Year for Priests - Thought for the week

YEAR FOR PRIESTS

Living the Priesthood

Living out a priestly vocation is every bit as demanding and rewarding as living out the baptismal vocation to holiness that we have all received. And like that other sacrament of vocation - - holy matrimony- - the priesthood has its own “better and worse, good times and bad times.”

A priest might well say to his congregation: “My baptism is about my own growth in holiness. But my priesthood is about your sanctification."

Like any other baptized person, the priest is called to seek the face of God, to know, love, and serve Him in this life, so as to enjoy blessedness with Him forever in the next.

But as an ordained man, the priest’s personal sanctification is advanced by the worthy exercise of his sacred ministry. Every time the priest dons a stole - - whether to celebrate Mass, or to hear confessions, or to anoint the sick, or to baptize, or to preach - - he is living out his priestly vocation and working toward his own sanctification.

Living the priesthood, however, is more than just doing what priests do. It is also being who priests are: a sacramental icon of Christ.

If the priest is to live his priesthood to the fullest, he must be a disciple of the Lord, a man of prayer, a channel of grace, a lover of holiness, a seeker of God, a sinner repentant, a son of the Church, and a father to all.

In this manner, he does not merely exist or survive as a priest, but he truly lives the priesthood that has indelibly marked and transformed his soul for all eternity.

Fr. Joshua Guillory