Ordination Anniversary

Ordination Anniversary
Monday, 5th Week of Easter

May 19, 2025
Acts 14: 5-18
John 14: 21-26
Salesian HS, N.R.

As I said at the beginning, today Fr. Jim [Heuser] and I are celebrating the anniversary of our ordinations as priests in 1984 and 1978.  Later this week, Fr. Tom [Brennan] and Fr. Dominic [Tran] also will have anniversaries, and next week Fr. Dave [Moreno] and Fr. Mike Conway.

Card. Oscar Rodriguez anoints the hands
of Fr. Joshua Sciullo with sacred chrism at his ordination

Perhaps you’re thinking, “That’s a lot of priests.”  Yes and no.  In truth, there’s only one priest, and his name is Jesus Christ, the Jesus who brings us God’s love and who sacrificed his life on the altar of the cross in order to rise from death and lead us alongside himself to his Father.  “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will … make our dwelling with him” (John 14:23).

In order to share God’s love with the billions of people who weren’t alive when Jesus walked on this earth, Jesus shares his priesthood with other men who become his images and his agents, “other Christs” we call them.  He pours out his Holy Spirit upon them, so that they may preach the Gospel as Paul and Barnabas did in the 1st century (cf. Acts 14), so that they may make Christ present in the sacrament of the Eucharist and forgive sins as Christ did.  God’s love continues to touch the world thru the men whom he calls to priesthood.

That’s why it’s important for you to pray for priests—those you know here at Salesian, those in your parish, and all priests anywhere.  You want them truly to be images of Christ, to do the work of Christ today.

Could Christ be inviting you to take up his mission of being “another Christ” for people today?  It’s possible.  Christ is always inviting young men like you—not angels, but ordinary men—to continue to share all that he taught the apostles, as Jesus says in today’s gospel (cf. John 14:26), to continue his work of revealing God’s love for men and women, forgiving sins, and nourishing us with his own body and blood.