To priests

For at least the last five years or so, I have taken the liberty to write a letter to priests on the occasion of Holy Thursday. This annual reflection allows me to reflect on my own priesthood while offering some words that may be of assistance to others. Here, for what it's worth, is this year's installment:

Dear brothers,

This day is holy unto the Lord (see Zechariah 14:20) for it is set aside each year as a day of thanksgiving for the gift of our priesthood. During this special year dedicated to priests, this anniversary should mark for us a moment of special celebration and provide us with a moment to pause and thank God for the great honour he has bestowed upon us.

None of us chooses priesthood for ourselves. In fact whether we live alone in the most isolated geographic reaches of our dioceses, eparchies or circumscription of another making, or whether we have been asked to serve in company with other confreres, we are all united in a mission that is not our own. Ours is a life of utter gnerosity for to live the call to priesthood authentically means that we must renounce at least a part of ourselves every day.

With every sunrise comes another opportunity for us to reach out to the lost and the broken with hands that may well be caloused and weather worn, but hands nonetheless that caress with infinite tenderness, hands that envelop the prodigals of our time even as they themselves may continue searching for the way home.

Christ uses our feet, cracked and paining beneath the weight of burdens we have loaded upon them, to take his compassion to those in our world who are so parched from a lack of kindness that they fear even the possibility of hoping. We find these souls in the people we meet every day, most often in those who challenge us to look beyond the limits of our own selfishness and to realize anew that what we do is not our own work. The prize we seek is not recognition; rather, the aim of our existence is to serve as He has served us and to love as we ourselves have been loved.

Our eyes are Christ's eyes. He uses us each time he calls us to look into the eyes of a teenager who is lost in a sea of voices. Each of these voices calls out with an ever-louder cries enticing them to seek the answers to their questions about love and acceptance not in the abiding presence of God, at times not even in those who stand by ready to lend a hand, but in the lies and deceits that are so easy to believe. For the sake of these lost ones, we must always be ready with eyes, ears and voices of compassion, for here we encounter the face of the suffering Jesus who met Veronica in the midst of his torturous journey to Calvary. These are the modern-day women (and men) of Jerusalem who may well weep in despair even though they do not fully comprehend the depth of love Jesus has for them.

Through our lips, He speaks compassion and love, forgiveness and unfathomable patience to a world that seems to ignore him more and more.

The message we proclaim is profound in its simplicity, 'God is love'. Our very lives are spent speaking this truth, but unfortunately there are some, even among our own confreres who struggle to hear this message for themselves. Let us be mindful tonight of all priests who are struggling to hear these words and to believe them. Let us also be mindful of those fellow pilgrims on the journey who help us to listen to these words ourselves and to become increasingly convinced of their truth every day.

We live in very tumultuous times. Various facets of the secular world hold us under close scrutiny in these days. The credibility and respect we may have enjoyed at another epoch in our history has been increasingly replaced with cynicism, judgement and scrutiny. These however are not times to be afraid of if we ourselves are honestly living the commitments we accepted on the day of our ordination. Instead, these are times for heroic deeds to be done with great love if we continue to act out of a conviction that we are not alone, that we are deeply loved and that we are called to love in return.

Brothers, thank you for your witness of love and truth. Thank you for having listened to His call and thank you most of all for responding in generosity to His invitation to be instruments of grace and healing for so many in our world.

May Our Lady, mother of all priests intercede for us all and may the prayer of Saint Jean-Marie Vianney, the Curé d'Ars help us to persevere in our commitment to generous service.

Peace.