SIXTY YEARS A PRIEST!

           Sixty years ago next Thursday I knelt before the bishop to be ordained a priest in the Church of God. It was the fulfillment of the dream I had had, without a single interruption, from age twelve. Have every one of those sixty years been happy? Of course not. That does not happen in any life. All of us must travel at some time another through the dark valley. For seven years, 1974 to 1981, I was without assignment and unemployed. Resident in St. Louis but belonging to a bishop in Germany, I was like an Army officer who has got detached from his regiment. The clerical system did not know what to do with me. Those years were hard, and terribly lonely. I survived only by prayer. And there were other hard years as well.

          If you were to ask me, however, whether I have ever regretted my decision for priesthood, I would reply at once: never, not one single day. I’ll say it another way. If I had my life to live over again, knowing about all the hard and difficult years which lay ahead, would I still choose priesthood? In a heartbeat! I would change just one thing: I would try to be more faithful. Priesthood has brought me pain and sorrow, yes. But it has also brought me joys beyond telling. Those joys are the reason why I say every day, more times than I can tell you: “Lord, you’re so good to me, and I’m so grateful.”                          

          The greatest joy is the privilege, beyond any man’s deserving, of standing at the altar day by day to obey Jesus’ command at the Last Supper, to “Do this in my memory.” Celebrating Mass was wonderful the first time I did it sixty years ago. It is, if possible, even more wonderful today. My prayer today and every day, starting over a decade ago and continuing on into the future, is twofold:

That the years which remain to me may be dedicated every more completely to the Lord God; and –

          For a happy and a holy death.

          I would like to close with a prayer composed by the great 19^th century English convert, now Blessed John Henry Newman, at the end of his long life a cardinal, which has been dear to me since childhood.

Support us, O Lord, all the day long; until the shadows lengthen, and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done. Then in your mercy grant us a safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at the last. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.