Brother to Father

An ordination, a thunder clap and two gifts to our parents: a stole and the maniturgium

I flew down to Baton Rouge last week with my kids to witness the ordination of my brother Joshua to the priesthood. He spent the last 5 years in the seminary, graduating in December as a transitional deacon, and now he is a priest. It was an awesome weekend. The ordination was on Saturday, his first mass on Sunday evening, and we celebrated a “home mass” for the family on Monday in my parent’s dining room.

“I have always Loved you.”

He’s what folks call a “late vocation,” and indeed he was a good 20 years older than most of the guys at seminary, having practiced law for those 20 years in between. After a decade of discernment he decided to take the plunge after an Acts retreat and a fateful conversation with a priest. Josh had read

Rod Dreher

’s story about Fr. Carlos Sanchez in his book How Dante Can Save Your Life and he felt a kinship of spirit with this man with Baton Rouge roots and a similar late vocation. The two phrases that struck Fr. Sanchez and led to his radical anagnorisis were “I have always loved you. Why don’t you do as I ask?” Josh felt that flood of love and responded to that profound call.

He was beaming at the altar on Saturday, the peculiar visage of a holy man responding to his holy call. It was a classic instance of the man and the moment. We seem to be obsessed with certainty or clarity, and we all long for “proof” and “evidence” as we sense we are haunted with the important things we can’t ever quite put our finger on, but seeing him ascend to the alter and answer the call, prostrate himself before the bishop, and receive holy orders was a stunning turn of events. Truth seems to be more of a letting go, a kind of admittance that we have arrived somewhere. He had been briefly married in his 20’s but it quickly unspooled, leaving him a single man splitting custody of his daughter. That was a devastating time in our family, and it is impossible to escape a sense of loss and purposelessness in the wake of such an unexpected and unwelcomed event. But instead of wallowing in his misfortunes, he threw himself into being a great father, and engaging in service and ministry.

“Behold, I make all things new.”

Incredibly, with a packed cathedral church witnessing this “new thing”, we watched nearly 50 fellow priests process up to the newly ordained men and lay hands on them. Just as Josh moved into position, and hands placed upon his head, a loud thunder clap resounded through the church. I had to do a double take. I immediately looked to my daughter and said “did I hear that?!” She nodded her head. It really happened. Sometimes God is not terribly subtle. It was Homeric and inescapable. The Holy Spirit had made himself known in this moment of transformation. Afterwards at the reception, my nephew and Godson Sam related this story to me. “I was kind of zoning out, admittedly, and just as Uncle Josh rose up, I said ‘wait, this is a big deal…I have to pray for Uncle Josh…he’s becoming a priest!’ so I said a brief prayer: ‘Holy spirit, may you please descend upon Uncle Josh like a thunderbolt. And a few minutes later, bam. It kinda spooked me.’”