February 15, 2009

For the 44th anniversary of his ordination Fr. Christopher said a mass of thanksgiving in the Abbey church with many of his family attending: his sister Gloria, some of his nieces and nephews, grand nieces and nephews, and two great grand nephews. He was ordained on Valentine’s Day, 1965, along with Fr. Michael Hall and Fr. Mark Sheridan in the Shrine of the Sacred Heart on Park Road, NW, by Bishop John Spence. [He remembers that as they left the Abbey that day for the Shrine it began to snow and when the ordination was over it had accumulated to four or five inches.] In his mass he expressed his gratitude to God for the grace of his vocation as a Benedictine and for the blessings of his priesthood. He thanked his family too for their support and encouragement all during the years since he entered the monastery in 1959, and asked their continuing prayers perseverance in the vocation to which God called him.