The Year of the Priesthood - Queen of Peace Center

Pope Benedict the XVI proclaims Year for Priests starting June 19

Pope Benedict XVI recently proclaimed June 2009 through June 2010 the YEAR OF THE PRIESTHOOD, dedicated to Saint John Vianney, Cure of Ars. With all the scandals that have shaken the Catholic Church, some parents may be hesitant to pray for vocations for their children. John Vianney is the hero we need to pull the Church out of this crisis, by re-establishing trust and encouraging dedicated pastors everywhere that their mission is vital. During this YEAR OF THE PRIESTHOOD, let us pray that we will see the number of vocations to the priesthood and religious life soar, as young people, looking for a radical way of serving God, follow the uncompromising example of Saint John Vianney.

John Vianney, Priest
Saint John Vianney was born at Lyons in 1786. After overcoming many difficulties, he was ordained a priest. He was entrusted with a parish in the town of Ars in the Diocese of Belley. He cared for this parish in a marvelous way by his preaching, his mortification, prayer and good works. Since he was renowned for great skill in helping penitents, people came to him from many regions and devoutly accepted his counsels. He died in 1859.

In this Year of the Priest

We pray that priests may carry out Jesus’ instructions to evangelize the whole world, instructing and baptizing countless souls.

We pray for those priests who live lives of utter poverty and deprivation to bring the Gospel to all the people.

We pray that priests will be devoted to Mary and find in her the love and comfort of a mother, the most powerful intercession of our greatest Saint, and the surest refuge against Satan and his cohorts who seek destruction of priests and the priesthood.

We pray that Mary, Queen of the Clergy, will be their model of faith and joy, and constant guide until they reach Heaven where a crown, jeweled with the many souls entrusted to them on the day of Ordination, will be their reward for faithful and loving service.

Real Priests for Our Age

We are in the middle of the Year for Priests in which it is hoped we will all see a strong re-affirmation of Christ-like models of priesthood. Thanks to Pope Benedict we may just exit that age of sell-out clerics like Fr. John Jenkins of Notre Dame and come back to some sanity in priestly leadership. As an indication of how bad clerical hypocrisy gets, Fr. Jenkins presided over the arrest of Catholic pro-life protesters on campus and has consistently refused to ask the authorities to drop the charges. Some may spend a year in jail due to his "leadership" on this issue. Jenkins followed this by an announcement that he will attend the March for Life in Washington this year - a shameless two-faced gesture not lost on any of us who know what it means to be pro-life. We expect more from priests. In the new era of the priesthood, we need to get away from the flimsy, politically-motivated, "empty sutanes" (i.e., cassocks) and look to those who are providing the kind of priestly leadership that really brings souls to Christ.

Thankfully examples of good priests are becoming more readily available these days. One of these guys is Fr. James Farfaglia who is a new member of HLI's Board of Directors and pastor of St. Helen's Parish in Corpus Christi, TX. Father has written a book that is second to none in calling men to holiness and accountability for their marriages and their faith. The book is called Man to Man: A Real Priest Speaks to Real Men About Marriage, Sexuality and Family Life. Father James is a very strong priest, and his writing reflects that. His no-nonsense explanations of our fundamental commitments to God and others are a refreshing re-statement of how we are supposed to live - and thrive - in a world hostile to our basic values. Father has spent his priestly life ministering to people in real-life situations, so his pastoral judgment is tried and true.

Another marvelous experience of priesthood happened this week in Rome with the conference sponsored by the Australian and American chapters of the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy. The week was full of erudite lectures on the priesthood and the liturgy and was filled with prayer and good priestly fraternity. The highlight of it all was our participation in the Mass of Epiphany on Wednesday with Pope Benedict XVI in St. Peter's Basilica. I prayed for all our HLI supporters and friends and families there in the Holy City!

We will soon have a slide show of the magnificent events available on our website, but those who want a sneak preview can go to my Facebook page and see some of the postings I put up during the week.

