At Mass this morning, three of my parish priests were there. One priest was the former long time pastor of the parish, now retired. Our current pastor. Plus our “baby” priest who was ordained recently and I had not yet seen at Mass.
The former pastor is a bit of a character and a pretty funny guy, but his homily concentrated on thankfulness for this country but also on religious liberty and threats to it in regards to abortion and so-called same-sex marriage. Our current pastor seems to have a much more serious bent, but one that I appreciate in his devotion. I have only heard anecdotally about the new priest and his deliberate taking his time in praying the Mass.
Where I go to daily Mass we started to have a Deacon doing most of the homilies. I noticed he had no wedding ring and sure enough it turns out he is a transitional Deacon. I have been quite enjoying his homilies which invoke St. Thomas Aquinas, St. John of the Cross, and with dwelling on the Beatific Vision.
So this got me thinking about generations of priests and future priests where I have a visible timeline while going to Mass. A tiny segment of the timeline of the effects of Apostolic Succession, especially with another former pastor of my parish now being a Bishop.
