There was a moment while Bishop Mark Lawrence was ordaining his younger son recently when Joseph kneeled as the bishop stood above him in prayer, just before the laying on of hands.
“My arms lifted above him invoking the Holy Spirit, and it seemed the spirit – like the murmuring of a dove’s wings – hovered there above and between us,” recalls the bishop of the Diocese of South Carolina.
The moment felt more like a father with a son than a bishop with an upcoming priest, although he was there as both.