Heh, ya’ll thought I’m going to be talking about people who just had babies, didn’t you. Nope. It’s a father of a different sort.
Yesterday 8 men in our diocese were ordained and today those newly ordained priests had their first Masses. They televise the ordination so I had it on yesterday. I didn’t sit glued to it for the entire 3+ hours but I did watch the procession as they entered the Cathedral.
That’s the fun part because with Steve in the seminary, we know quite a few priests & seminarians and they all process in. This requires us to call out, “There’s Steve! Oh, look! There’s (fill in the blank)!” every time we see someone we know. Then there are the times someone walks by quickly and you have to freeze it and rewind it twenty times asking, “Is that Fr. Z? Wait, play it again. I think it is him,” at which point Theresa will walk in and say, “I think you need to clean off those glasses. That’s not Fr. Z, that’s Fr. Y.”
Of the 8 new priests, 2 of them had their first Mass at our Church. We went to one of those first Masses. Seeing them say Mass for the first time is so cool. But, being me, weird things go through my head while I’m watching. Things like, “When Steve does his first Mass, I bet he will have his cousins as altar servers.”
I try not to think too much about that sort of stuff because I don’t know whether or not Stephen will become a priest. He’s in the seminary to discern whether or not he has a vocation. Right now he thinks he does but who knows what will happen during the next 5 years. Still I can’t help picturing him up there & wondering what hymns he will choose, what priests will be there, and other random questions.
At the end of the Mass, our pastor asked Fr. Newly Ordained’s family to please stand. Then, I was thinking, “Oh crap! When Steve is saying his first Mass they’re not going to make us do that, are they??” Luckily I then realized, nah, they won’t because everyone in our Church already knows us. Whew! Got off on that one!
After Mass, they held a little reception for the new priest in the Church basement and everyone ate to hold them over for the long wait in line to receive Father’s first blessing. I figure I can use all the blessings I can get so of course we waited on line. While down there, we had quite a few people saying, “Next time it will be your son.” (Steve wasn’t there because he was serving at the first Mass of another newly ordained priest in a different Church.) Some of these people attempted to bribe me so that when it’s Steve doing his first blessing, they can cut the line. Hmmm, I wonder if I can print out special ‘cut-the-line’ tickets and sell them….
