This was Steven's first Christmas as a priest and it marked his first time attending Christmas mass at a parish other than his childhood parish.   In recent history, midnight mass at our local parish has been a bit of a Caraher family affair with Steven and his brother serving at the altar and his mom playing music.

Now that Steven is a priest, the challenge is to integrate that into our family life.    Even during non-holiday times, Steven's time is not his own in that various emergency events may pop up.

At Steven's new parish, he and pastor Fr. Ted decided to celebrate Midnight mass on Christmas Eve.    Both Fr. Steven and Fr. Ted planned to make this a special mass including lighting by candlelight and chanting all of the mass parts.

One adjustment that Fr. Steven has been making while settling into the life of a priest is how the pacing differs from seminary.   During seminary, everything was a sprint with a definite start and end.    Semesters had beginning and end dates followed by a break period.    In contrast, the rhythm of parish priest life is more of a marathon where the pace is set for the long run.