. . . Father Alberto Cutie wrote about his own experience of priesthood, when he said: “The Lord has called me to be a man of faith in a world full of doubt, to build bridges where walls have been erected… he has called me to be a ‘man for others’ in a world full of selfish men; to belong completely to him and to his people, without reservation; to unite my heart with those who are in greatest need; and to try lifting them up when they are down. The Lord has also called me to be a ‘sign of contradiction’, to live the Gospel in a radical way… he calls me to be faithful, even while not always successful… he calls me to say the Lord’s words at the consecration: the words which make him present sacramentally in our world…”Year For Priests 2009-2010
If a priest tries to be like Christ and has the courage to start every day again and again, then he can count on the great love of Our Lady. She is close to Christ, and she will also be close to his priests. Every priest has the mission to bring Christ to the world. Who can help us with this great task? Her only and burning desire was to share Jesus with everyone. That has to be the wish of every priest.
I think the words of the Dominican Father Jean-Baptiste Lacordaire wisely say a great deal about being a priest:
'To live in the midst of the world without wishing its pleasures;
to be a member of each family, yet belonging to none;
to share all sufferings;
to penetrate all secrets;
to heal all wounds;
to go from men to God and offer him their prayers;
to return from God to men to bring pardon and hope;
to have a heart of fire for charity
and a heart of bronze for chastity;
to teach and to pardon,
console and bless always.
My God, what a life!
And it is yours,
O priest of Jesus Christ.'
Father Duncan McVicar SI
Saint Anthony is the great apostle of conversion. He disseminates the Word of God as an invitation to change life and to hope for the infinite mercy of God.http://www.saintanthonyofpadua.net/portale/santantonio/spirito/conversione/conv1.asp
Let us not be unclear. Both for the priest and for the penitent, divine grace is the main character in "repentance" and Christian reconciliation. It is that which incites the preacher to speak of sin, of its gravity, of the necessity to renounce it, asking for forgiveness; in the same way, it is not a man who can take us from death to life.
That which opens the heart to conversion is the omnipotent, merciful and mysterious love of the Father.
Pope Benedict XVI has declared a "Year for Priests" beginning with the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus on June 19, 2009.USCCB - Year For Priests June 19, 2009 to June 19, 2010
The year will conclude in Rome with an international gathering of priests with the Holy Father on June 19, 2010.
With the announcement of this Year for Priests, the Pope has declared St. John Vianney the Universal Patron of Priests on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the death of the Curé d’Ars.
On this website you will find a number of resources to aid your parish’s celebration of the year for priests. There is also information regarding events for priests that will occur throughout the Year for Priests.
Please pray for our priests that they might always be faithful to their sacred calling.
Karl Leisner was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1996 in Berlin. For Karl Leisner, who as a student for the priesthood joined a Schoenstatt Federation group – one member of this group being the later Bishop of Münster, Heinrich Tenhumberg –, the "moments spent in the Blessed Mother's Shrine of Grace", the Original Shrine in Schoenstatt, were decisive hours of grace on turning points of this life. Christ – my passion: led by this ideal, he worked as a committed youth leader, and fought his way towards the decision for the priesthood. A remark on the failed assassination attempt on Hitler, uttered during a recovery stay in a sanatorium, brought the recently ordained deacon first to jail and then to the concentration camp. The almost healed tuberculosis broke out again in Dachau. Although his health rapidly deteriorated, his contagious joy – he asked to send his guitar to Dachau– remained unbroken. When a French Bishop was confined to the concentration camp, Karl Leisner's dream came true. On December 17, 1944, he was ordained priest in Dachau, and celebrated his first and only Holy Mass on December 26, 1944. He died soon after he was freed from the concentration camp in a sanatorium in Planegg.
