One More Marker

On Tuesday, I celebrated my 5th anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood. I did not do anything special to mark it, other than what I did as a part of my work that day. I did remember it, and when I got home that night, I was nostalgic and a little mournful that I did not make time to say Mass in thanksgiving for God's call to me many years ago or even to read again the promises I made and the charge made to me in my ordination that was all made holy when the bishop laid his hands on my head five years ago.

However, this morning, I have realized that I have discovered another "marker" of my own pilgrim's way this week, my pilgrim's way that is the ordained priesthood. It has been in working on preparations for our Celebration of New Ministry this coming Sunday evening.

This week I have spent much time with the liturgy and its words have washed over me again and again: "Melanie Dickson Lemburg...Having committed yourself to this work, do not forget the trust of those who have chosen you. Care alike for young and old, strong and weak, rich and poor. By your words and actions, and in your life, proclaim the Gospel. Love and serve Christ's people. Nourish them, empower them for ministry, and strengthen them to glorify God in this life and in the life to come. May the One who has given you the will to do these things, give you the grace and power to perform them."

Those words echo the words of charge at my ordination, and they also echo the work that I have been doing as a parish priest this week in multiple hospital visits, drop-in office visits, midweek Mass, the feast of St. Nicholas and Advent wreath making, and preparations for upcoming liturgies.

I give thanks for them and for the way that they serve as a marker that (at my best) I am doing exactly what I have been called to do. "It is meet and right so to do." And the anniversary of my ordination could have no better marker than that.