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Fifty years ago, on Sept. 8, 1958, I made my first promises as a Paulist. To show you how long ago it was, I had hair and weighed 137 pounds on the same bone frame you see today. (The frame is the same, but what’s hanging on it is a lot heavier!)

It was a sunny afternoon at our novitiate Mount Paul in Oak Ridge, N.J. There were some 28 relatives who had driven from Boston to be with me that day including my whole nuclear family – Mom, Dad, my sister Sheila and my brother Kevin. My godmother, who is as well as my great aunt, was present with much of her family. My cousins on my mother’s side were there. It was a time for family and commitment.

That day I spoke promises that were called temporary, but I knew in my heart that they were as lifelong as a man of 20 could make them. Poverty, chastity and obedience seemed more acceptable as a way of life then than they do now. Families were much more given to giving their sons to the priesthood than they are now. But it wasn’t just the promises of poverty, chastity and obedience that I made that day that made a difference in my life; it was my commitment to the Paulist community.

When I entered the Paulist Fathers, I noted on my application that there were two things I wanted to do as a Paulist. The first was that I wanted to preach, and I was told by my pastor that secondly I must put down that I also wanted to save my soul. I followed his advice. But I saw the Paulist Fathers as my avenue to preaching the Gospel here in the United States because that is what we Paulists were all about.

I have always loved preaching; I was lucky enough to be able to train many of the current preachers in the Paulist Fathers. The Paulist Community made it possible for me to follow my dream and produce radio and television programs – programs that were not at all about preaching in the traditional sense, but are today’s ways of speaking to large numbers of people all at the same time. The future will have different forms of communication for we Paulists to use, but in every case we will be preaching Jesus’ Good News. The idea of preaching the Good News as a Paulist was what drove me to make my first promises and what drives me today. Praise God, what was only a dream for me 50 years ago is a reality for me today. I’m able to preach nearly every week, and God willing I’ll be able to do it as long as God gives me life.

Fifty years ago, 14 of us made first promises. There are today three of us living and still living out those promises. Two of my classmates have died, six left before we were ordained, and four left the priesthood after ordination. It’s been a long journey, but God has blessed me, and I am happy that I chose 50 years ago to make the promises of poverty, chastity and obedience through the Paulists Fathers to the God who, as St. Augustine says, “loves each of us as if there were only one of us.”