At first glance, the Mass that Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh Bishop David Zubik led Sunday morning at a Plum-based retirement community followed a familiar pattern.
Worshippers, seated in a ballroom in pastel-green chairs about 12 rows deep, read from the Old and New Testaments.
After Zubik offered a prayer for peace — “for a world so deeply divided, politically especially,” the bishop noted — the crowd of nearly 100 congregants sang “Hosanna in the Highest” and the worshippers shared in communion.
As it turns out, though, the hourlong Mass in a Longwood at Oakmont ballroom was more special and unique than it initially appeared, its organizers said. It was a promise made and a promise kept, a post-pandemic service offered thanks to the outreach of one woman: Mary Finke.
Finke wrote Zubik nearly five years ago, asking the bishop to lead Mass at her retirement community.
“I just wrote him on a piece of plain old paper,” said Finke, 94, a mother of three, grandmother of 11 and great-grandmother of three.
Zubik agreed.
They even booked a date for the Mass: March 20, 2020.
But covid-19 had other plans, and the years-long pandemic kept Zubik from leading an in-person Mass at the facility.
That changed Sunday. Zubik led services alongside the Rev. Kevin G. Poecking, whose Holy Family Parish includes churches in Plum, Verona and Oakmont, and a substitute altar boy, former Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald.
“Thank goodness for all of these people,” Zubik told TribLive after the services. “These are ladies and gentlemen who have meant a lot to their families, to their community.”
Holding the special Sunday services, he added, “was one small act of saying thanks to them for who they are and what they’ve done.”
Finke, who sat, often smiling, next to family members in the first row, worshipped for years at St. Stephen church in her native Hazelwood. She wed there, as did her parents.
All three of Finke’s children marked their Catholic sacraments at the Second Avenue church.
She said Sunday’s Mass in Plum, though, where Zubik paused during a sermon to acknowledge Finke’s faith, resonated very deeply for her.
“I was totally shocked when he came over,” Finke said after the Mass. “I really was taken by surprise — he was so very personal.”
Will Randolph, the facility’s chaplain, helped close the service by reminding worshippers of Finke’s letter, a photocopy of which was displayed proudly near post-Mass refreshments.
“This is such a gift,” Randolph told the bishop. “Thank you for that gift, for realizing the dreams of Mary for us.”
Justin Vellucci is a TribLive reporter covering crime and public safety in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County. A longtime freelance journalist and former reporter for the Asbury Park (N.J.) Press, he worked as a general assignment reporter at the Trib from 2006 to 2009 and returned in 2022. He can be reached at [email protected].