GREENSBORO — When Joe Adamczyk decided to attend West Point after high school, he planned to get his education, do his time in the Army, then get out and return home to New Jersey.
He did his time, indeed, and then some. Plans changed, and he retired as a colonel after almost 30 years on active duty.
“At each milestone (of years served), there was a decision point, and the most important thing was that I enjoyed what I was doing, and my wife and children enjoyed it, so we had a lot of great opportunities over the years to serve,” Adamczyk said.
Throughout his career, laden with impressive accomplishments – earning a master’s degree, achieving designations of ranger and master parachutist, and becoming a battalion commander, inspector general and chief of staff, to name a few – his faith remained central. Even his dog tags feature a medal of St. Michael the Archangel.
“There are some trying times, both personally and professionally, and you find solace, you find strength, you find wisdom in your faith,” Adamczyk said. “I’ve done a few jumps out of airplanes; I’ve probably said more Hail Marys going out of an airplane than anybody around, and it always worked for me, I’m thankful to say.”
Pictured above: St. Pius X School students display the six military flags in St. Pius X Church’s outdoor cloister following the Veterans Day Tribute Mass Nov. 6. Veterans passed the flags as they walked from the church to the parish center for the reception.
Now a parishioner at St. Pius X Church in Greensboro, Adamczyk was the featured speaker at St. Pius X’s Veterans Day Tribute Mass, celebrated Nov. 6. About 75 veterans were honored, representing all branches of the military and every conflict from World War II forward.
During his keynote speech, Adamczyk drew parallels between military members and all people of faith. He noted that St. Pius X Church’s mission statement calls for its members to know, love and serve the Lord and others. Similarly, servicemen and women fulfill their duties by knowing, loving and serving their fellow soldiers and their country.
“To know, love and serve – all our veterans have understood that,” he said.
Adamczyk also explained that “veteran” doesn’t always just refer to a man or woman who has served in the military; it also describes someone with experience in a special skill.
To illustrate this, he asked the veterans in the congregation to raise their hands. Those who had served in the military – the conventional use of the word “veteran” – did so.
“I would contend that this whole church is full of veterans,” Adamczyk said, because everyone gathered is experienced in the mission of the Church to know, love and serve.
“You are veterans. You are veterans in the army of Christ,” he said.
Besides Adamczyk’s reflection, the Mass incorporated rituals throughout to honor the gathered servicemen and women. Each veteran was given a boutonnière to recognize his or her status. After the presentation of the colors and the Pledge of Allegiance, altar servers led the procession with six military flags: one for each of the four branches of the armed services, one for the armed forces reserves and one for prisoners of war and those missing in action, as well as the American and papal flags.
Other special tributes included a missing man’s ceremony and the recognition of veterans by military branch. St. Pius X School students served as readers, the choir, ushers and altar servers. Many students sat with their veteran relatives, and several more students have close relatives serving overseas right now.
The Tribute Mass is often an emotional celebration for all involved, pastor Monsignor Anthony Marcaccio told the congregation. Teary eyes reached their pinnacle when retired Maj. Jay Callahan played “Taps” on the bugle, the lone figure standing by an empty table set in remembrance of those missing in action.
A reception for the veterans followed the Mass.
“It means so much to them to come back and socialize – that’s kind of the fun part,” said Therese Chase, chair of the Veterans Day of Remembrance committee. “They come here and sit and talk with old veteran friends and new ones they’ve met from the same branch of service.”
Pictured: Retired Maj. Jay Callahan bows his head after playing “Taps” on the bugle during St. Pius X’s Veterans Day Tribute Mass. He performed the solemn song while standing alone at the empty table set to honor military members who have gone missing in action.The Veterans Day Tribute Mass at St. Pius X is a tradition dating back about 10 years, Chase said. A retired military parishioner brought the idea to the parish staff, and ever since, the parish’s Spirituality Committee has collaborated with the school to make it happen.
While its main goal is to celebrate the parish’s veterans, it’s also an important event for students, Assistant Principal Chris Kloesz said.
“It’s so critical that our young people are given the opportunity to meet the veterans that are able to come out today to express their gratitude,” Kloesz said. “Out in public, children are sometimes less apt to approach a veteran, but in an atmosphere like this, where we are honoring the veterans, it’s a great opportunity for the school-aged kids to come out and say thank you and be in the midst of what I consider to be real-life legends and heroes.”
Kloesz, a U.S. Coast Guard veteran, also is able to share with his students first-hand experience of how faith informs military service.
“As veterans, as military service members, we know that God plays such a huge role in providing us protection, provid-ing us the grace and strength to overcome odds and to do what our service members do to protect our nation,” he said.
“We’re protected by God; therefore, we can protect our nation.”
— Laura Kosta, Correspondent
HIGH POINT — Pennybyrn at Maryfield is celebrating 70 years of caring and compassion this week, marking the day in 1947 when five women religious arrived to carry out the mission of carrying for others in the High Point area.
Residents, supporters, staff and volunteers of the retirement and assisted living community gathered to give thanks to God for the anniversary milestone during a Mass offered Nov. 3 by Bishop Peter Jugis.
In his homily, Bishop Jugis praised the “miraculous” development of Maryfield over the past seven decades since five Sisters of the Poor Servants of the Mother of God were sent by their congregation in London, England, to High Point at the request of North Carolina Bishop Vincent Waters. They left their families, their homeland and everything that was familiar to them in order to serve God in North Carolina, where they arrived on Nov. 14, 1947.