Please continue to pray for your priests, and commend us to Our Lady; more than anything, pray for a total renewal of the priesthood and hierarchy so that we may be able to stand strong against the evils of the day and meet the severe challenges of the days to come.

Sincerely,

Rev. Thomas J Euteneuer
President, Human Life International

Spirit & Life
“The words I spoke to you are spirit and life.” (Jn 6:63)
Human Life International e-Newsletter
Volume 05, Number 02 | Friday, January 8, 2010

The Virgin Mary and the Year for Priests

Today, as at the beginning of every calendar year, we celebrate Mary as the most holy Mother of God, defined as such by Council of Nicea in 325 AD and witnessed by twenty centuries of the Christian faithful as our loving mother too. On this Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, let us take a moment to reflect on Mary as the Mother of Priests.

The basis of Mary's love for priests is her perfect relationship with the High Priest, Jesus Christ. The Letter to the Hebrews (7:1-7) describes the high priestly dignity of Jesus who is said to be a priest "in the line of Melchizedek," that is, not of the Mosaic priesthood, but rather of a priesthood that will never pass away. After conquering the power of the devil once-for-all on Calvary, Jesus Christ eternally offers that one sacrifice to the Father for the salvation of souls, and the men who are chosen to serve in the priestly class in His Church have the duty to perpetuate that one sacrifice in time by celebrating the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Of the many things that priests have to do, it is the most important!

Mary is not only the Mother of Jesus' human nature, but She is the Mother of His Priesthood too because She gave Him birth, nurtured Him, educated Him in the ways of the Chosen People and faithfully stood by Him at the altar when He was offering the perfect sacrifice, namely, His own death. She was not a pious bystander to the formation of His priestly character. Mary was His seminary.

Mary, too, stands by us priests when we offer our lives and sacrifices in union with the one great sacrifice of Christ. She helps us remain faithful to Christ and to the Church in times of great apostasy and persecution. The challenges to the priesthood in the modern era have been more ferocious than we have seen for many centuries. Not only have the atheistic movements of the last two centuries sought to stamp out the Church, but they have come against the priesthood in a vicious and systematic way. One needs only learn a little about the internment camps of the Nazis and Communists to know that priests took a disproportionate share of the suffering in the last century. Nor have the revolt against morality, and the modern feminist and dissenting movements left the priesthood unscathed, as we know too well. Indeed, Mary knows it better than anyone, which is why She dedicates loving attention to the priests who have often been called her first sons.

If I may ask any favor of the faithful in this Year for Priests, I would ask simply that you commend us to the Mother of the High Priest on a regular basis. Mary loves priests very deeply, not only because she sees in us the reflection of her Son, but because she knows how necessary the priestly office is for the sanctification of souls. She is perfectly aware of our many weaknesses and foibles, but she loves us anyway! Please ask her to protect us, to guide us, to purify us like the "sons of Levi" so that we may be able to offer "fitting due sacrifice to the Lord" (Malachi 3:3-4) for the salvation of souls.

Sincerely,

Priests for the Kingdom

As the Jubilee Year for Priests begins, allow me to offer a brief reflection on the beauty and dignity of the priesthood. I write as one who has lived in this state of life for more than twenty years and who has regular contact with many good priests from around the world. Pope Benedict’s call to dedicate a year to deepening our appreciation for the priesthood is an invitation to reflect deeply on the mystery of priestly grace being lived in our midst. We have all been blessed, literally or figuratively, by the ministry of priests, and we all must thank God for this great gift to our Church and our world.

Some realism about the priestly vocation has to both enlighten our view of priests and dampen our expectations of them. Catholic priests are not worldly leaders, they are not perfect and they are not God. Rather, they are God’s chosen servants given the duty of blessing, teaching and leading souls to heaven, and for that reason they have a fierce reckoning to go through on the Day of Judgment. On the final day, the High Priest Himself will weigh His black-robed servants in the scales against the souls that were sent them for care, and the scales will not lie.

