Wednesday 4 November 2009

'Say something nice about a priest'

James Preece has tagged(?) me for a meme- to say something nice about a priest. I'm happy to oblige, but it will mean some cheating as I'm not sure that saying something 'nice' will quite suffice!

When I think of priests my thoughts are less about how nice they, are but how necessary their Sacred vocation is, for the salvation of souls. How priests act in Persona Christi, in dispensing the sacraments to us.
Priests are priests from the moment of their ordination .They are changed by God, in the depths of their being, through the Sacrament of Holy Orders. They will never be the same again, (even those who have left ministry are still priests, though not ministering).
It is God who calls men to priesthood. They are ordained to do God's work. Most of the priests I have met or know, do God's work pretty cheerfully, always generously, and in obedience to their Superiors or Bishop.
Priests need and deserve our constant prayers to support them in faithfully carrying out their lifetime work, God's work.
 We owe them an enormous debt of gratitude because without priests there can be no Mass, ultimately, no Church.

So priests can be cranky at times? And we are never cranky?
My husband once witnessed a parishioner attempting to speak to Father during a scheduled Confession time when Father was hearing another's confession. That priest got very cranky!
A parishioner got cranky once because she wanted the playgroup toys to be stored in a cupboard in the presbytery, and Father said 'no'.

Isn't the reality that, human faults and failings only get in the way, perhaps colour our opinions about priests, because... we let them? ....instead of  using our time to  pray for those priests?

P.S.  I forgot to nominate three other bloggers for this meme, here they are :
Jackie Parkes
Fiorella Nash
Mum6kids

4 comments:

  1. Pssst! You are supposed to nominate three other blogs to do the same thing...

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  2. Sorry-forgot! Will amend forthwith!

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  3. Names! I wanted NAMES! That is, write something nice about A N Particular priest and name him by name :-)

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  4. Mine is here >> http://drawntocatholicism.com/blog/?p=222 << and I think now that it was your post got me started on this yesterday. :)

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