5 Years

5 years… What a way to entitle this piece! Tomorrow, June 29, I am five years a priest. Is it akin to the “5 Years Old” that completes the labels of popular liquor? I would like to mull over this idea: liquor that has been aged for 5 years. Distillers and wine makers let their product remain in its container for 5 years to ameliorate its flavor. Five years may not be good as ten or fifty, but it is better than an instance. With years come a certain mellowing, a spell of refinement to that which is coarse or raw.

Five years was the time from Don Bosco’s ordination to the time of the settlement of his Oratory in the Pinardi shed. It was five years of wandering, a time of uncertainty. Those five years of his life symbolized hope and growth: two things for which I have always prayed and worked for these, my first five years of priesthood.
They say that the first five years are crucial ones in the life of a priest—and I have found it just like that!

In this celebration of the anniversary of my Ordination for this year, like every anniversary, I look back to remember the fervor of that day when I received that great gift of ministerial priesthood from God. I run through the five years that came after it, up to this moment of reflection—all with the lights and shadows. I am a priest, and yet, I am still learning to be one. I thank you, dear friends and loved ones, for you are helping me in this process.