Fr Don Forsythe, 71, jetted over from America to celebrate his ordination and read mass in the home city of his late wife and the place where he lived for 12 years.
A congregation at St Austin's RC Church on Wentworth Terrace heard Fr Don deliver mass on Sunday morning, just two weeks after he was ordained.
The grandfather, from Londonderry in Northern Ireland, told the Express how Wakefield held a special place in his heart because it was where he met his wife, Ann Dwyer.
"I wanted to come back to Wakefield because it holds some lovely memories for me", he said. "I met my wife, Ann, here and I was very happily married for 38 years.
"She died six years ago from bone leukaemia. I had suffered a stroke after she was diagnosed but she held on until I recovered because that was the sort of woman she was. She didn't want to go until she knew I would be okay to look after the family."
Fr Don came to Wakefield with his family in 1948 when he was 15. His mother worked as a shirt maker in the city's Double Two factory on Thornes Wharf and they lived on Ruskin Avenue, Portobello.
During his flying visit, the grandfather-of-10 has been catching up with his Wakefield family. He visited his mother-in-law, 95-year-old Violet Dwyer who lives on Howard Street, and also spent time with his sister-in-law in Newmillerdam.
Brothers Edward, from Wrenthorpe, Noel, from Crofton, and Odran, who lives near Redcar, came to St Austin's to hear Fr Don deliver his first mass.
Fr Don, who moved to America in 1960, had dreamed of becoming a priest as a young boy. But he set his dream aside when he moved to England.
Years later, after studying at the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin and establishing a successful career as a consultant anaesthetist in Ohio, his calling to the church returned.
"It wasn't a sudden thing," he said. "I had been mulling it over for a while but I hadn't said anything to anyone.
"Incredibly, Ann knew my thoughts. She was dying and I knew treatment was useless. Before she went she said to me 'Don, you should be a priest' and I was amazed she knew.
"She was right as usual and I went for it. They told me I was one of the oldest priests they had ordained. It's another chapter in my life and I'm very much looking forward to it.
"I knew happiness with my wife but this is a different sort of happiness, it's more peaceful."
Fr John Nunan, parish priest of St Austin's Church, told the Express: "It was a delight to welcome Fr Don back to St Austin's where he was reunited with his natural family and his faith family. It was a privilege that he chose to celebrate his first mass in Wakefield, a mass for his late wife Ann and for his parents."