In the middle of ordination season, we should not forget it’s also the middle of anniversaries of ordination season. And Fr. James Martin is having fond memories of his own, a decade ago:

Ten years ago today (that is, June 12, 1999) along with five other good Jesuit friends (they’re good Jesuits and good friends), I was ordained to the priesthood during a Mass at church (called—surprise—St. Ignatius Loyola) in Chestnut Hill, Mass., right near the campus of Boston College. I am tempted to say it was the greatest day of my life, and why not? There are other days that certainly come close—the day I was accepted into the Jesuits; the day I entered the Jesuit novitiate; the day that a little shop where I worked in Nairobi opened its doors for the first time; the day I met my two new nephews. So let’s just say it was one of the greatest.

I had been waiting for ordination for many years, having seen, since before entering the novitiate in 1988, many of my “older” Jesuit brothers ordained over the years, and realizing, with each group of men moving into Holy Orders, that my “class” was getting closer. Every year until then, I was amazed to find myself weeping at the Litany of the Saints, when the congregation calls on all the saints—from age to age–to pray for the ordinandi, the men being ordained. And I rushed to receive my friends’ “first blessing,” which they always did tentatively but confidently, if you know what I mean, as if they had never done this before but had been born for it–and of course they were.

Actually, I almost didn’t make my own ordination. The week before I caught a horrible flu, and one of the older Jesuits with whom I lived, named Vin, generously rushed me to the emergency room here in New York. I was angry! How could God do this to me the week before my ordination—what if I weren’t able to go? I said to the older Jesuit, “I have to ask you this—why is God doing this?” Vin looked at me with mock seriousness and said, “In punishment for your sins!” And we both laughed. What a ridiculous question. God wasn’t doing anything. I was just sick.

But when I walked up the aisle on June 12, that scare magnified my gratitude. How good it was to be there.

After the Mass, when we walked onto the steps of the church, we were surrounded by our Jesuit brothers, who, clad in their albs or wearing their clerics or, for the younger ones, just a suit and tie, hugged us tightly and congratulated us, teased us and were happy for us. And—behold, as the Bible would say—a few steps down the stairs were my mother and father, my sister and her husband and new baby, the rest of family and friends, friends, friends from all parts of my life. It was like heaven.

Anyway, since that day, I’ve loved being a priest.

Read on to find out the reasons why. And ad multos annos, Jim!