On Pentecost Sunday, May 15, 2016, family, friends, Lay Assumptionists and the greater Assumptionist community of priests and brothers gathered in the Chapel of the Holy Spirit at Assumption College to celebrate Fr. Claude’s 50^th Anniversary of Ordination to the Priesthood. Concelebrants included Very Rev. Miguel Diaz Allon, AA, Provincial Superior, Rev. Peter Precourt, AA, Delegate of the Provincial, priest friends and community members. Among the guests in attendance were classmates from Assumption Prep and Fr. Claude’s college days at Assumption.

In his homily, Fr. Claude preached passionately on the Solemnity of Pentecost, the birthday of the Church. As did the apostles, in coming together with their diversity and limitations in the upper room and then their miraculous ability to go out and preach to peoples of all languages and cultures after the power of the Holy Spirit came in wind and fire, so we, too, are called through our Baptism to bear witness to Jesus and his gospel in our daily lives. He concluded by expressing his heartfelt gratitude to his family, friends and brother Assumptionists for their support and prayers over the years. Of particular significance to Fr. Claude was the quote found in the liturgical aide from 1 Corinthians 15:10, “By the grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace to me has not been ineffective.”

Following the Mass, everyone enjoyed a celebratory brunch in the atrium of the Testa Science Center on campus.