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In December 2005, the Legionaries of Christ in Rome prepared to ordain their latest class of new priests. Inspired by the personal witness of his Legionary brothers as they aproached holy orders, Br. Chad Wahl, LC, offered some reflections on the process of becoming a priest and what this great sacrament means for the Church.

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As the cold winter rain and wind settle about Rome, today I forgot about the frigid air while my heart lit ablaze. Despite the fact that the boiler in our seminary has broken, stripping us of heat in our buildings and blessing us with freezing cold showers in the morning, another thought cancelled out the numb toes and stuffy nose, bringing a warmth that reached to the depths of my soul.

I will become a priest forever.

This fire of the priesthood began to burn fiercely within me, sparked as the deacons ordained last June began to arrive here in Rome to prepare for their eight day spiritual exercises before their priestly ordination on Christmas Eve at 10:30am.  Joy radiates from their faces when you talk to them.  Their anticipation is contagious. The flames of Gods love reach deep into your heart when you start to reflect on what all this means.

These are brothers that entered the seminary a year before I did, way back in 1994.  Over the many years, I have fought and struggled, laughed and cried, prayed and rejoiced side by side these brothers of mine.  I know all of them well.  Hope always accompanies seeing a large ordination group but when you know each deacon personally, when you have gone through the same ups and downs together through formation, when you have been edified by their holiness and love for Christ, joy and emotion explode from your heart in ways I cant explain.  Tears well up in my eyes just thinking about it.  In 1995 we studied together in the Novitiate in Cheshire, Connecticut.  Rough and worldly, we slowly but surely fashioned our hearts after our Lord and not after ourselves.  We have seen each other grow, mature and become passionate apostles for Jesus Christ.  We all know our personal histories and the humble beginnings from which God called us.  We know each others talents and weaknesses, successes and failures, joys and sorrows.  In a very real sense, we are soldiers for Christ who have fought together for the past ten years, striving to extend the Kingdom of God. Just as in a military battle, soldiers who share the trench, who protect each others back from the enemy, who have bled together in the same fight, who at times helped to carry each other when wounded, never forget their loyal comrades, so I look upon my brothers now.  I am immensely proud of them.  I am honored to call them family.

Through the years of formation, we began to spread apart over the globe.  Some went to Spain, others to Italy, still others to Germany, Brazil and Ireland, while certainly many went to Mexico.  Some, like me, stayed in the United States for nine or ten years until finally traveling to Rome to study theology.  Little by little the mission has taken us to the specific frontlines that God wanted us to advance.  We learned the sacrifices and crosses involved in serving the Church even as we met many wonderful families who faithfully struggle alongside us to accomplish great things for Christ.  After many years apart, one by one, we all began returning to Rome to study theology and move on to priesthood.  We all came back different.  We had become more mature, holy and authentic.  We all had experienced the cuts and bruises involved with building foundations.  Our hands had grown calluses while our hearts had grown tender.  Arriving in Rome, we all saw before us the final stretch to the priesthood; with renewed desire and anticipation, we sprinted down the path.  Three years later, these older brothers of mine reached the end of their theological studies and last June, were ordained deacons.  Now they are in Rome to become priests.  Who knows what our Lord has in store for them next?  Who knows what incredible missions God will lay in their hands?  All I know is that after twelve to fifteen years of proven and tested fidelity, I trust them and I think they deserve the confidence of all they work with.  If they have advanced this far before their priesthood, during their priesthood they will launch farther still.

How beautiful it is that they are ordained on Christmas Eve.  Our Founder always wanted the priestly ordinations to happen on Christmas Eve to stress the intimate relation between the priesthood and the Incarnation.  Just as Christ is born anew each Christmas, so the priest is born anew as the reflection, prolongation and further incarnation in time of Christs one priesthood.  We then celebrate two incarnations, that of the God-made-man and the man-made-priest. The priest shares the mission of Christ to bring Gods healing grace to countless souls.  Christ becomes present through the priest.  How intimately our Lord intertwines his redemptive mission with the free choice and self-giving of man!  How much God wants us to participate in his plan of salvation!