Pray for priests every day

"Without the sacraments, the Church would not exist or the Christian community survive. Sacraments are the lungs of the Church. They 'breathe' on us the breath of God! They are signs to us of his constant care and goodness. They bring us, as priests, into communion with others, in joy and sorrow. It is a privilege to be so close to people, to be trusted and loved for who we are, and what we do. Sacramental life is the main ministry of every priest and is a most rewarding one. It engages us every day of our lives. I love to celebrate Eucharist, which every priest must do every day. It is always a delight to receive people for the sacrament of reconciliation and help them appreciate God's mercy and love.

No one but the priest can say, with Christ's approval: 'I absolve you from your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.' We say this with the authority that comes from Christ himself: 'Your sins are forgiven… go in peace' (Lk 7:48.50). What a blessing this is for God's people! No one can forgive sins, but God alone. Every priest is called to minister forgiveness to others, in Christ's name. We also feed God's people at the Eucharist. These changes happen, in the elements we take and to the people to whom we minister as priests. The priest helps to build Christ's Church, offering a service to the people of God that no one else can give. This is most humbling and very rewarding, when we ponder our role in the paschal mystery of Jesus Christ.

At baptisms, we are with couples and their newborn children. We welcome children into the Christian community, which is a great privilege and joy. The sacrament of confirmation, usually a ministry reserved to the Bishop, which I confer at St Anne's in his name, is a wonderful experience. To be with children as they receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit gives great hope. On First Holy Communion day, we see children receiving the great gift of the Eucharist for the first time. St Thérèse of Lisieux referred to her own First Communion as 'that first kiss of Jesus'. Holy Communion builds community, as it is meant to do. Being with children and parents is a real privilege for every priest. Weddings bring us very close to couples as they prepare to celebrate their marriage. Being with God's people, in this way, is truly a life-giving experience for every priest.

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Priesthood, like all walks of life, has its ups and downs. When I neglect prayer and my spiritual exercises, as it were - when I am busy with doing - things can take a dive. I need prayer in all I am and do as priest. I cannot do the work of the Lord without having close contact with the Lord of the work. At times of low energy, I experience the goodness and kindness of brother priests, who are now Christ to me and welcome me when I need their care. I experience the Prodigal Father's welcome home for his wayward child, and am renewed. Receiving God's mercy 'seventy times seven' makes me aware of the need for my own ministry, and encourages me. I know at first hand my need of God's mercy! I know the wonder of it for myself and others. I know He is reaching out, reconciling and forgiving me. I can then go to others and minister to them, with this personal experience of God's mercy urging me on.

To sustain us, we always need the prayer of the Christian community. I particularly cherish the prayer support of our Carmelite nuns who, in the tradition of St Teresa of Avila, pray for priests every day, as a central aspect of their life and ministry. I am also aware that my wonderful mother and many faithful friends pray for me each day. This is a lifeline and a gift beyond price. 'How can I repay the Lord for his goodness to me? The cup of salvation I will raise; I will call on the Lord's name' (Ps 115:12-13). This I try to do every day.

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I would love to see many young men respond to Christ's call to follow him in priesthood and religious life. Yes, even in today's world. Yes, especially in today's world! When our Church is under siege and faith under attack, the priest must stand for what he is and what he believes. The priest welcomes every person in love - to love and to be love. 'God is love, and those who live in love live in God, and God lives in them' (1Jn 4:16). This is what St Thérèse wished for: to be 'love in the heart of the Church'.

As a priest, I must strive to love in my ministry - for that is why I am sent. I cannot be Christ to others if I do not love! Just as love is central in every marriage, so, too, it must be what being a priest is all about! All priests - like people who live marriage - surrender their lives to God. Every good priest would, I believe, make a good husband and father, just as most fathers would make good priests. The essential thing is to respond to the call we have received from God, which determines how and where we serve Christ and his people."