The five pioneer sisters – Sister Mary Patrice, Sister Anne Christina, Sister Maria Benignus, Sister Ellen Fitzgerald and Sister Mary Monica – purchased Penny House, originally built by George Penny in 1927, on Greensboro Road in High Point. They converted the home into a convent and a convalescent center with 22 beds. It became known as Maryfield after it was licensed as a nursing home in the 1950s.
Seventy years since they arrived, Maryfield has grown into a 71-acre continuing care retirement community called Pennybyrn at Maryfield. The facilities, which were entirely rebuilt in 2007, include a small neighborhood of 20 independent living cottages, a building of 131 independent living apartments, a building of 24 assisted living and 24 memory support apartments and a nursing care building. The Maryfield chapel houses Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration, in which hundreds of volunteers from across the Triad have taken turns keeping vigil every day and night since the Feast of Corpus Christi on June 5, 1994.
Five Sisters of the Poor Servants of the Mother of God still live in Penny House, but the nursing home moved to a separate building behind the house in 1965. The community now totals 377 residents and 401 staff.
The sisters continue in the tradition of their founder, Frances Taylor, who took the name of Mother Magdalen, caring for their residents with the help and guidance of a board of directors and ambassador council comprised of people from the community.
Many of those supporters and volunteers were on hand Nov. 3 to give thanks for God’s blessings on Maryfield and for the gift of the sisters’ presence in High Point.
“It’s remarkable that those nuns came here 70 years ago and established this successful place,” said Ken Kaczmarek, a Maryfield resident and parishioner of St. Paul the Apostle Church in Greensboro. “They are a joy.”
“Joy” is how Dick and De Martin also describe their experience living for the past three years at Maryfield. Dick Martin praised the sisters’ “sustained commitment and holy sacrifice” in caring for the sick and the elderly over the past seven decades. Good health, he noted, is not to be taken for granted. “We tend to give ourselves too much credit for our own health. We need help from the Lord, and Pennybyrn is a step in that direction.”
God’s presence is felt everywhere at Maryfield, residents and staff said – not only in caring for the sick or the dying, not only in Perpetual Adoration or at the frequent Masses offered in the chapel, but also in the smiles and the love of everyone who lives or serves on the Maryfield campus.
“It’s just amazing,” said Ann Carr of High Point, a longtime volunteer and one of four people who inaugurated Perpetual Adoration at Maryfield 23 years ago. “I come almost every day, and I feel uplifted. It’s a beautiful place – I see the care that the people are given. I also see the fidelity of married couples, taking care of each other. It’s been a very rewarding experience for me.”
“I’ve never been to a nursing home that has a chapel like this,” she continued. The focus on prayer and on Eucharistic Adoration, and the joyful presence of the sisters, “makes a difference. The Holy Spirit is here.”
Maryfield has “a beautiful, prayerful, Catholic atmosphere,” agreed Father Tom Norris, O.S.F.S., pastor of Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in High Point, who concelebrated the Mass with Bishop Jugis. The Mass was also concelebrated by Monsignor Anthony Marcaccio, pastor of St. Pius X Church in Greensboro; Father James Solari, Maryfield chaplain; Father Joseph Dinh, pastor of Christ the King Church in High Point; and retired Father Robert Ferris. Father Noah Carter served as master of ceremonies.
Ann Birmingham, a nurse administrator for 18 years at Maryfield, added, “It’s the most wonderful place in the world.”
“It’s just wonderful!” echoed Margaret O’Connor, a charter resident who’s called Maryfield home for the past 18 years. “I arrived here in an ambulance 18 years ago this week,” she said with a smile, recounting how she fell and broke several bones that required extensive rehabilitation. Now about to turn 97, O’Connor said she loves everything about Maryfield. “The sisters are wonderful, everything is wonderful!”
Diane Peace, whose mother Doris Casey was in full nursing care at Maryfield for four years until her death, praised the sisters’ and the staff’s commitment to caring for the entire person and treating everyone like family. “The care they give the dying here is beautiful,” she said.
Mission leader Sister Lucy Hennessy, SMG, who is originally from Limerick, Ireland, noted that the five founding sisters “embarked on a journey of faith to come to an unknown place and serve a people they yet did not know. They truly had little of this world’s goods or even money in their possessions, but they had a heart filled with faith and with hope, and that is what made the difference.”
They cooperated with God’s will through their obedience, generosity and dedication, Sister Lucy said, as did so many people in the community who stepped forward to help build and staff Maryfield over the years.
As the needs of the community have grown, the sisters’ dedication to caring has evolved into a new, vibrant retirement lifestyle and care for people of all faiths.
“It’s a great day to celebrate 70 years of heritage,” said Pennybyrn at Maryfield’s president, Richard Newman. Though the scope of what the sisters do has changed and broadened over the years, “the core values are still the same. Respect for the person and the hospitality of the sisters are still as strong as it was in the beginning.”
Maryfield’s mission remains the same as it did when the sisters arrived in 1947, Sister Lucy said: “to demonstrate God’s love for those whose lives we touch.”
“This morning as we continue to reflect on how far we have journeyed over the past decades, we are profoundly grateful for what God has accomplished in and through us,” she said. “Circumstances may have changed but the same strong faith and trust in what God can still do remains, as we too look forward to serving those in need for many decades to come.”
Maryfield’s 70th anniversary is like any other milestone in life, noted supporter Leo Gottschalk – in a way, it’s only a number, but it’s evidence of so much more. “Years may pass, but it’s important to celebrate God’s blessings.”
— Patricia L. Guilfoyle, Editor. Kathy Roach, correspondent, contributed.