June 5, 2008

By Francis X. Shannon

I can't imagine a practicing Catholic not having been to a wedding, or a baptism, and of course there are the sacraments of Holy Communion, Reconciliation, Confirmation, and Annointing of the Sick. The one sacrament which most Catholics haven't had the privilege to witness, however, is the Ordination of a priest.

Ordination is certainly a turning point in the life of a man, an ultimate subordination of his total self to the service of God, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Roman Catholic Church and her teachings. Under other callings - marriage especially - such should ideally be the case since all proper callings should offer the opportunity to reflect Christ's love for His Church and to be lifted up in one's own holiness. Holy Orders, however, are more overt in this regard, particularly by virtue of that individual person giving himself and himself alone over to God, unifying himself to Christ by assuming the functions, obligations, and authority of the apostolic ministry, most especially the profession of the Gospel and the celebration of the Eucharistic sacrifice.

In the course of ordination, not only the new priest is enriched by this beautiful and ancient rite that fairly spills over with twenty centuries of tradition. He's enriched, obviously, by the anointing with holy chrism; by the imposition of hands by his bishop, as a successor to the apostles, with the weight of almost 2,000 years of priestly hands that have been imposed on generation after generation of priests all the way back to the apostles themselves. It is the entire experience of ordination that consecrates him to God. This is the ordinand enriched.

The Church herself is enriched, by the addition of another worthy priest to take up the Cross of Christ and tend His sheep. The more immediate Church is enriched, the flock which a new priest will more directly serve.

Also enriched are those attending an ordination. I recently attended the ordination of a fellow parishioner, Father Tim Cummings, who's also the son of one of my brother Knights of Columbus from our Mother Seton Council #6724. He was ordained alongside Father Philip Dac Clements, MSHS, who'll be assigned to my parish, Nativity, in Brandon, FL in the Diocese of St. Petersburg.

This was the fourth ordination I've been to, one of them being an ordination to the transitional diaconate of Father Craig Morley, whose ordination to the priesthood I attended a year later. Father Morley was another fellow parishioner whose family has long been an active part of my parish as well. We've got several seminarians currently going about their studies, including a 2007 graduate of the public high school at which I teach.

I never fail to be uplifted by attending an ordination. All of the tradition and solemnity and magnificent reverence of the long history of Roman Catholicism is brought to bear during such a beautiful rite. The looks of pride glowing from the faces of the family of a new priest, especially the parents with hearts filled with the knowledge of having imparted so fully the Catholic faith to their family as to have raised a priest. No experience will make you walk out of the cathedral with a heart as full of pride in your Roman Catholicism as an ordination.

Francis X. Shannon is a Tampa Tribune columnist.