Celebrating the Christian Priesthood

Dear friends,

Today "A day of prayer for our seminary, we are celebrating something special, more than the day dedicated to prayer and offering for our seminarians in Mundelein, more than celebrating the first steps of Derek, our Chinese seminarian, towards the priesthood and the 39th anniversary of a priest, we are celebrating the Mystery of the Catholic priesthood.

The Sacrament of the Holy Order imprints something new and undeletable in the heart of a person: "character" as it is called. Catechism reminds us that certain meetings with Christ in the Sacraments are for ever: there are three: Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Order.

I personally feel that the deepest part of me has been branded with fire, with a wound that bleeds and can not be healed, with a deep nostalgia for the world of God and for God himself.

With the passing of time it becomes a wound that will heal only after I die. Thanks God!

As a priest a try to run after, and to catch, the one who caught me, ensnared me in the net of his love which is more demanding, more engaging, more satisfying than the love of any family here on earth. "Show me you face! "Who are you who wounded me?" " Why this would can not be healed?"

The dignity of the priesthood has always, for some reason I find hard to explain, worried me.

I mean as to why God has called me, putting the burden of shepherding his people on my shoulders.
I am a priest for you and this frightens me in case I don't discharge my duty as a "good shepherd" should.

With you I am a Christian, and this consoles me because all of us are carried on the shoulders of our common Good Shepherd: Jesus.

While carrying out the duties of my office, I find rest in the service of you all.

If it delights me that I have been redeemed with you as a Christian, than the fact that I have been placed over you as your Pastor, should impel me all the more to become your servant, lest I forget the great love that redeemed us.

As a priest I ought to love the One who loved us first in a complete service to his flock. "Do you love me?" asked Jesus, "feed my flock"

The return I make for this gratuitous love and the mercy shown me, is that I should serve and "feed" His sheep, that is, the Parish of St. Therese that God has put in my responsibility.

I would appeal to you to make our ministry a fruitful one through listening to the voice of the Good Shepherd, speaking in your heart, while I am speaking to your ears. Welcome his promptings and help me by your prayers so that may joy in serving you might be complete.

The main question remains: Who is a priest? Why so much fuss about this person?

I believe that the priest is both pastor and parishioner, both preacher and listener. Maintaining the healthy tension of this dialectic is challenging.

It is made easier, however, by the priest's experience of failure and weakness, by his human limitations, by the suffering that touches everyone's life. Perhaps that is why depth of soul and extraordinary compassion are found in those priests who have borne the heat of the day like those who spent so much of their life time in this ministry.

These priest are ordinarily in their middle years or beyond (like myself). Decades of priestly service have tempered their spirit; they have come to treat both praise and criticism with a certain indifference.

At home with themselves, they have come to terms with their own demons and have not lost heart or their nerve. Grounded in the mystery of grace, they are both men of hope and men without illusions. They have sustained the day and in doing so discovered their truth, that core of their being, where the mystery of grace in the midst of the faithful, confirms in wordless and image-less silence their call to priestly service. This is the what I was talking about in my sermons in the past, this what I mean when I say that the heart of a priest has "been branded with fire for life that we call character" I wish to express my gratitude to all of you who in one or another or simply by praying made me my priesthood fruitful and the day memorable.

The fact that we have somebody like Derek who begins his journey and somebody who is approaching the end is a very happy moment since I can pass the baton, the torch of the faith. The enthusiasm of the beginning meets the wisdom of the end, both praising the only High