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YEAR FOR PRIESTS
Faithfulness of Christ, faithfulness of priests
Promoting the Priesthood
Many boys and young men, when asked whether they might have a vocation to the priesthood, respond by saying something about their desire to marry and to have a family.
This is a perfect point of departure both for understanding and for promoting the priesthood.
Every man, as a man, is first called to be a husband and a father. Some men live out this primal vocation through the sacrament of marriage and the family life, while others live it through the priesthood.
Hence, the priestly calling is a fulfillment of a man’s primal vocation to be both husband and father.
The priest, as an alter Christus, takes the bride of Christ — the Church — as his own bride. The priest, universally called father, cares for and shepherds into eternal life the children of God.
The priesthood is another way of living the life of a man, husband, and father. It is demanding and rewarding. It calls for courage and sacrifice. It is joyful and painful. It is not what you expected, and it is more than you expected. Just like the life of the married family man.
With this understanding, with a love of the Church, the Eucharist, and the priesthood, we must all promote vocations to Holy Orders, especially within our own families.
But this is the particular duty of family men. Father, grandfathers, and uncles must give their boys their permission and their blessing to consider the priesthood.
A boy or a young man must have the explicit, spoken, and clear support of the men in his life that it is okay to consider being a priest, that it would be an honor for family and friends, that they – the men in his life -- would be proud of him should God call him to Holy Orders.
As we promote priestly vocations, we may rest assured that Christ will use our good will and efforts in order to sustain the Church with the Eucharist, the sacraments of grace, and the truth of divine revelation until He comes again in glory.
Fr. Joshua Guillory
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