-
August 21, 2022Dear Parishioners,
We said goodbye to our seminarian Joseph Brodeur last weekend. Granted, he will keep his room here at St. Teresa until he departs for Rome in September. His time here with us brings up an important question: what is a priestly vocation?
For everyone God has a plan; a vocation. “Vocation” comes from the Latin word meaning, “to call.” God calls everyone to receive a particular role in establishing His kingdom here on earth. As we pray in the Our Father: “thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Receiving and following this vocation leads to perfection, fulfillment, and happiness. As C.S. Lewis wrote: “The more we let God take us over, the more truly ourselves we become – because He made us. He invented all the different people that you and I were intended to be… It is when I turn to Christ, when I give up myself to His personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own.” This can be difficult and threatening due to sin. We are creatures who want to be in control and dictate our own plans. We develop strong defenses against those who threaten our authority and autonomy. The recent pandemic teaches us that despite our best efforts, we cannot control everything.
In God’s providence he decided to transmit salvific grace through space and time by establishing the priesthood. The priest stands in persona Christi (in the person of Christ). Hence the priestly life is meant to be an imitation of the life and mission of Christ. When he preaches, the priest preaches Jesus Christ. When he administers the sacraments, he does so in the name and the power of Jesus Christ. When he gives a cup of cold water to a poor man, he does so in the name of Christ. The priest yearns for the salvation of every single individual just as Christ thirsts for souls. Priests go forth to teach the power of the Name of Jesus to everyone. Everyone has a part to play in building up the Kingdom of God, but the priest can give the means of salvation: grace through the sacraments (particularly the sacrifice of the Mass).
Further, “Because the priest is ordained primarily to offer the sacrifice of the Mass, i.e., to daily repeat the offering of Christ to the Father and to enter into that most holy exchange of gifts among the persons of the Blessed Trinity, his configuration to Christ is a call to step apart from ordinary life and follow the Lamb in a unique way, with an intention and even an intensity that marks him as set apart for the things of God.”
I end with this quote by Fr. Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire, O.P.: “To live in the midst of the world with no desire for its pleasures; to be a member of every family, yet belonging to none; to share all sufferings; to penetrate all secrets, to heal all wounds; to daily go from men to God to offer Him their homage and petitions; to return from God to men to bring them His pardon and hope; to have a heart of fire for charity and a heart of bronze for chastity; to bless and to be blest forever. O God, what a life, and it is yours, O Priest of Jesus Christ!”
Please pray for more vocations to the priesthood!
God bless,
Fr. Barrow
