A SAINT'S DAY THAT RECALLS AN ALTERNATIVE CHOICE.............

Being the thoughtful, analytical, pondering, person I have always prided myself on being, yesterday I was caused by the liturgical feast day to think about, recall, and contemplate, the past and present of my life's vocation.  Deciding to become a priest versus pursuing a career in politics, government, public service, or teaching history and the social sciences, was a determination of several years of prayer and meditation.  From the age of reason I was always strongly inclined if I followed the path to ordination to become a diocesan priest; thanks in very great measure to the example and experience I had of the pastors of my youth, Msgr/ Edward J. Kavanagh, and Msgr. Hugh McTague, as well as the other parish priests; and then the exemplary episcopal ministry and servant leadership of Bishop Francis Anthony Quinn. Today, the sanctoral feast day of St. Dominic. a priest who founded a religious order known as the Order of Preachers. the O.P., popularly known ass the Dominicans, was one of the few priestly orders I considered entering given my lifelong skills and abilities for public speaking, thus preaching as an integral component of the life and ministry of an of a Catholic-Christian Priest.  Seventeen months on the sidelines and having publicly preached only twice in that period of time, my reflection on the life and priestly ministry of St. Dominic and thhe Order of Preachers causes me to question in the wake of my current status, how much more as a disabled but capable priest in good standing I would presently be preaching, presiding, celebrating, and  ministering, publicly, if I had been ordained an O.P. ?  A wheelchair and my health condition would seem to have little if any adverse affect on my ability and effectiveness  to preach and preside as  a duly ordained priestly with more than a quarter of a  century of faithful service rendered to my native Sacramento Diocese.............tdp