Immaculate Holds 50th Anniversary Celebration for Priest, Raises Money to Light Steeple

The Church of the Immaculate Conception in Montclair will celebrate the 50th anniversary of Fr. Frank Burla's ordination next week with a dinner at Mayfair Farms in West Orange. Proceeds from the event will go toward lighting the church steeple in Burla's honor.  

Burla, 77, has served at Immaculate for 47 of his 50 years as a priest. He said Wednesday he couldn’t think of a more wonderful place to have spent his time.

“It doesn’t seem like 50 years I tell you,” Burla said. “It’s been a great, great run in the priesthood, which is a wonderful life.”

The Union Coutny native was assigned to St. Joseph’s in Bayonne, St. Mary’s in Rutherford and Most Blessed Sacrament in Franklin Lakes before coming to Immaculate in 1966 to fill a vacancy left by a priest who went off to be a chaplain in Vietnam.

“I fell in love with it immediately,” Burla said about Montclair. “The town has so much in the way of culture, history, beauty. I don’t know another town like it.”

In addition to his work as a priest, Burla, or “Fr. B” as he is known, taught for 27 years at the parish’s Immaculate Conception High School. He was the Lions’ athletic director and spent lots of time on the sidelines.

Burla admits he had much on his plate. “But that’s exactly what I wanted,” he said. “You get to know the kids and their parents. You see them on Sundays and so on, and that for me was a wonderful way to get introduced.”

His many fond memories include getting to meet former resident and Oscar winner Olympia Dukakis and inducting parishioner Yogi Berra of the New York Yankees into the high school hall of fame for a Lifetime Achievement Award.

“He was so generous with his time,” Burla said of Berra. “If we needed him for something, he was there.”

Burla retired two years ago this July, but continues to live in the rectory and helps out with the occasional mass, as well as weddings and baptisms.

For his legacy, he hopes to light the steeple at Immaculate, the tallest structure in Montclair.

“I thought this would be such a great beacon. You can see it from so many places in town,” Burla said.

He once climbed the steeple of the church modeled after St. Paul's in Rome to take in the view.

“You could see towns from all over, it was amazing,” he said.

Jubillee organizer Barbara Hughes has known Fr. Burla most of her life. 

“I have a unique relationship with him in that I grew up next to the church,” Hughes said. “He was always finding stray baseballs or something and tossing them over the fence.”

She said over the years he has been a teacher, a friend and a mentor.

“He has been just about everything to everybody,” she said. “He has baptized, confirmed and married geneartions of families.”

Huges said about 500 people from around the country are expected at next week’s celebration. Confirmed guests are traveling from throughout New Jersey, as well North Carolina, Florida, Pennsylvania, Massachusettes, California, Texas and Arizona.

“They had to be here for Fr. B.,” she said

Fr. Burla’s 50th Anniversary of Ordination Celebration will take place on Wednesday, May 22, at 6:30 p.m., at Mayfair Farms in West Orange. Tickets are $80. For more information, contact Hugh or Joan Moriarty at (862) 251-1022 and/or Barbara Hughes at (973) 508-7363. 

To help "Light Up Immaculate Conception," send checks payable to "Fr. Burla’s Jubilee" to Father Burla's Jubilee, 
c/o Immaculate Conception Parish Office, 1 Munn St., Montclair, NJ 07042.