A Blue-Collar Worker Has a Right to Define the Priesthood

My Dear Brothers in the Catholic Priesthood:

Mark 6:7-13, the Gospel reading for today’s Mass in the Roman rite, shows Christ seeing to the beginning and foundations of apostolic ministry:

+ earthly poverty,

+ invincible authority against evil,

+ the preaching of repentance,

+ the healing of those who suffer.

Today’s bishops and priests are white-collar workers.

But Christ was a blue-collar worker, a craftsman, a carpenter.

He chose as leader among his apostles Peter, a blue collar worker, a fisherman.

Some of the other apostles were also fishermen.

And in his Eucharist, Christ God, the Lord and High Priest of the Universe, is less than the humblest of workers: he is an animal we slaughter that we may eat and live.

Remember all this as you dare to follow him and dare to act in his name among his people.

Turn. Love. Repeat.