Golden jubilarian retiring; looking forward to ‘brand new experience’
Significant moments are sure to stand out over a 50-year vocation. For Msgr. J. Kenneth Rush, who will officially retire from active ministry on July 5, those moments are the opportunities he has been given in his priestly life.
“The opportunities that the parishes afforded me to learn what it means to be a priest and a pastor, and what it means to be Church… It’s been surprising and challenging and full of opportunities and really good,” he said.
Msgr. Rush first felt the call to priesthood when he was a child and attended Sunday Mass with his family at Sacred Heart Church in Winchester, Virginia. The parish was part of the Diocese of Richmond at that time.
“Growing up in the parish in Winchester – this may sound strange – but going to Mass and everything, I thought it would be really neat to be a priest and say Mass,” he said.
Influences
The influence of Msgr. Rush’s maternal grandmother, Ida Nitsche, helped foster that desire to become a priest when he and his parents visited his mother’s family in Rochester, Pennsylvania. He recalls his grandmother walking to the 5 a.m. daily Mass so she could be home to cook breakfast for his uncles, who worked in a steel mill.
“I remember walking with her to go to that daily Mass,” he said. “That was a long time ago, and I was very young, but she was just special.”
His involvement with Boy Scout Troop 45, run by the Missionary Servants of the Most Holy Trinity, who were also in charge of a seminary just outside of Winchester, was influential to Msgr. Rush.
“The brother who ran the Boy Scout troop was a very smart man, and when we were camping on a weekend or something like that, he would take us into the chapel where all the seminarians were,” he recalled. “They were all dressed in cassocks and surplices, and it was very, very impressionable for a young kid.”
Msgr. Rush attended St. John Vianney Minor Seminary in Richmond when it opened and was a member of the seminary’s first graduating class in 1963.
He graduated from St. Bernard in Cullman, Alabama, in 1967 and then attended the Catholic University of America and Theological College in Washington, earning a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and a master’s degrees in theology in 1970 and 1971, respectively.
“Nowadays, seminarians have a pastoral year. They didn’t have that back in the dark ages, so it was just four years, but they assigned you to parishes, especially after you were ordained a deacon. So I was at St. Thomas More,” he said, noting that that parish later became the cathedral of the Arlington Diocese.
Time for adaptation
Msgr. Rush was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Richmond on May 15, 1971, by Bishop John J. Russell.
He said that “all sorts of things were going on” during those first years of his priesthood – for everyone due to the Second Vatican Council, not just the newly ordained – so “one of the things you had to do, at least I think, was adapt to the needs of the Church, and the needs of the diocese, and the needs of the parishes.”
His first assignment was secretary to the bishop and associate pastor at the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, Richmond. As the bishop’s secretary, the priest said he was responsible for driving the bishop to “confirmations and things.”
“He was absolutely wonderful to me,” Msgr. Rush said of Bishop Russell.
Parish work
In 1973, Msgr. Rush was assigned as assistant pastor of Sacred Heart, Richmond.
Msgr. Rush earned a master’s degree in counseling from Old Dominion University in 1975 and a Doctor of Ministries degree from St. Mary’s Seminary and University in 1980.
While serving as pastor of Christ the King, Norfolk, which the priest described as a “wonderful, spectacular place to work,” Msgr. Rush also served as the chaplain of Norfolk Catholic High School for six years.
“Gosh, that was a great experience with the faculty and other folks teaching at the school,” he said.
Msgr. Rush became pastor for the first time in 1980 when he was assigned to Blessed Sacrament, Harrisonburg, where he served until 1992. He was then assigned to Holy Cross, Lynchburg, where he has served as pastor for 29 years.
While at Holy Cross, Msgr. Rush has also served as pastor of other parishes during times of transition. Those assignments include Our Lady of Peace, Appomattox, and St. Victoria, Hurt (2005-2007), and St. Joseph, Clifton Forge, and Sacred Heart, Covington (2010-2011).
He also served as assistant chancellor (1971- 1973), chair of the Priest Personnel Committee (2006-2008) and episcopal vicar of the Western Vicariate (1998-2012). He said he has been a judge in the tribunal for many years.
‘Happy to be a priest’
When looking back on his varied experiences as a priest in the Diocese of Richmond, Msgr. Rush said that the vocation itself has brought him happiness.
“You know, I like being a priest. This may be a truism, but if you’re not happy with what you do (with your life), then you’re not happy no matter what you do… And some people are very unhappy with what they do,” he said. “Well, I’ve always been very happy to be a priest. This has been something that I wanted to do, I had the opportunity to do, and people have supported me and prayed for me over the years to make it all possible.”
To celebrate his golden jubilee, Msgr. Rush and parishioners of Holy Cross had a small celebration at the parish during the weekend of May 15.
On May 25, he joined his brother priests from the 1971 ordination class to celebrate the daily Mass at the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart. They went to lunch afterward to catch up.
“It was just so nice to see people,” Msgr. Rush said. “It was really nice seeing them and talking, especially the ones I hadn’t seen in a little while.”
He said the ordination class, which included priests who had been incardinated into the Arlington Diocese after it was established in 1974, mentioned to each other the “rather amazing feat” of them all still being priests after 50 years.
“That is not true of classes in the past and maybe even in the present,” he said. “We all persevered, we all worked in the Catholic Diocese of Richmond in parishes and other things, we’re all still Catholic priests.”
Open to possibilities
After retirement, Msgr. Rush hopes he will be able to fill in to celebrate weekend Masses where he is needed, “but it won’t quite be the same,” he said. “When you’re at a place for a long time, you get to know people well, and so I’ll miss that.”
Msgr. Rush said that while priesthood “hasn’t always been a bed of roses,” he has enjoyed working with people in different areas of the life of a parish.
“What I’m going to miss a great deal in retirement is working with people,” he said. “For instance, sitting down and preparing folks to get married. Or working with parishioners on a project and whatever it may be. I’ve been really very fortunate over the years to be in parishes that have had just absolutely great people to work with. Not only the people in the parish, the parishioners, but also the staff members.”
Although he is yet unsure what exactly they will be, Msgr. Rush is prepared for the new opportunities that retirement will bring him.
“For me, it’s a brand new world and a brand new experience, so I’m just going to have to be open to all brand new possibilities that are there,” he said. “I’ll discover that as this whole thing unfolds for me.”