MY 10TH ANNIVERSARY

This weekend I am celebrating my tenth anniversary of ordination to the priesthood. My actual anniversary is on June 22 but this weekend worked out better to celebrate at and after the Sunday 10:00 AM Mass. Like most people celebrating anniversaries, I have been asked if it seems like ten years. The response will be familiar to many: some days it seems like a lot less and some days it seems like a lot more!
 
I was struck when I saw my previous assignments typed out in the program for this Sunday’s Mass: I’ve served as a priest in three deaneries of the diocese, having grown up in a fourth and served as a seminarian in a fifth. My time studying canon law in Washington, DC seems like yesterday and yet I completed the program in 2019. Even here at OLQH, I am starting my third year as pastor. Time flies, as they say!
 
Our own plans never really turn out the way we expect them to. We can plan and organize and devise and, in the end, it’s God’s plan that happens. I am reminded of Father Robert Letona’s ordination to the diaconate that took place here at Our Lady Queen of Heaven in May of 2009. There is a photo of the then-Deacon Letona and me (as a seminarian) outside of the parish office in the Gathering Space. Little did I know then that 12 years later I would be named pastor of the parish. I felt God’s humor when Bishop Callahan called to tell me I was assigned to OLQH and remembered that Mass all those years prior.
 
In all of this, I believe the lesson learned is that God is control. It’s not an easy lesson to learn. We want to be in control. Yet, when we try to plan, it usually doesn’t work out. I am reminded of a line from a Robert Burns poem: “the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”  In my ten years of priesthood, I certainly have learned to expect the unexpected and to trust in Divine Providence, as difficult as that is sometimes. Nonetheless, it’s a lesson for all Christians to learn.
 
I am hopeful for the next ten years. Who knows what the future will bring. In the program for my first Mass, I wrote that I had one request: “Please pray for me. Please pray that I may be a good and holy priest. Please pray that I may be a fervent priest that is able to bring souls to God.” That is still my request. Pray for me and I will pray for you. God bless you all.