Inspiration from Fr. Jeffrey Keyes, CPP.S.

Fr. Jeffrey Keyes, CPP.S.


It was a joy to hear from Fr. Jeffrey Keyes, CPP.S. I am usually the one to go looking for blogs that are maintained my priests, but he found me, and how wonderful that is :-). Many of you probably know him because he has been blogging for many years now. I will find out for you exactly how many. I am a neophyte blogger compared to him!

Anyway, Fr. Keyes was interviewed by another blogger in October of 2003. I was really impressed. I will be highlighting some of his answers. His response to the first question reminded me of Esther's post. In reality, most of our priests were once approached and invited by another priest, or by someone, to consider the priestly vocation or a certain order. Here it is:



1) What originally attracted you to the Spirituality of the Precious Blood and St. Gaspar’s mission?

I was hired as the music director of St. Edward Church in Newark, CA in 1984. The parish was staffed by the Missionaries of the Precious Blood. I had the opportunity to provide the music for several parish missions preached there and elsewhere with one of their missionaries. When I mentioned to him my thoughts of returning to the seminary, he took me aside and told me he wanted to share with me the power of Jesus’ blood. It remains to this day a memory of a significant encounter. Through his teaching and through reading several books on the topic I have come to believe, along with St. Gaspar that the spirituality of the Precious Blood is the basis for all other spiritualities and reaches to the very foundations of most of the writings of the saints. Another significant event was the preaching of Fr. Marvin Steffes, CPPS on Holy Thursday in 1987. Hearing of the sign of contradiction, of a lamb seated on a throne, and of the desire of Jesus to reach to the smallest and the least, was a moment of inspiration. I joined the CPPS community in 1988. I was ordained to the priesthood in 1991.


I invite everyone to pray that the Lord will show us who to approach and ask if they would be interested in considering a priestly life. Be ready with information though: name of the Vocation Priest in your own diocese and more importantly, his phone number. If you can get pamphlets or fliers with complete information, the better. What a way to encourage young men to consider a vocation that we are so in need of these days!

The rest of this interview will be found on his old blog: The New Gaparian.

More on Fr. Keyes in the future...