The Reverend Father Brandon Holder Jones

Thou art a Priest forever after the Order of Melchizedek!

Congratulations and blessings to Father Brandon Holder Jones, my identical twin brother, who, by the Imposition of Hands and the Invocation of the Holy Ghost, received the Sacred Order of Priests on Saturday 7 June 2008, at Saint Vincent de Paul Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. The ordaining prelate was His Excellency, the Most Reverend Peter J. Jugis, Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charlotte. Please pray for Father Brandon as he begins his new ministry. It so happens that the date of his First Holy Mass coincides with the anniversary of my ordination to the Sacred Order of Deacons, 8 June 1996, the Saturday in the Octave of Corpus Christi that year. What is most remarkable and providential, but certainly not coincidental, is that our anniversaries converge in a fascinating way: The anniversary of my First Mass is the anniversary of his ordination to the Diaconate; the anniversary of his First Mass is the anniversary of my ordination to the Diaconate. The Lord works in mysterious ways indeed.

It was an unutterable privilege to be present at Father Brad's Priestly Ordination and to be seated in the sanctuary for his first celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Let us pray that someday it may be possible for Anglican and Roman priests, restored to full communion with one another in the Faith of the Undivided Church of the First Millennium, to concelebrate the One Eucharist of the Lord and to communicate together in the One Mystery of the Altar. Let us also continue to pray fervently for a ever increasing co-operation and collaboration between the English Catholic and Roman Catholic Churches. Ut unum sint.