-- Called to serve as priests: bringing Christ to others and others to Christ by Fr Willie Moran, ocd

** Picture of discalced friar Fr Willie Moran, who currently serves at St Anne's Church in Glasgow

The priestly vocation leads to the mystery of the Passion

"Every priest is called to be fully human like Jesus. The priest must experience weakness and share the deep need of every human heart for love. He must find his ideal in a priest who is also weak, frail and vulnerable like himself - and who, like himself, is passionately in need of love. He finds this ideal in Jesus, the great High Priest. Jesus is the human face of God: 'the Word made flesh' - with all the weakness to which flesh is heir, except sin. He feels the pangs of unrequited love: abandonment by his friends, even by Peter, the foundation of the Church itself. He thirsts for love and climbs the hills and the crags like the Good Shepherd in search of the lost sheep. He stands on tiptoe like the distressed father of the prodigal, scanning the horizon for the first glimpse of his son's return. He draws the Samaritan woman gently on to find in himself a perennial spring welling up into eternal life, and the deepest thirst of her heart for love is at last fully satisfied. Jesus is frail like all of us: he sleeps through a storm; and he stops to rest by Jacob's Well, tired and thirsty. The priest needs a God like this: weak, needy, fragile, in need of love - quite simply, human.

Weakness relates the priest profoundly with others. It allows him to feel with them the human condition, the human struggle, the darkness and anguish which cry out for salvation. The priest can minister with compassion to the weakness of others, for he has Jesus, the High Priest, as his companion and friend. 'The core of the priesthood,' Pope Benedict reminds us, 'is being friends of Jesus Christ.' It was the gift of Jesus to his first newly ordained priests: 'I have called you friends.'

How paradoxical the mystery: a priest's strength lies precisely in and through his human weakness! The priestly vocation leads inexorably to the mystery of the Passion and death. There, the priest plunges ever more deeply into the blinding light of love revealed and hidden in human weakness. There, he contemplates his Saviour, 'gentle and lowly', despised and rejected - 'no beauty in him, no comeliness'. We are reminded of St Paul's lesson on the Passion: '[Jesus] was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God. We are weak in him, but…shall live with him by the power of God.' The priest is called to identify with the weakness of Jesus in his Passion, even as Paul did: 'With Christ I hang upon the cross and yet I am alive; or rather not I, it is Christ who lives in me. It is true I am living here and now this mortal life, but my real life is the faith I have in the Son of God who loved me and delivered himself up for me.'"

-- From an editorial by Fr James McCaffrey, ocd

** Please pray for all our priests: the holy ones, the lukewarm, the ones drowning in grave sin, those still in formation (seminarians) and the ones that are to come...

A prayer for priests

"O my Jesus, I beg You on behalf of the whole Church:  Grant it love and the light of Your Spirit, and give power to the words of priests so that hardened hearts might be brought to repentance and return to You, O Lord.

Lord, give us holy priests; You Yourself maintain them in holiness.  O Divine and Great High Priest, may the power of your mercy accompany them everywhere and protect them from the devil's traps and snares which are continually being set for the souls of priests.  May the power of Your mercy, O Lord, shatter and bring to naught all that might tarnish the sanctity of priests, for You can do all things.  Amen."  


-- Divine Mercy in my soul by St Maria Faustina Kowalska




** Photo from Una Voce Boston

On the priesthood

"Priests have a power not their own, and priests who abandon the priesthood carry with them a volatile power they cannot shed. A consecrated soul cannot be unconsecrated but only desecrated by pride and the guilt of pride. And when a desecrated priest ceases to offer worthy sacrifice, he may start to require sacrifice...

...saints need priests to help them be saints, especially priests willing to be saints. There cannot be a Church without priests. Sometimes priests themselves underestimate that. (...) [St Jean-Marie] Vianney preached to his uncertain flock, "When you see a priest, you should say: 'There is the one who has made me a child of God... one who has cleansed me from my sins, who gives nourishment to my soul.'"

-- The Curé D'Ars Today: St John Vianney by Fr George William Rutler

Please pray for the sanctification of all priests, especially those that minister in your parish and those who are struggling with their vocation or fallen away. Next time you go to Mass, thank your pastor for his sacrifice and caring for souls. Mary, Queen of the Clergy, pray for them! St Jean-Marie Vianney, pray for them!

Prayer for Priests

O Jesus, our great High Priest, hear my humble prayers on behalf of your priests. Give them a deep faith, a bright and firm hope and a burning love which will ever increase in the course of their priestly life.

In their loneliness, comfort them. In their sorrows, strengthen them. In their frustrations, point out to them that it is through suffering that the soul is purified, and show them that they are needed by the Church; they are needed by souls; they are needed for the work of redemption.

O loving Mother Mary, Mother of Priests, take to your heart your sons who are close to you because of their priestly ordination and because of the power which they have received to carry on the work of Christ in a world which needs them so much. Be their comfort, be their joy, be their strength, and especially help them to live and to defend the ideals of consecrated celibacy.

-- Prayer composed by John Joseph Cardinal Carberry