered my training in New Orleans, I learned with the Daughters of Charity at DePaul's Psychiatric Hospital.

So, through real life experience, we learned something more important than how statistics show Catholic education to be effective and rewarding. We learned a moral and spiritual formation which can only happen in an academic environment shaped by Faith. Receiving a Catholic education gives us, and you, freedom to talk about God and about human destiny. We were taught the truth about what is ultimately important. And we don't forget it easily.

We received superior academic foundation in a safe surrounding where qualified, dedicated teachers taught and modeled moral and spiritual values, like respect for life, compassion, and the essential basis of everything - - a close relationship with Christ. ~

Priest altogether before Mass ended.

After Mass and before the reception we had our picture taken by George Brown, Vera's husband. Standing left to right, Louis Logue, Vera Marshall Brown, Jackie Melsheimer Doiron, Katherine Meyer Turcotte, Myrtle Loviza Alvarado, Billie Price Clarke, Ina Lott Whittington and myself, Marian Love Phillips.

Kevin Mahoney, Class of 1984, celebrating 25 years graduating from St. Aloysius, commented to Vera after the Mass. He said he really enjoyed her presentation (about the nuns, school, church, morals, etc.), and it made quite an impression on him and had heard this all his life from his mother, Annie Mae Mahoney, that it finally all hit home. Some students even came up to Vera and told her what a good job she had done on our Testimonial.