What a great topic HighwayHound! I would love the chance to sing the praises of our priests! (Yes we have quite a few – big parish)
I’ll start with our Pastor, Fr. Jon:
He’s a neat man, and does some very good homilies. He loves our youngest Dash, so when he sees him in the pew he includes Dash in the homily.
The thing I really like and simultaneously am driven nuts by: he purposely messes up the typical speech cadence of the prayers and the profession of faith/Nicene Creed. So you are saying the Creed and he’ll speed up/slow down or just stop talking to hear if the people actually KNOW what they are saying.
The speeding up of speaking is hard to follow – he has the mic. But I appreciate his ultimate goal: make people realize they are actually praying, or saying something important and to THINK ABOUT IT. He’s a big hit with visiting folk.
Fr. Mike next. He’s a character that one. Refuses to wear the pink Vestments during advent
but he’s also very level and very smart. It’s hard to put into words how much I like the man, but he is my preferred confessor. He does the “show of hands” during his homilies – it cracks me up.
Fr. Marco is a new priest, just over a year now. He is the happiest guy. He is very heavily accented and can be hard to understand sometimes – but he has a gift of immeasurable beauty: during the transubstantiation and he begins to sing – oh my – you can feel the Holy Spirit in every particle of time and space, in your own body – it’s AMAZING! (I have come to calling it “Father Marco singing down The Holy Spirit.”) I get goosebumps. I have actually swooned, like I might pass-out! It is really quite an experience. I think angles are present too, as if they can’t resist his beautiful voice. I am so glad he is a priest – that gift is surely from God. Any Joe off the street would gladly become Catholic hearing Father Marco sing during the Liturgy of the Eucharist.
Fr. Benson, he’s a character too. He usually does the Family Mass at the school once a month. Once he came down during his homily to a fellow who’s cell phone was ringing and bellowed “I KNOW THAT’S NOT GOD CALLING!”
The neat thing about him is that at the end of every mass I have attended that he presided over – he says “Let’s give a round of applause for all these beautiful children. Their cries are music to my ears, their little faces precious. They are the future of our church –
do not forget it!”
There are a couple more I don’t know very well, but these are our main priests.
I do want to add that we recently added a Ugandan Seminarian to our Rectory. His name is Remy and he is the kindest, most lovely man ever. I just adore him. I was lucky to meet him on his first day here. I must have been a curiosity to him, here I am a lady with arms full of tattoos, and all these kids! LOL We’ve become fast friends though. He had never heard of Halloween, naturally, and he enjoyed attending my 9-year-old’s class party. I want to invite him for Thanksgiving at our home. I better catch him tomorrow – but chances are it’s too late. Oh well, an Advent Sunday, for sure!
Please remember him in your prayers as he travels the sometimes difficult road to priesthood. His quick smile and easy nature are a blessing, and I have yet to catch him without a great big grin – but I bet he misses his family, and his country – terribly. Thanks.
Thanks again, I love having the chance to praise our wonderful priests!