The failure of a priest is sad and hurtful, but that just proves that the priest is immersed in the woundedness of the human condition and given to the people for their welfare. He always bears the scars of battle and sometimes fails. He always has to apologize more than the average man for his failures because they have a greater impact on people, and if his public profile is higher than most, his humiliation is often much greater because his faults and failings are usually seen in living color by thousands. That is the tremendous risk of being a priest, but he knows about it ahead of time and he takes if for the sake of the souls he is called to serve. The priest has to throw away everything to serve God’s people, including his comfort, his ambitions and his ego.

Even though priests don’t ask it enough, every priest needs the prayers of his people to support him against the wiles of the world, the flesh and the devil. More than anything, however, he needs prayers to strengthen and confirm him in the grace that he has been given to be that shining light of faith to the world. The grace from these prayers always returns to the one who prays because everyone who prays for priests is served better by them. Prayers for the priesthood in general add more soldiers to the ranks of the clergy and keep some of the failing ones from leaving. Prayers for individual priests and their souls are enormously helpful to a priest’s integrity and his generosity of service. We must never underestimate the power of prayer for God’s servants. They are always fruitful for the Kingdom of God.

People can sometimes be very generous to priests in a material way, and I can say from a personal standpoint that such generosity is always appreciated by us. However, priests really don’t need material gifts or homes offered to us as substitutes for the sacrifices we make for the Kingdom. The church takes care of us in these aspects of life. What we need is spiritual support for our spiritual work and every once in a while a healthy reminder from the laity that our vocation is not of this world. The prayers of the faithful have gone a long way to sustaining priests in their commitment to the salvation of souls just as the prayers of priests bring so many of the laity the strength they need to overcome the difficulties of life and be fortified for our ongoing spiritual combat.

Just as every soldier deserves good leadership in war because his life will depend on it, so God’s people deserve good priests who are spiritual warriors fighting for their souls, because if these are lost, everything else is, indeed, lost.

Sincerely,

LITANY FOR PRIESTS

Let us pray for:

The Holy Father
…Fill him with your grace, Lord

Cardinals, Archbishops, and Bishops
…Give them your gifts, Lord

Diocesan priests
…Never leave them, Lord

Priests in seminary work
…Give them your wisdom, Lord

Priests in hospital work
…Give them constancy, Lord

Priest who are ill
…Heal them, Lord

Priests in danger
…Deliver them, Lord

Priests who are weak
…Strengthen them, Lord

Priests who are poor
…Relieve them, Lord

Priests who are zealous
…Help them, Lord

Priests who want to love you
…Enkindle their hearts, Lord

Priests who are sad
…Console them, Lord

Priests who are worried
…Give them peace, Lord

Priests who are old
…Sustain them, Lord

Priests who are young
…Impel them for your glory, Lord

Priests who are alone
…Accompany them, Lord

Missionary Priests
…Protect them, Lord

Priests who are Preachers
…Enlighten them, Lord

Priests who direct souls
…Instruct them, Lord

Parish priests
…Give them prudence, Lord

Religious priests
…Make them perfect, Lord

Priests who have died
…Bring them to glory, Lord

Holy Father to grant plenary indulgences for the Year of Priests

Pope Benedict XVI / St. John Marie Vianney

Vatican City, May 12, 2009 / 01:47 pm (CNA).- The Vatican has announced that during the Year for Priests, which will run June 19, 2009 – June 19, 2010, the Pope Benedict will grant plenary indulgences to priests and the faithful.

The year will begin with the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, “a day of priestly sanctification,” according to a press release from the Vatican. On that day, the Holy Father “will celebrate Vespers before relics” of St. Jean Marie Vianney, patron saint of priests.

The Year will end in St. Peter's Square, in the presence of priests from all over the world "who will renew their faithfulness to Christ and their bonds of fraternity."

The means to obtain the indulgence are as follows:

(A) All truly penitent priests who, on any day, devotedly pray Lauds or Vespers before the Blessed Sacrament exposed to public adoration or in the tabernacle, and ... offer themselves with a ready and generous heart for the celebration of the Sacraments, especially the Sacrament of Penance, will be granted a Plenary Indulgence, which they can also apply to their deceased confreres, if in accordance with current norms they take Sacramental Confession and the Eucharist and pray in accordance with the intentions of the Supreme Pontiff. Priests are furthermore granted a Partial Indulgence, also applicable to deceased confreres, every time they devotedly recite the prayers duly approved to lead a saintly life and to carry out the duties entrusted to them.

