When I was a girl, we knew our priests.\u00a0 They were so much more than\u201d that guy up at the altar.\u201d\u00a0 They were our family friends who came for dinner, debated politics, discussed literature, told jokes, laughed, lived<\/i>.\u00a0 We were members of small military parishes and the small congregations meant that our priests were well known to us all.<\/p>\n
Fr L was the first priest I can readily remember.\u00a0 He was a constant fixture in our young lives and a beloved uncle figure.\u00a0 His was the trusted voice of my first Confession.\u00a0 The church was under construction and we were moving before my class received the sacraments, so he heard my Confession in my brother\u2019s empty room amidst the packing boxes.\u00a0 My first Communion was in our living room where he said Mass for us and our Protestant neighbors.<\/p>\n
Fr P spent every Christmas for 4 years with our family.\u00a0 Santa Claus always came while we were at Midnight Mass, so we opened presents in the middle of the night, had breakfast around 2 and then went to bed.\u00a0 Fr P would spend that whole late night with us.\u00a0 He watched as we opened presents, ate the giant cinnamon rolls that were a family tradition, helped my little brother climb onto his first bike, and eventually had a stocking of his own by the fireplace.<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t remember a time in my childhood where priests were not frequent lunch or dinner guests, where we didn\u2019t know them on a personal level, or where they were not a joy in our lives. It is telling that both of my brothers mentioned the priesthood as possible vocations when they were younger.\u00a0 While neither actually when down that path, it says something that both considered it to be a viable option.<\/p>\n
Where is this today?\u00a0 The Catholic boys of my sons\u2019 generation are coming of age in parishes which are so large as to make a relationship with the priest extremely unlikely.\u00a0 It is a part of the vicious cycle of a lack of vocations and the wariness on the part of priests brought about by the sex abuse crisis.\u00a0\u00a0 When my sons talk about what they want to be when they grow up, they will sometimes mention \u201cpriest\u201d (except for the one who always <\/i>does), but when they play there is a confusion as to what a priest actually does<\/i> when he\u2019s done saying Mass.<\/p>\n
We are fortunate in that we get to see our priest socially from time to time, but not often. My sons know that he is a fun guy, but they never get the opportunity to just talk to him.\u00a0 They never have the chance to ask \u201cWhat do you do when you aren\u2019t doing this?\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s a shame.\u00a0 How many potential vocations are lost through lack of contact?\u00a0 I wonder\u2026.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not the fault of our priests. They are overwhelmed with the volume of work and responsibilities which rest upon their shoulders.\u00a0 They don\u2019t have the time and neither did most priests when I was young.\u00a0 We were fortunate in our little parish that we had a priest with time on his hands.\u00a0 I wish that\u00a0 I knew where to find that for my children and especially my sons.<\/p>\n
I want the priesthood to be a viable option for them.\u00a0 I want them, when they think of it, to be able to picture themselves living that life\u2026because they know what it looks like.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When I was a girl, we knew our priests.\u00a0 They were so much more than\u201d that guy up at the altar.\u201d\u00a0 They were our family friends who came for dinner, debated politics, discussed literature, told jokes, laughed, lived.\u00a0 We were members of small military parishes and the small congregations meant that our priests were well […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1979,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n