May 31, 2022

Williamstown native celebrates first Mass at home parish May 29

REGIONAL
By Rebecca Drake

Pictured at the altar are (left to right) Father John McDonagh; Dominican Father Philip Nolan; Dominican Father Luke Hoyt; and Father William Cyr. (iObserve photo/courtesy of Sts. Patrick and Raphael Parish)

WILLIAMSTOWN – Dominican Father Philip Nolan, a Williamstown native and Williams College graduate, celebrated his first Mass on Sunday, May 29 at his home parish, Sts. Patrick and Raphael, here.

Father Nolan was one of nine Dominican priests ordained on May 21 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., by Archbishop Augustine DiNoia. Also ordained on May 21 was another Williams College graduate, Father Albert Dempsey.

Father Nolan, the son of Jim and Cathy Nolan, grew up in Williamstown and earned a degree in philosophy at Williams College. As a junior in college, he spent a year studying in Oxford, England, where he first met Dominican friars. After graduating, he worked for First Things magazine for two years before joining the Province of St. Joseph.

“The rich intellectual and spiritual heritage of the order caught my eye first, but it was the humanity and joy of the friars I met that helped me to be open to God’s call,” he said in a 2021 interview with The Catholic Mirror, magazine of the Diocese of Springfield, Mass.  

This past academic year, Father Nolan began a two-year license of sacred theology academic program at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception, the seminary run by Dominicans in Washington D.C., and served as a deacon at Washington D.C.’s St. Matthew’s Cathedral.

A month before his ordination, Father Nolan submitted to DomincanFriars.org a reflection entitled “On the Eve of Ordination.” In this essay he wrote:

Dominican Father Philip Nolan poses outside his home parish church, Sts. Patrick and Raphael in Williamstown, where he celebrated his first Mass on Sunday, May 29. (iObserve photo/courtesy of Sts. Patrick and Raphael Parish)

“A poet once called God ‘the hound of heaven,’ and in every priestly vocation there are moments when the divine baying rings in a man’s ears and he hears those running paws right behind him.

“At first he interprets the discomfort he feels as conflicting desires or uncertain futures or blurry dreams. He does not yet realize that there is an actor in his life besides himself. Soon enough, however, he discovers that he is running for his life from a God who is asking him to die.

“God asks him to die a real death, a death to his own plans and loves and futures. For a man to give in, he has to at least sense that God’s love is stronger than death…”

In the essay, he also wrote, “And, as he becomes acquainted with the ways of God, he discovers that the hound of heaven had been pursuing him for far longer than he knew it: ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you’ (Jer 1:5). He discovers that God’s hidden plan for his life was there from the beginning, before he ever began to have an inkling of its direction. He sees the world in a new light, radiating the love of a hidden God…”

Father John McDonagh, pastor of Sts. Patrick and Raphael, said of the essay, “All of us, priest or lay, have sensed God as ‘the hound of heaven’ prompting us to act in one way or another. And, as Father Philip writes, we ourselves become the hound for God, too.”  

The complete essay can be read at: On the Eve of Ordination | Dominicana (dominicanajournal.org).

At Father Nolan’s first Mass on May 29, in keeping with Dominican tradition, the homily was preached by Dominican Father Luke Hoyt, one of Father Nolan’s mentors, who called the new priest to “always see the flock entrusted to his care as God’s people, not his.”

At a reception held in the parish center following the Mass, Father Nolan thanked all who made the celebration possible, as well as those who nourished his faith over the years at the parish, especially his parents, who showed him “that God alone is enough.”

After a summer assignment at a parish in Cincinnati, Father Nolan will return to his studies in Washington, D.C.