On a glorious summer day bathed at first in sunshine and later cooled by puffy clouds and a steady wind, about 6,000 people gathered at Slugger Field in downtown Louisville June 29 to celebrate the 200th birthday of the Archdiocese of Louisville.

It was an event, they were told, that marked the church’s first steps into its third century.

The Mass was led by Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz, who was accompanied by his predecessor, Archbishop Thomas C. Kelly, along with Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, retired archbishop of Washington, D.C., seven other bishops and the priests of the archdiocese.

It was all part of a day that honored the past and anticipated the future.

From an altar built at the ball field’s second base, Archbishop Kurtz told the gathering that they should take pride in the familial nature of the church and its history in Central Kentucky.

“Isn’t it a wonderful occasion to celebrate that we are a family of faith, hope and love?” he said at the start of his homily. “And by the way, happy 200th birthday!”

Before launching into the heart of his message, Archbishop Kurtz asked the crowd to join him in congratulating Archbishop Kelly and Cardinal McCarrick, who are both celebrating their 50-year anniversaries in the priesthood this year.

Then the archbishop turned to the core of his homily, the gifts from God to the people of the archdiocese — faith, hope and love.

“We are first of all a family of faith,” he noted. “And our faith traces itself back some 200 years. We recall the wonderful leadership of Bishop (Benedict Joseph) Flaget (the diocese’s first bishop) and the wonderful work of religious women such as Mother Catherine Spalding. And we remember the lay people active here even before the diocese was formed: Jane Coomes, probably the first teacher in Kentucky, and Dr. Hart, the first physician. All Catholics who brought their faith with them here and lived their faith.”

As noted by Father Clyde Crews in several of his books on the history of the archdiocese, the early Catholics in Kentucky were a determined lot, the archbishop said.

“Father Crews said they suffered, they served, but they also celebrated,” Archbishop Kurtz said. “They were not casual Catholics but were fiercely committed to their faith. And that is what we are drawn together with today — to be proud to be Catholic. To know of our imperfections as a human family but to be joined to Christ as the mystical body of Christ with the sinless one as our head.”

Archbishop Kurtz told those gathered that a few months ago he visited St. Michael Church in Fairfield, Ky., in the heart of what is known as Kentucky’s Holy Land. “One of the lay leaders pointed to a young man and said, ‘Archbishop, that young man is a 10th generation Catholic here at St. Michael’s in Fairfield.’ ”

“The roots of our Catholic faith are deep,” he added. “And we are here to celebrate them.”

Though the day began in bright sunlight — the temperature was 84 degrees when the Mass started — the sun played hide and seek with the clouds for much of the afternoon. Then at about 4 p.m., it hid for good — much to the relief of those who had arrived too late to find seats under the grandstand roof.

Mary Beth Zinsius was one of the 113 voices in the celebration’s choir, which was made up of people from 50 different parishes. They performed from temporary stands erected in the infield area between first and second base, and Zinsius, from St. Thomas More Church, said she was thrilled to be “a part of such history.”

“It was quite breezy; we kept thinking the wind might blow us away from time to time,” she joked. “But it was wonderful being down there, being a part of the choir and being that close to the altar.”

The original Diocese of Bardstown — founded April 8, 1808 — was transferred to Louisville in 1841 and covered an area that today includes more than 40 dioceses, Archbishop Kurtz noted. Several of those dioceses were represented by bishops who concelebrated the Mass — Archbishop Daniel Pilzarczyk of Cincinnati; Bishop David Choby of Nashville, Tenn.; Bishop Ronald Gainer of Lexington, Ky.; Bishop Gerald Gettelfinger of Evansville, Ind.; Bishop Walter Hurley of Grand Rapids, Mich.; Bishop John McRaith of Owensboro, Ky.; Bishop J. Terry Steib of Memphis, Tenn.; and Father Al Humbrecht, administrator of the diocese of Knoxville, Tenn.

Many of those who filled Slugger Field’s shaded seats arrived before the gates were opened at 1 p.m. when the sun was bright and the clouds few.

“We wanted to make sure we had a spot under some cover,” said Jo Theobald, who said she had been to Mass that morning at St. Joseph Church in Butchertown but is a member of St. Frances of Rome parish. She and her daughter, Judy Fitzhugh, said they hoped to stay after Mass for the concerts that were performed by Patrick Henry Hughes, “The Monarchs” and “America.”

“Heavens yes, we intend to stay as long as we can; this is part of our history right here,” Theobald said. “People have worked so hard to prepare for this; everybody should stay as long as possible.”

Theobald and her family were typical of many groups gathered at the ball park — they’d come to the Mass and celebration as a group, enjoying a shared experience as part of the larger family of faith.

The notion of that larger family was emphasized in Archbishop Kurtz’s homily.

“It struck me that perhaps none of us might likely know each other were it not for the gift of our faith,” he noted. “It is the person of Jesus Christ who gathers us together, and it is our faith in Christ that unites us as one people.”

That family shares hope, he added, noting that the church is also celebrating this year the 2,000th birthday of St. Paul, which was initiated June 28 in Rome by Pope Benedict XVI. St. Paul’s life is a testimony to hope, the archbishop said.

“In our second reading St. Paul said, ‘The Lord stood by me and gave me strength so that through me the proclamation might be completed. To him be glory forever and ever.’

“It was St. Paul’s conviction that even though he was in prison, God would care for him,” the archbishop said. “Well, so it is for each of us in our daily lives. We share a conviction of hope that God will care for us, that God will call forth vocations within our church so that we will continue to serve and nurture the gift of our faith. We will be a church of hope when we trust and have confidence in God’s call to serve.”

Last month Archbishop Kurtz visited Ethiopia and Kenya in his role as a member of Catholic Relief Services board of directors. And there he saw manifestations of the Catholic Church as a “family of love,” he said to the celebration crowd.

“I saw the church at work both giving and receiving the gift of love, helping people uncover a dignity that’s there, bringing out a capacity that they have within them to live their lives more fully.”

The archbishop noted that Pope Benedict’s first encyclical, “Deus Caritas Est,” told of God’s love for humanity, a love that comes “with no strings attached.”

“We are as an archdiocese called to be parishes, to be homes in which love is given with no strings attached,” he said. “We’re called to live in neighborhoods and work places filled with the gift of love and charity, always relying on the charity of Christ himself who makes us a family of love.”

“So equipped for ministry, we together now walk into the third century of the church in Central Kentucky, steeped in faith, summoned by hope and impelled by charity,” he said. “How proud we are to be Catholic. How grateful we are to be a family united in Christ, and how good it is to step into the third century of the archdiocese together.”

Then, as priests distributed Communion to people in the stands, Archbishop Kurtz left the altar, walked up the third base line into the seats and gave Communion to those in the wheelchair sections.