This means that the harvest is ready, but God wishes to enlist helpers to bring it into the storehouse. God needs them. He needs people to say: yes, I am ready to become your harvest labourer; I am ready to offer help so that this harvest which is ripening in people’s hearts may truly be brought into the storehouses of eternity and become an enduring, divine communion of joy and love. “Pray the Lord of the harvest” also means that we cannot simply “produce” vocations; they must come from God. This is not like other professions, we cannot simply recruit people by using the right kind of publicity or the correct type of strategy. The call which comes from the heart of God must always finds its way into the heart of man. And yet, precisely so that it may reach into hearts, our cooperation is needed. To pray the Lord of the harvest means above all to ask him for this, to stir his heart and say: “Please do this! Rouse labourers! Enkindle in them enthusiasm and joy for the Gospel! Make them understand that this is a treasure greater than any other, and that whoever has discovered it, must hand it on!”
We stir the heart of God. But our prayer to God does not consist of words alone; the words must lead to action so that from our praying heart a spark of our joy in God and in the Gospel may arise, enkindling in the hearts of others a readiness to say “yes”. As people of prayer, filled with his light, we reach out to others and bring them into our prayer and into the presence of God, who will not fail to do his part. In this sense we must continue to pray the Lord of the harvest, to stir his heart, and together with God touch the hearts of others through our prayer. And he, according to his purpose, will bring to maturity their “yes”, their readiness to respond; the constancy, in other words, through all this world’s perplexity, through the heat of the day and the darkness of the night, to persevere faithfully in his service. Hence they will know that their efforts, however arduous, are noble and worthwhile because they lead to what is essential, they ensure that people receive what they hope for: God’s light and God’s love.
BENEDICT XVI
Meeting with Priests and Deacons – Freising 14 September 2006
http://www2.clerus.org/
Missionary Intention: "That the future priests of the young
Churches may be constantly more formed culturally and spiritually to
evangelize their nations and the whole world."
I am Fr Lorenzo, a parish priest. Holy Father, the faithful expect only one thing from priests: that they be experts in encouraging the encounter of human beings with God. These are not my own words but something Your Holiness said in an Address to the clergy. My spiritual director at the seminary, in those trying sessions of spiritual direction, said to me: "Lorenzino, humanly we've made it, but...", and when he said "but", what he meant was that I preferred playing football to Eucharistic Adoration. And he meant that this did my vocation no good and that it was not right to dispute lessons of morals and law, because the teachers knew more about them that I did. And with that "but",
who knows what else he meant. I now think of him in Heaven, and in any case I say some requiems for him. In spite of everything, I have been a priest for 34 years and I am happy about that, too. I have worked no miracles nor have I known any disasters or perhaps I did not recognize them. I feel that "humanly we've made it" is a great compliment. However, does not bringing man close to God and God to man pass above all through what we call humanity, which is indispensable
even for us priests?
Benedict XVI: Thank you. I would simply say "yes" to what you said at the end. Catholicism, somewhat simplistically, has always been considered the religion of the great "et et" ["both-and"]: not of great forms of exclusivism but of synthesis. The exact meaning of "Catholic" is "synthesis". I would therefore be against having to choose between either playing football or studying Sacred Scripture or Canon Law. Let us do both these things. It is great to do sports. I am not a great sportsman, yet I used to like going to the mountains when I was younger; now I only go on some very easy excursions, but I always find it very beautiful to walk here in this wonderful earth that the Lord has given to us. Therefore, we cannot always live in exalted meditation; perhaps a Saint on the last step of his earthly pilgrimage could reach this point, but we normally live with our feet on the ground and our eyes turned to Heaven. Both these things are given to us by the Lord and therefore loving human things, loving the beauties of this earth, is not only very human but also very Christian and truly Catholic. I would say - and it seems to me that I have already mentioned this earlier - that this aspect is also part of a good and truly Catholic pastoral care: living in the "et et"; living the humanity and humanism of the human being, all the gifts which the Lord has lavished upon us and which we have developed; and at the same time, not forgetting God, because ultimately, the great light comes from God and then it is only from him that comes the light which gives joy to all these aspects of the things that exist. Therefore, I would simply like to commit myself to the great Catholic synthesis, to this "et et"; to be truly human. And each person, in accordance with his or her own gifts and charism, should not only love the earth and the beautiful things the Lord has given us, but also be grateful because God's light shines on earth and bathes everything in splendour and beauty. In this regard, let us live catholicity joyfully. This would be my answer.
