ALTAMONT — Father Jeffrey L’Arche, who lives and works at the Shrine of La Salette, nestled into the escarpment off of Route 156, celebrated 40 years of priesthood on May 17.

A ceremony will be held in his honor by the parish communities of St. Anthony of Padua and St. John the Evangelist of Schenectady at the 11:30 a.m. Mass at St. John’s on June 7.

L’Arche was born in Albany and attended Guilderland public schools.

He entered the La Salette Seminary in Altamont after graduating from high school.

He made his Novitiate in Bloomfield, Connecticut, and graduated from Merrimack College in North Andover Massachusetts. He went on for theological studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and was ordained at the National Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette in Ipswich, Massachusetts, on May 17, 1975.

The Missionaries of La Salette, who were spreading their message because they believed the Virgin Mary appeared to two children in the French Alps to warn them about the future and beg for a man to repent, were kicked out of their native France.

They went to Northern Europe, where they found no refuge, and finally settled in North America, L’Arche explained.

The headquarters of The Missionaries of La Salette are in Hartford, Connecticut, but the shrine has been in Altamont since 1924, when missionaries bought the old Kushaqua Hotel and turned it into a seminary.

The shrine is on 52 acres that used to be Henry Boyd Thacher’s estate. L’Arche, who lives there, became moderator of it in 1997.

L’Arche holds a weekly Mass there but really, according to him, it serves as a ministerial center.

In a notice from L’Arche about his upcoming celebration, he said he “is always amazed at the faith of our people even in difficult and trying times.”

He is not worried about the future of the vocation, he said.

“The Lord has always provided for God’s people,” said L’Arche. “Why should the Lord stop now?”