Vilaire Philius

You can usually tell where Fr. Vilaire Philius is after Mass by the sound of it. He is the one working his way down the line, greeting every last person who came to say hello, delighting in their company, and every so often breaking into a laugh loud enough to carry across the room. Parishioners tend to describe him the same way, as a priest who brings the joy of the Lord to everyone he meets.

Warm, joyful, and quick to laugh, Fr. Vilaire has carried that spirit through more than a decade and a half of priesthood, and it is the reason the people who know him tend to describe him not by his title or his assignments, but by the gladness he seems to bring into a room. He says it plainly himself. "I love to serve the people of God with joy," he once said. "Whatever He says, I say 'Yes.'" He is humble about the work, too, quick to ask his parishioners to pray for him, even for something as simple as help remembering all of their names.

He was born and raised in Haiti, and he knew early where he was headed, going straight from high school into seminary at the Salesian house in Port-au-Prince. He came to the United States as a young man and later became a citizen, and though he spent years with the Salesians, he felt drawn toward parish life in Central Florida. He left them in 2004 to study theology for the Diocese of Orlando and was ordained in 2009. He served a handful of parishes around Orlando before arriving at Our Lady of Grace in Palm Bay, where he was installed as pastor on Pentecost Sunday in 2023, in a Mass so full of joy the whole church erupted in applause. He likes to introduce himself with a joke, telling people they have finally met a black Irishman.

What has always drawn Fr. Vilaire is people, and young people most of all. He loves working with the youth and helping them grow in their faith, and he has made it his mission to draw the many cultures of his parish into one family, including the Haitian community he was entrusted to shepherd, whose choir still fills the church with song in their own language. He believes love is bigger than the things that divide people. "Love goes beyond our ethnic group, our language," he has said. "Love is universal." He is the kind of pastor who lights up when someone decides it is never too late to give themselves for love, and who measures a good day by the people he got to serve in it. "I never imagined I would be here," he says, "but the Lord is so good to me."