(B) All truly penitent Christian faithful who, in church or oratory, devotedly attend Holy Mass and offer prayers to Jesus Christ, supreme and eternal Priest, for the priests of the Church, or perform any good work to sanctify and mold them to His Heart, are granted a Plenary Indulgence, on the condition that they have expiated their sins through Sacramental Confession and prayed in accordance with the intentions of the Supreme Pontiff. This may be done on the opening and closing days of the Year of Priests, on the 150th anniversary of the death of St. Jean Marie Vianney, on the first Thursday of the month, or on any other day established by the ordinaries of particular places for the good of the faithful.

The elderly, the sick and all those who for any legitimate reason are unable to leave their homes, may still obtain a plenary indulgence if, with the soul completely removed from attachment to any form of sin and with the intention of observing, as soon as they can, the usual three conditions, "on the days concerned, they pray for the sanctification of priests and offer their sickness and suffering to God through Mary, Queen of the Apostles."

Additionally, a partial indulgence will be offered to the faithful each time they pray five “Our Father,” “Hail Mary” and “Glory Be,” or any other duly approved prayer "in honor of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to ask that priests maintain purity and sanctity of life."

WE MUST PERSEVERE

“Sermons of the Cure D’Ars”

“He that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved” Matt.22

The Divine Savior says: “He that fights and perseveres to the end of his life, without being overcome, or, when he was fallen, rises up again and perseveres, he shall be crowned.” That is to say, he will be saved –- words, dearly beloved, which produce in us fear and trembling when we reflect upon the danger which beset us on every side, upon our weakness and the multitude of enemies by which we are surrounded. Let us not be surprised at so many saints forsaking parents, friends, possessions, and pleasures, that some should hide themselves away in the dark forests, others bewailing their sins in the clefts of rocks; others, again, shut themselves up in a solitary cell, to mourn there for the rest of their lives, far from the noisy world, and to occupy themselves with fighting the enemy of their salvation, fully convinced that heaven is only for those who persevere.

Now what is it “to persevere?”

“To persevere,” my friends, means to be ready to make any sacrifice; rather to lose our wealth, our free will, our liberty, yea, even life itself, than to offend God. But what does it mean, “not to persevere?”

“Not to persevere” means to relapse into our old sins, not long ago confessed, to frequent that bad company again which led us into sin that is of all evils the greatest, because we thereby lose God, draw down His wrath upon us, estrange our soul from heaven, and make it ripe for hell. So as to help you to realize this properly, I will tell you the means which you must use to reserve the graces which you have received during this holy Paschal time. They are these four:

          I. Obedience to the promptings of grace
          II. The avoidance of bad company
          III. Prayer
          IV. The frequent use of the Sacraments

