Holy Cross Cemetery Veterans Day service
The annual Veterans Day Service at Holy Cross Cemetery, celebrating Americans’ freedoms and the service and commitment of the men and women of the Armed Forces, will be held outdoors Nov. 11 at 11 a.m. in front of the flag display in the Star of the Sea section of the Colma cemetery.
Msgr. Michael Padazinski, chancellor and judicial vicar of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, and a 22-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force Reserve, will preside over the memorial prayer service.
“The theme is a remembrance of those who have given their lives so that we might enjoy the freedoms – the freedoms that we all enjoy as Americans,” said Msgr. Padazinski, a colonel and chaplain in the Air Force Reserve. Of men and women in the service, he added, “It really is a Christ-like way to live one’s life in the service of others.”
The Veterans Day program has been conducted for some 10 years at Holy Cross Cemetery. Two priests in particular – Msgr. Edward McTaggart, a U.S. Army chaplain, and the late Father Albert Vucinovich, a U.S. Navy chaplain – were instrumental in creating what is now a tradition.
A military honor guard from Travis Air Force Base will join the service, executing a 21-gun salute, and a bugler will play “Taps.”
Msgr. Padazinski became affiliated with the Air Force Reserve as a student at St. Patrick’s Seminary & University in Menlo Park and has served as a chaplain since his graduation. He was mobilized in Desert Storm in 1991 and has served at numerous military facilities around the nation, in Germany and at the polar ice cap. He was promoted to colonel June 1, 2009.
The Veterans Day event typically attracts from 200 to 300 people, said Katherine Atkinson, director of cemeteries for the Archdiocese. She said an invitation is extended to all veterans and their families.
From November 5, 2010 issue of Catholic San Francisco.
