By Gretchen Keiser

A caravan of 17 cars and 64 people traveled from Blairsville and Cleveland, Ga. Last weekend to the Cincinnati, Ohio area to witness and celebrate the ordination of Glenmary John T. Brown.

Father Brown, who was ordained a priest for the Glenmary Home Missioners Sat., Feb. 25, had served in the parish of St. Francis of Assisi in Blairsville and the mission of St. Paul the Apostle in Cleveland during 1982 and 1983 prior to his ordination as a priest. He was ordained a deacon last October by Archbishop Thomas Donnellan.

Out of his Georgia association sprang the idea for a pilgrimage to Cincinnati. The trip combined the emphasis during the Holy Redemption upon pilgrimages with the community’s desire to take part in Father John’s ordination and celebrate vocations to the priesthood and religious life. The nine-hour trip by car dubbed “Miles for Melchisedech” in reference to the Scripture citation during ordination that refers to the newly ordained become a priest “according to the order of Melchisedech.”

The trip was also subtitled “A Journey for John,” according to Father Bob Poandl, the Glenmary who is pastor of the Blairsville parish and who was a coordinator of the pilgrimage. Prior to departure last week, Father Bob described the participants as ranging in age from 86 years to 10 months old. They were departing after a farewell Mass in Georgia and staying through Father John’s first Mass, which was to be celebrated Sunday morning, Feb. 26 in Fairfield, Ohio.

While in Cincinnati the pilgrims were staying in convents and in private homes of friends of the Glenmary community.

Father John, son of Bernard and Genevieve Brown of Arlington, Mass., graduated from Holy Cross College in Worcester and received a master of divinity degree from Washington Theological Union. He has worked in Glenmary missions in Mississippi, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Virginia and Tennessee and will become as associate pastor of Glenmary missions in West Union, Peebles and Manchester, Ohio.