Priesthood

Over the past few days we have been praying using the words of Cardinal Newman. Now I would like us to think about the priesthood in these last few days of the Year for Priests.

Kicking us off is Archbishop Dolan who was talking at Maynooth seminary in Ireland. There is an interview available on the Irish Bishops' website, here, but I'm unable to embed the video onto this blog. You have to click and watch.

Also available is the full text of his speech, again available here. This is an extract:

As a priest we are called to be configured to Christ as priest, head, and shepherd of His Church. Never was Jesus more priest, head, and shepherd of the Church than when He was on the cross. We priests don’t whine with the thief on the left, “Get down off your cross and get me down off mine.” Nope. We’re like Dismas who tells the Lord, “I’m happy to be next to you on Calvary.”

...

The late, great John Paul II went hoarse teaching us that the priesthood is a dramatic, radical reordering of a man’s very life, his soul, his heart, his identity, and that we’re much better off looking at fathers and husbands for metaphors of priesthood than we are at professions.

Thus, the priesthood is a call, not a career; a redefinition of self, not just a ministry; a
way of life, not a job; a state of being, not a function; a permanent, lifelong commitment, not a temporary style of service; an identity, not a role. (By the way, the loss of this, what we call “ontological” appreciation of priesthood applies as well to marriage, religious life, and, for that matter, to Christian, ecclesial identity conferred in baptism, but you didn’t ask me to speak on that.)

If the very value of my priestly vocation depends on what I do, where I’m assigned, how the people affirm me, how my bishop treats me, what the newspapers report about us, what horrible sins brother priests may have committed, what negligence was shown by their bishops, how much I get out of it, or how high or low morale may be at a given time -- if the very value of our priesthood depends upon those external forces, however dominant they may be; if, in a word, my value depends on what I do, sooner or later we’ll get frustrated, cynical, exhausted, crabby, bored, and tempted. Our value must come from who we are.

Oscott and its life.

Just yesterday my email contained a great link to a new video about life in seminary. Oscott, or at least some of her students and staff, star in a short video put together by the Birmingham Vocations Team. It is accessible on the Year for Priests website, here. My limited technology knowledge prevented me form pasting it here on the blog, but you can click on to the actual website easily enough.

Don't forget the informative blog, eastangliaseminarians, who have this to say about the new video:

http://www.yearforpriests.org/Virtual.html

Click on the link above for a short video produced by the Birmingham vocations office about life in Oscott. It's been quite well put together I think, and provides parts of conversations with several seminarians, as well as film clips of liturgy and community activities which take place on a day to day basis. (Look out for the Fishers of Men hat-tip after the words, 'We live in a world that is very noisy...')

Now, mention of the blog leads me to remember the students of the Diocese of East Anglia, and I ask you to join with me in prayer for both the Bishop of East Anglia and his students for the priesthood: Michael, Luke, Padraig, Henry, Simon and Ben.

The English Priesthood

ICN are carrying a lovely story about Nicholas Breakspear, the only English Pope, aka Adrian IV, who died 850 years ago. He is not a man I could claim to know a lot about, but I found this lovely little story refreshing and uplifting. Rather like the 'and finally' which Trevor MacDonald would read at the end of the old ITN 10pm news. Do you remember? If you'd like a little lift, go and read here.

Today, we are asked to keep in our prayers Fr Sebastian Ankat, and tomorrow, 24 June, we are asked to pray for Fr Patrick Armstrong. Both are priests for the archdiocese of Birmingham.

St John Vianney: Pray for us.

Fr Kieran Anderson

Today, we are asked to keep in our prayers, Fr Kieran Anderson. May God bless his ministry.

If you have not already done so, you may like to visit the website, http://www.ukpriest.org/, for all sorts of information on priesthood, or http://www.yearforpriests.org/, which has been put together by the Birmingham Vocations team and includes some information from yours truly, or the Oscott Seminarians weblog here, which includes a picture of our very own Sacred Heart statue here in the chapel.