I was asked to put this up. It is Archnishop Vincent Nicholls speaking about the joys of the priesthood and religious life.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
The Lord’s descent into the underworld
At Matins/the Office of Readings on Holy Saturday the Church gives us this 'ancient homily', I find it incredibly moving, it is abou...
-
A French newspaper has reported Pope Francis, once Benedict dies, will abrogate Summorum Pontificum and handover Old Rite's celebrat... -
I was at the Verona Opera Festival when Summorum Pontificum was published but it wasn't until All Souls Day that I first attempted to s... -
In a conversation with our bishop recently, I thought he said that some parishes in the diocese were already using the new ICEL translations...
18 comments:
"I was asked to put this up"
Why?
It is not very inspiring, could that be why there are so few vocations in E&w.
"I was asked to put this up"
Why?
Surely this is a personally run blog.
I am sure the archdiocese of Birmingham and the bishops of E and W have their own website.
Let them use that at their leisure. What you post should be up to your own decision.
I see that Neil starts by quoting:-
"I was asked to put this up"
My thoughts on reading this were "Fr. Ray is being careful in his choice of words"
Hmmmm!
JARay
We are so blessed in our Parish by the wonderful example set by our priest Father Tim Finigan. I know we will have vocations, love of God is caught not taught. You can't teach vocations, our children need to see the difference our wonderful priests and bishops make, the problem is that they often don't see them at all. They are rarely present in schools and many youngsters no longer attend Mass.
I thank God daily for our very Holy Priests and my children go to show their gratitude to our Priests on Maundy Thursday before the Chrism Mass displaying banners saying Thank You to our priests.
Pray fervently for your priest, we are so fortunate to have daily Mass.
It was a Birmingham priest, not the Archdiocese, to put it up.
Why did you put this up?
He is so uninspiring and unconvincing. Guess the 'plumb' of Westminster is definitely not for him.
This is a bishop who doesn't always meet his prospective candidates for seminary before they are fed as fodder to a selection panel, this after lengthy periods of a questionable 'discernment' process.
Not quite the episcopal 'hands on' approach to promoting vocations.
He'll have to do better than that. It couldn't be more uninspiring but, IMO, par for the course when he was at Westminster Cathedral. I wonder why so many of the hierarchy patronise us as if we possess the collective IQ of a cockroach.
How about starting with the proper catechesis of our children and then raising the status of priests instead of allowing them, in so many instances, to be crushed under the heel of the laity?
A bit too radical, I suspect.
Reading the Catechism on the Priesthood by St. John Vianney I noted with awe this particular segment,
'Go to confession to the Blessed Virgin, or to an angel; will they absolve you? No. Will they give you the Body and Blood of Our Lord? No. The Holy Virgin cannot make her Divine Son descend into the Host. You might have two hundred angels there, but they could not absolve you. A priest, however simple he may be, can do it; he can say to you, "Go in peace; I pardon you. " Oh, how great is a priest! The priest will not understand the greatness of his office till he is in Heaven. If he understood it on earth, he would die, not of fear, but of love. The other benefits of God would be of no avail to us without the priest. What would be the use of a house full of gold, if you had nobody to open you the door! The priest has the key of the heavenly treasures; it is he who opens the door; he is the steward of the good God, the distributor of His wealth. Without the priest, the Death and Passion of Our Lord would be of no avail. Look at the heathens: what has it availed them that Our Lord has died? Alas! they can have no share in the blessings of Redemption, while they have no priests to apply His Blood to their souls'!
How wonderful our dear Priests are to us. We should pray daily for our Priests and for abundant vocations. Deo Gratias.
Plus, in the Gospel reading today Christ's garments became "whiter than any earthly bleach . . . . . "
Grrrrrr.
I would like to support my archbishop on at least making the video available to young people. His delivery and message content may not be to everyone's taste, but at least he's delivering it and asking people to consider the possibility. How many of our bishops do that?.
I have been to ordinations he has carried out in the diocese and, whatever else may be his faults (and I wouldn't describe myself as an unquestioning fan), he seems sincerely dedicated to the priesthood. Quite why most prospective candidates for Birmingham were turned down this past year is another matter.
georgem,
It's "earthly bleacher" isn't it?
Have to say when I read this in a lenten preparation leaflet I laughed out loud and presumed it was a simplification put in by some well meaning but obviously not to earthly bleached brain. I could not believe my ears at Mass today when I heard the same words. I think it's all gone quite beyond the GRRRR stage now. All you really can do it laugh. It's just too stupid.
Fr Zehnle of Servant and Steward blog spends a lot of time in the local High School and the students seem to love him and ask him questions and he even hears confession at basketball matches. This is the kind of priest who
will inspire young men to be a priest.
Some very charitable comments there!
I'm discerning a priestly vocation myself, and shortly, I will be packing my bags to go off to the selection conference, so I appreciate any words our bishops have to offer.
Sometimes we don't need to be inspired so as to cause us to go into an ecstasy, but small words like this do point some people in the right direction. It's good that he has made this effort, which from my persepectives seems to be the best drive so far!
Have any of those dissing this actually listened to it ? When was the last time anyone heard a Bishop speaking positively about celibacy as a gift ??
I think this is from the heart. I wouldn't have ended it with "try it and see" - I'd have thrown down more of a fiery challenge... However, it spoke to me - and I'm a fairly hard-line cynic.
If anyone's got a better idea on how to get the drag-net out and call them in, we're all ears.
On that note.. look up the US Bishop's famous Vocations film "Fishers of Men". It's on Youtube and is brilliant. I've shown it to many groups of young people now and it always provokes a strong reaction, one way or the other.
"I wonder why so many of the hierarchy patronise us as if we possess the collective IQ of a cockroach."
Georgem - oh yes, yes,yes,yes,yes.............
people think that being allowed to run round on altars, and getting ministerial job titles is progress - but real progress would be to treat us as creatures with the faculty of reason. If you could just see the lowest common denominator materials that my children were exposed to at FH Communion and Confirmation.
Simon-Peter, thank you for sharing your plans with us. What a privilege to hear of someone about to offer his life so generously to God. You will be in my daily prayers from now on.
dillydayream, you may well be confusing your own experience ( and believe me, I could write a book that could convert Catholics to Buddhism, tomorrow) with the norm.
DDD - what materials did YOU, as the primary educator of your children expose them to before Confession, Communion and Confirmation ?
Do not tell me you left it to the parish "catechists".
If so, my response is unprintable, and you are in a mess of your own making.
Post a Comment