THE THIRD SATURDAY OF APRIL - 26 YEARS AFTER THE ONE THAT CONCRETIZED MY LIFE'S VOCATION............

Each year since April 19, 1986 and May 2, 1987, this thirteen day period has marked the anniversaries of diaconal and priestly ordination, of Fr. Eduino Silveira, Fr. Paul Schloeder, and myself.  It was on Saturday morning April 19, 1986, that the three of us joined with our classmates from other dioceses from St. Patrick's Seminary, in Menlo Park, California; were ordained to the transitional Diaconate by Archbishop John Raphael Quinn of San Francisco, in St. Pius X Church, in Redwood City.  Families and Friends filled the church for the 9:30 a.m. Rite of Ordination to the Diaconate Mass, to which more than forty of my relatives, parishioners, and friends, traveled by chartered bus, given the distance from Sacramento and the hour of the liturgy.  It was on that day, in that ordination ceremony that we made our primary commitment to serve God and the Church Jesus founded, by publicly and solemnly committing to being Gospel servants of God's People.  One year and thirteen days later, after deacon internship years serving in St. Joseph's Parish, Auburn; (Troy) Presentation Parish, Sacramento; (Eduino) and St. Joseph's Parish, Marysville; (Paul), we became the Centennial Ordinands to the Priesthood of Jesus Christ of the Catholic Diocese of Sacramento; at the hands of Bishop Francis Anthony Quinn, at an 11 a.m. Ordination Mass in the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, in downtown Sacramento, on Saturday May 2, 1987.  During these two weeks this year commemorating the twenty-sixth and twenty-fifth years of our having received and celebrated the Sacrament of Holy Orders, the three of us continue to minister as priests, despite the changes and challenges the passage of years have brought.  For me that has included a decade of multiple health concerns to which I have had to adapt, but that I will not allow the desire, intention, or commitment, to which in answering God's Call I dedicated my life to more than twenty five years to destruct despite the hardships being endured............In Gratitude To The Risen Lord Jesus, Whose Resurrection Is Our Life And Salvation,   Fr.  Troy