I.	The first means to advance perseveringly on the way to heaven is to obey faithfully, and make use of the inspirations of grace, which God gives us. All the saints have attained to their blessed lot only through obeying faithfully the voice of the Holy Ghost, and the damned owe their miserable state only to the fact that they have despised these inspirations. This alone ought to prove to you how precious these stirrings of conscience are, and how necessary it is to obey them. But you may argue, “How are we to know whether we have obeyed these inspirations of grace, or resisted them?” If you do not know how to recognize this, then listen to me for a moment, and I will explain it to you. First of all, I say that grace consists in the suggestions to our thoughts that we should avoid evil, and do good. Let us consider a few particular cases, so that you may understand this thoroughly. In the morning when you rise, turn your thoughts to God, give Him your heart, offer up your work to Him by kneeling down to say your prayers. If you do this at once and with a good will, you obey the promptings of grace; if you do not do this at all, or else if you do it badly, you do not obey them. You feel a desire to go to Confession, so as to overcome your faults and not to remain in your former condition, because had death overtaken you, you would have been lost eternally. If you obey this divine prompting you are faithful followers of the inspiration of grace. But if you leave these incentives unnoticed, for instance, to give alms, to do works of penance, to hear Mass, then you resist them. In a way, beloved, we obey or resist grace. All this is a question of interior grace. Exterior graces are, for instance, good reading, conversation with pious men who point out to us the necessity of changing our mode of life, of serving God better, of the remorse which we shall feel at the hour of death, or good examples which convert us. Also instruction by which we discern the means which we must employ to serve God, our duties toward Him, toward ourselves, and toward our neighbor. Observe well that your salvation or damnation depends upon this. We know from the Gospel that all the conversions, which Jesus made during His life, were founded on perseverance. You know, beloved, how Christ converted Peter. It is mentioned that the Savior looked at him, and that Peter wept in the state of grace, and sinned no more. How was Matthew converted? We know that Christ met him and told him to follow, and Matthew followed Him. What makes his conversion appear to us to be true is the fact that he never returned to his office as a collector of taxes; from that moment he never forsook Jesus. He persevered in grace and turned his back upon sin forever. A holy Bishop said to his flock: “If you were to give all your possessions to the poor, let your body be flayed, and your blood be shed; if each one of you was to suffer as much as all the martyrs put together; if your skin be torn off like St. Bartholomew’s or if you be sawed to pieces like Isaias, or be roasted on a slow fire like St. Lawrence; if you had not perseverance, that is to say, if you would relapse into sins again, and if death should surprise you in this state, everything would be lost. Who among us will be saved? Those who have fought for forty or sixty years? Possibly, dear brethren. Those whose hair turned gray in the service of the Lord? Possibly, dear brethren, but if they are wanting in perseverance they are as uncertain of their salvation as Solomon, of who the Holy Ghost said that he was the wisest king upon earth, but of whose salvation we are very much in doubt, although he imagined himself perfectly sure of it. “He that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved.” Ought we not to tremble, dear brethren, we who fall every moment? There will be no heaven for us unless we are more steadfast than we have been heretofore. How often do we not torment ourselves thinking whether we shall be lost or saved? Useless scruples! Listen to Moses, who, when he was dying, had the twelve tribes of Israel assembled, and said to them: “You know that I have loved you tenderly that I have sought nothing but your happiness and salvation. Now that I am going to give God an account of all my actions, I must tell you the following, and you must not forget it: ‘Serve God faithfully; remember the many benefits which He has lavished upon you; never separate yourselves from Him, no matter what it may cost you. You will have enemies who will persecute you, and strive all in their power to make you forsake God. Take courage, therefore; you are sure of the kingdom if you remain faithful to God.’ “ Ah, my brethren, if even saints were all their lives afraid of not persevering, what will become of us who are without virtue, without confidence in God, laden with sins, and who are careless of the snares which the devil sets for us: We go about blindly among these numerous dangers, we sleep quietly in the midst of a crowd of enemies, who are all bent upon our destruction. But you will say: “What are we to do so as not to be overpowered?”
