Picture of the Year: The Mother of a Priest

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 31, 2015

GREGORY DIPIPPO (NEW LITURGICAL MOVEMENT)

As our last post of the year 2015, I would like to share with our readers this beautiful photograph of a newly-ordained priest with his mother. In the traditional rite, after the priest’s hands are anointed, they are bound with a cloth to keep the oil in place for the rest of the ordination ritual. I am sure the majority of our readers are already familiar with the custom, which is not formally a part of the rite, that once the ritual is complete, he presents the cloth to his mother, which is the moment we see here. It is a long-standing tradition that when a priest’s mother dies, she is buried with the cloth between her hands, to symbolize that she gave a priest to God, and will be rewarded for this in heaven.