Ode to the good priests
This ode to the good priests is being prompted by the recent release of the list of priests that were involved with tragic scandals and who have substantial allegations of sexual abuse of minors and the victims of those acts in our Diocese. This had hit our catholic Church family throughout USA. This has had serious psychological effects on the victims. It is a betrayal of trust, and also God’s love for the priests themselves. The priest either moves souls to holiness or to ruin. A priest, either in Paradise or in Hell, never goes alone: with him always go a great number of souls, who are either saved by his holy ministry and good example, or are lost through his negligence in the fulfillment of his duties and by his bad example. What incalculable ruin does the priest not bring who profanes his vocation by unworthy conduct or worse, who tramples on it, renouncing his consecrated status as one chosen by the Lord (CF John 15: 16) We know that St. Francis of Assisi was unwilling to become a priest because he considered himself unworthy of such a high vocation. He honored priests with a special devotion, considering them his “lords,” because in them he saw only “the Son of God.”
Nevertheless, the heart of the gospel is the message of repentance and forgiveness. We are all called to repentance and forgiveness...especially during this season ofAdvent. Recalling the prayer: “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” A life of daily repentance is very necessary for a spiritual health and mental well being. As a physician if you have an unforgiving heart it causes a lot of health problems.( Research has shown this). Let us, then, also offer prayers for priests, who stand more firmly and securely, for those who are straying and for those who are already advanced in perfection. Unfortunately, people tend much too readily to criticize the defects of priests, while it is rather rare that someone will pray for them.
We should not lose sight of many good ones among them. A Priest is “the man of God” (2 Tim. 3: 17). It is God alone who chooses him and calls him from among men for a special task. “No man takes the honor to himself; he takes it who is called by God, as Aaron was” (Heb. 5:4). God sets him apart from everyone else “to preach the Gospel of God” (Rom. I: 1). God signs him with a sacred character that will endure forever, making him “a priest forever” (Heb. 5:6) and bestowing on him the supernatural powers of the ministerial priesthood so that he is consecrated exclusively for the things of God. The priest,