II.	My friend, you must shun the occasions which have been the cause of your fall. You must take refuge in incessant prayer, receive frequently and worthily the Sacraments. If you do this, if you take this path, you will be sure to persevere; but if you do not take this precaution, no matter what penance you may lay down for yourself, you will go to perdition. I say you must fly by the occasions of sin. Where did you learn these improper songs, and those ungodly manners, which cause you innumerable bad thoughts and desires? Was it not in that company? Who taught you to judge so rashly? Was it not the society of that slanderer who talked uncharitably of his neighbor? Where did that habit originate by which you sin and lead others to sin through improper looks and actions? Was it not by frequenting the society of that unchaste person? Why do you no longer receive the Sacraments? Is it not because you associate with that ungodly person whose aim it is to rob you of your faith by representing to you that which the priest says to you is exaggeration? Who tells you that Religion has only one good purpose, and that is to keep the young in bounds; but that only ignorant people allow themselves to be influenced by it; that those better informed simply laugh at it? Let me tell you, by the way, that these wise people hold these views no longer when they are on their deathbed. Would such doubts arise in your mind away from this society?
III.	Prayer is indispensable in order to obtain perseverance in the Divine Grace received in the Sacrament of Penance. By prayer you can do all things; you turn, as it were, the Divine Will, if I may say so. Without prayer you are incapable of doing anything. This alone should prove to you the necessity and the power of prayer. All saints began their conversion by prayer, and through prayer they persevered. All the damned were lost because they neglected prayer. The prayer which I recommend to you as being powerful with God, which obtains many graces for us, which urges Him to grant what we ask, this prayer is composed of remorse and hope. Remorse at sight of our unworthiness, and the dishonor which we have offered to God and His graces. We must acknowledge that we are unworthy to appear before Him, unworthy to ask Him for His graces, because we have already received so much from Him, and have continually repaid Him with ingratitude, for which reason we should fear every moment for our salvation. Penetrated with grief for having offended so good a God, let us shed tears of contrition and thanksgiving from penitent hearts. Mind and heart should be profoundly humbled at the thought of our infinite baseness, and of the sublimity of Him whom we have offended, and who in spite of this permits us hope and grace. I say prayer must be composed of despair and hope. Hope in the greatness of God’s mercy, in His desire of making us happy, and in what He has done to merit heaven for us. Animated with this consoling thought, we can turn to Him with the greatest confidence. We should say with St. Bernard: “My God, that which I ask of Thee I have not deserved, but Thou has merited it for me. If Thou dost hear me, I thank Thy kindness and mercy.” What does a Christian do, filled with these dispositions? Penetrated with feelings of the most fervent gratitude, he forms the firm resolution never again to offend God who comes to meet him with His graces. This is the prayer, dear brethren, which is so necessary for us to obtain forgiveness and the precious gift of perseverance.
IV.	As fourth and most important means, we must frequently receive the holy Sacraments so as to preserve sanctifying grace. A Christian who makes use of prayer and the Sacraments is to the devil what a soldier on horseback, equipped with weapons, is to a defenseless enemy, who flees at the very sight of him. Should he, however, get off his horse and lay aside his weapons, the enemy will fall upon him, throw him to the ground, and overpower him. While he was armed, the sight of him alone seemed to crush his enemy. The devil said to St. Theresa: that on account of her great love of God, her frequent reception of the Sacraments, he could not breathe in the places where she had been. Why? Because the Sacraments gave her strength to persevere in the grace of God. There has never been a saint who kept away the Sacraments and still preserved the friendship of God. In the Sacraments they gained the necessary strength to resist the devil and not to be overpowered by him. The reason is this: when we pray to God he lavishes innumerable graces upon us, to fortify us and to give us courage. He Himself comes to destroy our enemy. As soon as the devil is aware of His presence, he casts himself in despair into the abyss. This is the principal reason why the devil strives his utmost to prevent us from receiving the Sacraments, and incites us to profane them. Yes, dear brethren, when any one receives the Sacraments frequently the devil loses his power over him. However, we must make a distinction. I am speaking of those who receive the Sacraments with the right dispositions, who have a real horror of sin, who gladly avail themselves of all the means which God offers them to avoid a relapse into sin. Christians who go to confession one day, and the next day fall again into the same sins, I do not include them, nor those who confess their sins without contrition and without detestation, who repeat them every time as if they were telling a story, who make not the slightest preparations; who, without examining their conscience, tell just of what sins they happen to think; who approach the Lord’s table without having examined into the recesses of their heart, without having obtained the grace to recognize their sins, without feeling the proper repentance, and without any resolution of not sinning again. All these persons work out their own perdition. Instead of fighting against the devil, they range themselves on his side, and bury themselves in hell.

What are we, then, to conclude from all this?

That we should promptly obey the incentives of grace, never fail in our prayers, and with proper dispositions receive the Sacraments. If beloved brethren, we carry out this resolution, if we remain faithful to it to the end, there shall be fulfilled in us the words of Christ: “He that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved.” This I wish you all. Amen.