Devotion to the priesthood

I went to southern Indiana this weekend for an ordination. The new priest, Fr. Ron Kreilein, is going to be a wonderful, faithful priest. At his Mass of Thanksgiving on Sunday he finished a 33 day Montfortian consecration of his priesthood to Mary.

An interesting thing happened at the reception. There was a lovely young woman two persons ahead of me in the “blessing” line (newly ordained priests always give out blessings after their ordination). The young woman got up to him. He apparently didn’t know her, because he asked her her name. She said, “Suzie” or something like that and asked for a blessing. He said, “sure” in his southern Indiana drawl. She knelt down and he prayed a blessing over her. When it was over she thanked him with great devotion and kisssed each of his hands, because they had just been anointed by holy chrism. It was wonderful to see such spontaneous love for and devotion to the holy priesthood.