WHOLLY FAMILY

Year for Priests: An opportunity for the spiritual growth of us all

By Mary Moore | June 18, 2009 | The Catholic Sun

I plan to be married to my husband until death. I don’t say that assuming our marriage will always be idyllic or even easy.

Indeed, after 10 years I have proof of it. But I didn’t enter into the sacrament thinking it would be anything less than the kind of work that love requires. The day I married my best friend I considered, in front of 200 witnesses, that in addition to good, richer and healthier times, there would be bad, poor and sick ones, and I promised I was going to stick with him through all of them.

Once a year in June, I renew this commitment to my vocation at a little ceremony at Ss. Simon and Jude Cathedral, this time with more than 1,000 witnesses. Of course they aren’t there for my marriage. They are there to behold a handful of fine men becoming priests. When those men lay flat on the ground, facedown, in a gesture symbolizing their total submission to God, I challenge anyone present not to be renewed in their vocation.

When Pope Benedict declared the “Year for Priests,” he did so in order to inspire “spiritual perfection” in priests. This is a wonderful goal and at first glance would appear to exclude those of us called to different vocations. But as with any vocation, when lived out in its fullest cooperation with grace, the effects are farther reaching than just to the person living it out. So the spiritual perfection of priests is of great interest to all of us who benefit from their great service.

We once had a priest over to dinner and he spent 50 percent of his time joyfully indulging my son’s expansive knowledge of centaurs and minotaurs. The conversation started simply enough.

“Do you know what a minotaur is?” my then-5-year-old asked our guest who had not yet been in our home for a full minute.

“Yes, I think so,” he answered. “Can you describe it to me?”

It was difficult to know if he did understand because as a native of Poland, discerning my 5-year-old’s rudimentary and lisp-ridden pronunciation without an interpreter was a challenge. Still, he continued to ask questions about the creature, which led to my son’s detailed explanation of their role in the land of Narnia. It also led to my son’s perception of priests as “awesome,” and their vocation as a possible choice for him one day.

Encouraging vocations

Another friend and priest, having once arrived early to our home for Sunday dinner, decided to walk the neighborhood while saying his evening prayers. I am certain his black cassock made an indelible impression upon our majority-Mormon community. He made an impression on our kids of course, who think his high-fives after Mass are “awesome” too.

It sure has been easier to raise reverent, loving, proud little Catholics in our home because of the wonderful and holy priests they have encountered both at church and elsewhere.

For the next 12 months, it might be tempting to wait for our parish and our diocese to implement events and opportunities that require our participation in this jubilee year. It might even be easy to think that since it is in fact the “Year for Priests,” those of us who are not priests get a pass in participation.

I encourage you and your family to embrace this year, as our family will, as an opportunity for spiritual growth as we pray for the men without whom we would not have the many gifts of our Church, like the Eucharist and reconciliation.

Perhaps this year your family could spiritually adopt a priest or seminarian and pray for him daily. You could pray for an increase in vocations to the priesthood. Spend an hour each week before the Blessed Sacrament, or pray a weekly rosary together as a family for priests, asking the Blessed Mother and St. John Vianney to intercede for their spiritual perfection.

Because ultimately the spiritual perfecting of these great men will infect us all with holiness, and it will further affect our future with an increase of vocations to this wholly “awesome” calling.