This week’s column is in praise of our priests! We are remarkably blessed in our diocese to have the priests we do.
They are dedicated, holy men generously serving the Lord and the Church through a sacrificial life poured out for the salvation of the world!
The steady commitment to preach the Gospel, teach the Faith, celebrate the sacraments, shepherd and care for God’s people, manage staff, tend to buildings and property, ensure that the budget balances, visit the sick and the homebound, go to countless meetings, listen to concerns and complaints, and be ready to respond to the next emergency that comes through the door is a daunting vocation which requires much grace from God and much love from the priests.
Facing challenges
In addition to all of the regular and continuing responsibilities of parish priesthood, we have also entered Into the Deep, with the challenges of uniting multiple parishes, forming a new priest team, supporting our heroic lay staffs even while searching for new leaders, figuring out Mass schedules, learning the character and practice of each parish in the pastorate, bringing together multiple organizations and groups, attending to the finances, and fielding many questions and concerns.
This long-reaching and heroic effort requires a deeper level of patience, fortitude, and perseverance than anything our priests have faced before.
Go Make Disciples and Into the Deep would not even be possible without the support, sacrifice, and work of our priests, and for that, I am deeply grateful.
Our presbyterate is generous, obedient, patient, and good-natured.
I certainly welcome the opinions and thoughts of our priests as we make myriad decisions for the good and growth of the diocese, and their responses to questions are always thoughtful and insightful.
But, I also find that when all is said and I make a decision, the priests support it and work hard to make our initiatives and decisions a reality.
Such a positive dynamic is not necessarily true in every diocese.
I say all of this to both publicly praise and thank our priests, and to encourage all of us to pray for, support, and help them in their difficult tasks of leadership.
Our priests, as do most of us, certainly welcome constructive criticism and thoughtful questions when they are offered in a spirit of Christian charity and positive concern.
So many of the beautiful lay folks in our parishes are very good at giving a kind word of praise, a note of gratitude, an offer to help, or a simple “How are you doing, Father?” to our beloved priests.
I would encourage all of us to adopt such simple practices because a sincere gesture of genuine care always goes a long way.
Help our priests
Another way to love your priests is to volunteer for things in the parish, as so many of you heroically do.
When I was a parish pastor, I was always very grateful for the myriad of volunteers who made all of the parish’s activities go, from catechesis to cleaning the church to the festival to evangelization.
To get involved in a hands-on way in the life of your parish is to become a part of the solution, and to move the vision of Go Make Disciples and Into the Deep forward.
The impact of one holy and zealous priest is incalculable.
August 4 was the liturgical commemoration of St. John Vianney, the patron saint of parish priests.
Growing up in the terrible persecutions of the French Revolution, he became a priest and went to the little obscure village of Ars.
No priest had been there for 20 years, the roof of the church had collapsed, and the people had forgotten about God.
Slowly and with great difficulty, the zeal, prayer, and example of Father Vianney brought them back to the faith.
Eventually, he was hearing Confessions for 16 hours a day with people from all over Europe, preaching powerful sermons that still impact today, running an orphanage, and visiting the sick and suffering far and wide.
He embraced this crushing routine for decades, surviving on two hours of sleep a night — which was interrupted by the devil — and a meager diet of potatoes and water.
His humble little church in Ars still stands, connected to a magnificent basilica which houses St. John Vianney’s incorrupt body.
Pray for, love, and support your priests.
They Baptize your children, feed you with the Eucharist, absolve your sins, teach you the faith, comfort, console, bless, and challenge — and ultimately lead you to Heaven.
Each of them is a living icon of Jesus Christ, but obviously, they are human too.
They need our love and help, as we need theirs.
For each one of them, we are grateful!