25 YEARS AGO TODAY @ THIS HOUR I WAS ORDAINED A TRANSITIONAL DEACON OF THE CHURCH.....2 YEARS AGO TODAY I BEGAN THIS BLOG, "INSIGHTS INTO LIFE AND FAITH",...........

...Saturday April 19, 1986 - 9:30 am : St. Pius X Catholic Church ; Redwood City, California  USA...

It was on this date, at this hour, two and a half decades ago, that my seminary class at St. Patrick's theologate in Menlo Park, California, were ordained transitional deacons at the hands of San Francisco Archbishop John Raphael Quinn.  As there were twenty of us, and two religious order candidates being ordained to the Diaconate that day, the seminary Chapel was insiufficent in size, so our first share ion the Sacrament of Holy Orders, took place in neighboring Redwood City, in the stately St. Pius X Church.  The church was filled to capacity with family members and friends from Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, Stockton, Santa Rosa, Monterey, Salt Lake City, Honolulu, Indianapolis, and even internationally.  Given the 300 mile round trip drive it is from Sacramento to Redwood City, especially on a Saturday at mid-morning, I chose to bring some forty of my family members and friends to the Deacon Ordination on a chartered bus.  It was a solemn, joyful Easter Season Liturgy, and Archbishop John R. Quinn, presided, preached, and ordained us, with a wonderfully warm, fraternal, liturgical, spirit.  When I speak of us being, "transitional deacons", I am referring to the college of deacons we were ordained as 25 years ago, were preparing for Ordination to the Priesthood of Jesus Christ.  And we were ordained priests, over the following fifty three weeks; the first in Santa Rosa, California, and Indianapolis, Indiana, on June 6, 1986; the last of our class, on June 13, 1987, in San Jose, California.  The Dalmatic, which is the formal vestment worn outwardly by a Deacon along with a sideways placed Deacon Stole, was an ornate gold and red vestment from my home parish, St. Rose's in South Sacramento; a Dalmatic that had belonged to the parish from its founding as St. Patrick's Home For Children in 1932, and as St. Rose's Parish, a decade later.  In the spirit of fraternal collegiality and friendship, I gave that same Dalmatic, to my Sacramento diocesan colleague, Reverend Father Eric Lofgren, now the Pastor of St. Joseph's Parish, in Lincoln; when he was ordained a transitional Deacon, on January 23, 1993.  On my Diaconate day, a Reception followed the Ordination, back at St. Patrick's Seminary, then I returned to South Sacramento, and St. Rose's, where I spent Sunday preaching at all the Masses and where I presided over a Baptism for the first time, at the very font where I had been baptized, thirty years earlier.  That weekend of April 19 / 20, 1986, was a high energy, compacted two days of spiritual, pastoral, liturgical, sacramental, events.  And it started the twelve month, two week, countdown that me and my Sacramento ordination classmates, Reverend Fathers Eduino Silveira, and Paul Schloeder experienced before our Ordination to the Priesthood of Jesus Christ, on May 2, 1987.  So re-energized with the blessed spirit of that day 25 years ago, and starting the fifty four week countdown today leading to my / our Silver Jubilee of Priesthood, next year, I affirm the vows taken on my two Ordination days, and pray today, as always,  "May The Lord Who Began The Good Work In Me, May Bring It To  Fulfillment" !!!!!!!!!!!  Reverend Troy David Powers