My favourite! The faithful line the altar rail for the first blessing of a priest of God! Having studied in Rome, this new American priest, then having been ordained stateside by his local ordinary, returned for a first Mass in Rome for his classmates, friends and faculty!
After I received the blessing, I then reverenced (kissed) his palms for the niiiice indulgence (even though the chrism was gone by this point!). Then, from a sterling tray, I received his ordination card as souvenir of the occasion (it was a small holy card with a pen and ink drawing of Christ with the new priest's name and ordination date on it).
From some, we sometimes hear pessimism and paranoia about a lack of vocations. Having grown up in this era, i'm sometimes bemused by this. Although a titanic number of vocations have been lost to abortion and contraceptive use, others surely must be here? The secret for cultivating vocations to the priesthood was never rewritten (the spoof liturgies of today never inspired anybody under the age of 40). With military precision, the Tridentine Rite, like the Eastern Liturgies, speaks of the Divine Harvester and He calleth Thee!
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