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Happening ... in the Local Church
By Kevin Cullen
The
Catholic Moment
RENSSELAER — Father Phil Gilbert, CPPS, is marking the 50th anniversary of his ordination. He has spent nearly a half-century teaching math classes at his alma mater, Saint Joseph’s College.
“I fell in love with this place,” he said. “It’s a beautiful place, a marvelous place. I found my home here.”
Born in Chicago on Feb. 17, 1930, he graduated from “St. Joe’s” in 1952, and was ordained a priest for the Missionaries of the Precious Blood on May 28, 1960. In August 1961, he returned to campus to join the mathematics faculty.
Aside from a brief hiatus for graduate work at the University of Illinois, he has stayed put. At age 80, he is an associate professor, chairman of the math department, and one of six Precious Blood priests who serve the college of more than 1,000 students. He was religious superior at the college from 1974 to 1980.
One of his former students is Carol Wood, now a college trustee at Saint Joseph’s College.
She is the computer services manager for the Department of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University.
“I knew him before I was a student (at Saint Joseph’s), but I really got to know him as a professor my freshman year, in 1970,” she said. “… He didn’t take any garbage from us, and we didn’t provide any, either. We knew what he expected of us.”
She has come to know him as “a very humble person, sometimes almost to a fault.”
For instance, although he is the department chairman, he “jumps in and helps whenever he needs to. One professor has been hospitalized in the last year or year and a half, and he is the one who stepped forward to take her class. He is always willing to step forward.”
“He has helped so many people in his time at St. Joe’s and in his 50 years as a priest,” Wood said. “I don’t think he realizes how many lives he has really affected, mine included.”
Professor Marge McIlwain has taught with Father Gilbert for 25 years. She said he’s always eager to give credit to others and deflect attention from himself.
“We love him to death,” she said. “I hope he stays with us forever. To me, he is a great part of Saint Joseph’s College.”
When she was in the hospital, he visited her frequently and wrote letters to keep her abreast of life on campus.
“He is the most compassionate person,” McIlwain said. “I know for years his mother was here in town, and you would see his little car going to the care center every single day.”
She is not Catholic, and Father Gilbert “made me realize that priests are human beings and beside all the ornamentation, there is a real person in there, a very great guy,” she said. “He is one of those truly humble people who has done so much for so many for so long, yet he doesn’t look at it that way.”
Stephanie Storer, of Bourbonnais, Ill., graduated with highest honors in May, with a degree in mathematics.
She is one of Father Gilbert’s former students, and will begin her teaching career at Benjamin Franklin Middle School in Valparaiso this fall.
“Everyone will tell you he is a very intelligent man, but he never once tried to talk down to you. He’s very relatable,” she said. “He’s always willing to help. When I was taking another class, and needed materials, he said, ‘Take this and keep it as long as you need it.’”
Father Gilbert is known to students for his hats and briefcase, which she described as “cute … it fits his personality.”
Storer said she was often amazed at his work ethic.
“The man never stops,” she said. “I don’t know if he ever sleeps. I’d send him an e-mail, and within five minutes, he’d respond.”
The Missionaries of the Precious Blood, sponsors of the college, will celebrate his golden jubilee on July 1 in Carthagena, Ohio. Sacred Heart Parish in Wanatah hosted a reception for him on May 23. He has assisted there on weekends since 1978.
Father Gilbert attended Catholic and public schools as a boy, but he didn’t consider the priesthood until he enrolled at Saint Joseph’s College, where his brother had gone.
Saint Joseph’s only admitted men in those days, and many of its students went on to become priests.
The Precious Blood priests and brothers that he met on campus were “very impressive to me,” he said. “They were hard working, dedicated. They didn’t take any guff from the students. You had to do your job. They were good men, and I was impressed by them.”
The students tended to be “hard-working guys,” he said. “In intramural sports, they played to win. You knew you were in a ball game. They didn’t seem to be concerned about their bodies.”
After graduation, he stayed an extra year to gain the mastery of Latin he needed for classes at St. Charles Seminary in Ohio.
After ordination, Father Gilbert spent a year in Detroit and worked a summer in North Dakota before returning to Rensselaer to teach.
“The math department knew me, so they requested I be put in the math department,” Father Gilbert said. “I started right away.”
He was a graduate student at the University of Illinois from 1962 until 1964. He returned to Saint Joseph’s in 1964 and has been on campus ever since.
One of the more interesting innovations was a “mathematics laboratory” that was established in the old Administration Building that was destroyed by fire in 1973. Local students were brought there so that Saint Joseph’s College education majors could offer mathematics instruction in innovative ways.
“It was a marvelous thing and it worked out beautifully. That took a great deal of my time,” Father Gilbert said.
Much has changed. Saint Joseph’s College has been co-educational for many years, new buildings have been built, and technology has changed classroom instruction and the lives of students.
Today, “everybody has a cell phone,” Father Gilbert said. “They’re texting all over the place, and most, if not all, of our students have laptops. Many bring them to classes and lectures, and some of them sit in the corridors, typing on their laptops. That’s fine. In my day, you had a typewriter. That was something.
“In the old days, you brought a suitcase (to campus) or maybe a trunk. That was it,” he said. “Now, they bring their own furniture, the TV, all this equipment. They almost need a U-Haul to get their stuff out of here.”
He praised the “Core” program, which gives every Saint Joseph’s College student a grounding in the liberal arts, theology and Western thought. It has brought national renown to the college, he said.
Father Gilbert is the only priest in his department now. He usually teaches between half-time and three-quarter time. His colleagues include three lay people.
He is the department chairman, he said with a laugh, because “I am convenient. I am right here. I will be around. They are happy to have me as chair; it gets them off the hook.”