Down to business

'Neath the somewhat cloudy sky that brought humidity to the Niagara Falls area today, the work of telling our stories began in earnest this morning.

It is 'traditional' during the meeting of International Gatherings of this nature that a certain period of time is devoted to sharing snapshots of the state of the union in our respective countries at least as it pertains to the life of the clergy (priests mostly).

Stories were told today about the vast expanses of empty space in central Australia, where people live on stations (extremely large sheep and cattle ranches), where transportation of priests and people in general usually involves aircrafts as much as automobiles. We also heard stories of Nigeria's 140 million people, 48% of whom are Roman Catholic, and we heard stories of the triumphs and struggles that are part of daily life in Ghana, the United Kingdom and the United States.

As we listened to these stories, and eventually told our own, I couldn't help remarking how many similarities there are between the life lived by priests here and the life lived today in many other parts of the world. The reality is that here and abroad, there are declining numbers of bodies, yet there is still a genuine thirst among the people of God for some kind of spirituality. As one voice explained, it appears more and more evident that the Church is being purified and that we are in the midst of a transition, the result of which we cannot predict.

In many parts of the world, as it is represented at this meeting, there is a keen knowledge of the humanity of priesthood today, the challenges we face, and our own human frailty while we do our best to respond faithfully to the call that we have heard.

Some would say that it's a matter of fate, while others admit that Providence is at work. Whichever point we choose to start from, the truth is that today is also the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin. During the Mass celebrated today, one of our Aussie brothers, who was presiding and sharing his wisdom with us asked a question (admittedly with regard to the scripture passages we had heard): 'How is God loving me through the words I have just heard?'

I wonder if the same question cannot be applied to the state of priesthood today. It might run something like this: 'How is God loving us today, priests and other clerics, lay faithful and all those who faithfully strive to respond each day to the call to discipleship?