Articles on Vocation and the Priesthood
A Priest's Story - 9
Sunday and the folks are arriving for the 09.30 Mass. Bob asks for a notice for Amnesty International. Dora asks for an extra Coffee Morning for her 60th Wedding Anniversary. I have to apologise to the Church Cleaners for a parcel left in church by the Housekeeper’s dog. Then I explain to Gerry and Chris that when I visited their mother-in-law in Ward 2, she prayed for me out of her terminal cancer. And so the welcome to Sunday Mass goes on, the people welcoming the priest and the priest welcoming his friends. We are all in this thing together.
Staff-member of the Junior Seminary, Catechetical Director, Parish Priest in North Shields, St. Cuthbert’s, in charge at St. Mary’s, Sunderland and now evangelizing Haydon Bridge and Haltwhistle we are still all in this thing together. We are telling our world about Jesus. There is the everyday sharing, visiting, shopping, on the street, walking the hills.
There are the Baptisms, Marriages and Funerals. It is all the same. We tell the story of Jesus. The difference is that this story is true. In fact Jesus is the truth, the way and the life.
We are gripped by the Lord Jesus. And all we want to do is to share this amazing relationship we have with the Lord. We want to share with people everywhere, just as they are, God-smacked, gospel-greedy or just not interested.
But this is my priesthood and I love it.