–#1–

Another great article on the priesthood. I have quoted a section below.

Father Jaffe had been at the parish for less than a week and was the priest on call for the local hospital. It was 2 a.m. when his pager went off. A couple had lost their 8-year-old son hours before and the mother wouldn’t let go of his body.

All attempts of the staff and hospital chaplain to get her to release her son had failed. She sat rocking him, unresponsive to anyone. The woman wasn’t Catholic, but the staff knew from experience that it was time to call in a priest.

But my favorite line is this – a priest has sacrificed family so that he can be a part of everyone’s family.

–#2–

And a great vocations video coming out of Spain. It uses their economic crisis to ask the question – What if the priesthood is right for you?

–#3–

What is it like when a priest gets old? A seminarian friend and I were recently discussing this a bit. What happens when you are no longer a young priest that everyone loves but a 76 year old priest who no longer has the health, energy, or cultural comprehension to serve in a way that makes you feel like you are making an impact? It will happen. What happens to us when it comes? We looked to the end of the Gospel of John, where Jesus tells Peter when he is old, someone else will lead him where he does not wish to go. And as our service as priests comes to an end, we will still have much to offer for the salvation of the world. We can only imagine how transforming Peter’s suffering and martyrdom was for the early Church. His witness, in the midst of seeming futility, brought great life to the Church. It is not only the ministry that matters, but how we live out each day in relationship to our God, not whether we are loved and acknowledged or alone and forgotten.

–#4–

And from this week. Saturday I went down to St. Anthony’s in Sacramento for a Mass celebrating the support of the Young Ladies’ Institute for vocations in the Diocese. It was a beautiful Mass and great to meet so many of the women who are always supporting us through their prayers and gifts. After the Mass I ran down to Davis to join my fraternity brothers for the 20th anniversary of the founding of our chapter at UC Davis. I spent 4 years as a part of Alpha Gamma Omega, a Christian fraternity at Davis. It was great to see my pledge brothers and many other alumni. Then I drove back up to Auburn just in time for the Quincenera of one of the girls from the Youth Group. Then Saturday Vigil Mass. Then Quincenera party. That was just Saturday.

AMDG

–#1–

Saturday the Diocese of Sacramento held its first ever Altar Server Olympics which gathered 160 youth from 14 parishes to compete for Olympic Gold. Seminarians Arnold and Jeremy joined me as we put these highly qualified servers to the test. We held the Amazing Altar Server Relay Race to kick things off before splitting up the group as they rotated through stations testing their knowledge of liturgical items and seasons. Finally we ended it with Jeopardy Trivia. It was a great day and hopefully a good learning experience for all the youth. It was also a great day to promote vocations. Congratulations to the Altar Servers of St. Peter’s Parish in Dixon for their victory.

–#2–

This week was the Annual Priest Retreat for the Diocese. Fr. Bud Stevens, professor at St. Patrick’s Seminary, gave us a series of talks on Communio. It was amazing. I really wish I could have had him for an instructor. The guy is well read and reflected. It was also a great time of priestly/seminarian fraternity as most of the priests of the diocese gathered to pray, listen, and relax.

–#3–

Here’s an article on a priest from Pittsburg and his vocation story. He was at the NAC my first year there.

–#4–

Finally, the Congregation for Clergy just published their annual Letter to Priests. Included in it is an excellent examination of conscience for priests. Here is just a quote from the letter:

Today’s world, with its ever more painful and preoccupying lacerations, needs God-The Trinity, and the Church has the task to proclaim Him. In order to fulfil this task, the Church must remain indissolubly embraced with Christ and never part from Him; it needs Saints who dwell “in the heart of Jesus” and are happy witnesses of God’s Trinitarian Love. And in order to serve the Church and the World, Priests need to be Saints!

The whole letter is available here.

AMDG

–#1–

While there are moments in the parish that make you smile, cry, groan, and sigh, there are also moments that make you crack up. I was visiting a couple families the other day and I was wearing my clerics. As the door to the house opened, a little boy inside said, “Jesus esta aqui” (Jesus is here). And a couple weeks ago I heard about a 4 year old from our parish that whenever he sees Fr. Brian (the pastor), he says “Hola diocito” (Hi God!). They are not quite distinguishing between God and some of his co-workers but you have to love their understanding. They know that a man in clerics has something very directly to do with God.

–#2–

As we mark 100 years since the sinking of the Titanic, a great story has come out about an heroic priest who served in that dire moment.

It is that of Fr. Thomas Byles, the Catholic priest who gave up two spots on a lifeboat in favour of offering spiritual aid to the other victims as they all went down with the “unsinkable” vessel.

A 42-year-old English convert, Fr. Byles was on his way to New York to offer the wedding Mass for his brother William. Reports suggest that he was reciting his breviary on the upper deck when the Titanic struck the iceberg in the twilight hours of Sunday, April 14th, 1912.

According to witnesses, as the ship went down the priest helped women and children get into the lifeboats, then heard confessions, gave absolution, and led passengers in reciting the Rosary.

Read it all here.

–#3–

Bishop Soto is in Rome. He’s been writing short reflections on his time there for his Ad limina visit.

“Let me offer a few words of explanation about the “ad limina” visit. I mentioned earlier the Pontifical North American College. This is the seminary residence for the American students, and other English-speaking students, while studying in Rome. It has a long history in the Eternal City and a spectacular location looking over the Basilica of St. Peter.

Along with other dioceses in the United States, Sacramento has sent students here. Currently, we have three students at the NAC, as it is called: Aaron Rose, whom I mentioned in my earlier reflection; Colin Wen, who is currently working in Sacramento during a pastoral year away from the NAC; and Father Brian Soliven, who was ordained last year and is currently finishing a licentiate in theology. I am looking forward to assigning Father Soliven to a parish this July. I will take this opportunity to remind all of us to pray for our seminarians and to ask the Good Shepherd for more vocations.

The campus is large. Along with housing the seminarians there are rooms reserved for bishops visiting the Vatican. These accommodations are very handy during the “ad limina” visits. Because of the size and vitality of the Catholic Church in the United States the “ad limina” visits for the American bishops take several weeks. There are 14 geographic regions in the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Each region is in Rome for a week. You can do the math.”

 –#4–

I was recently talking to a couple guys discerning the priesthood and we were discussing this real challenge of celibacy. But a point that we discovered was this. If you are going to authentically discern a vocation, open to marriage and priesthood, you have to see them objectively. You cannot see marriage as the relationship you currently have with a girlfriend but objectively as that which marriage entails. Why? Because usually that is all you have to go off of for the priesthood. If I could have known all of the people I would meet and work with throughout these last 6 years, it would not have been nearly as difficult to say yes to the priesthood. But that is the great disadvantage for discernment, that the life of a priest is often so vague that it makes it difficult to see oneself as a priest.

–#5–

Finally, I was over at the parish school today helping out when one of the 8th graders came up to me and said I should not become a priest. Then a couple other students agreed. They wanted me to be happy and to be married. After talking about vocations a couple times, I thought they had understood! I am not doing this out of a sense of duty or because I was simply taking orders. I am doing this out of love. God who so loves me called me to become his priest and I responded as weak and unworthy as I am.

AMDG