| To Walk in the Footsteps of
Jesus
Pastoral Letter to the Clergy, Religious and Laity of the
Church of Pittsburgh
Grace and peace to all of you in Christ.
God calls each of us. In one way or another the call comes.
It is God who invites us to respond generously and so to find
true joy in opening our hearts to God’s grace. “My
grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect
in weakness” (2 Cor. 12.9).
My purpose in writing to you is to set before us vocations
to the priesthood-- the call from God that must not go unheard
or unheeded. I write out of my own conviction and in solidarity
with those who have heard and answered God’s call, the
good and gifted priests of our diocese, to express our joy
in God’s service and our welcome to others to join us
in the priesthood of Christ.
What a pleasure it is for us as a local Church to witness
the growth of a vocational seed through the work of formation
and the special unfolding of grace at ordination. Throughout
the years, the Church of Pittsburgh has been richly blessed
with vocations to the priesthood and religious life. As shepherd
of this Church, I am grateful to God for these blessings and
the many who have helped nurture these vocations. Of special
importance, I want to acknowledge the work of dedicated parents
who have taken that kernel of faith their child received at
baptism and nurtured it into a Christian vocation that walks
in the footsteps of Jesus.
In this reflection I intend to include in brief elements
that are the context for the call to priesthood. Even though
we will look at a number of other vocations, it is precisely
the call to ministry as an ordained priest that is the focus
of this letter.
Universal Call to Holiness
In the marvel of God’s plan each of us is called to
walk with Jesus on the journey that will bring us to the knowledge
of God in this life and to eternal joy with God in the life
to come. The real challenge of living a Christian life begins
when we hear the quiet voice of the Lord calling to us: “Friend,
come closer” (Lk. 14.10). The call from God can come
to us in prayer, through the words of sacred scripture. It
can reach us in all manners of ways – through literature,
through human love, through happiness or suffering or both,
through the unconscious witness of some holy friend, through
a sudden outpouring of compassion for another.
None of us make our way through life alone. God is with us,
beckoning us, prompting us, urging us in the Holy Spirit to
respond to Jesus’ gracious invitation to become his
adopted brother or sister so that with our yes of faith he
can so change our lives that we are worthy to be presented
to the Father as part of his family.
Every Christian has a vocation. Each of us is called by God
to some particular way of carrying out the one great service
or ministry of love. All believers are called by the Lord
to “abide in his love” (Jn. 15.10). This vocation
is usually made known through the actual circumstances in
which one finds oneself. But the call that all of us share
is the call to holiness.
Our initial response to God’s call is faith. The process
is timeless. God speaks to us. We reply. Faith is always free
and personal. No one is forced to believe. Faith flows from
the inner conviction that we have heard the word of God and
that God can neither deceive nor be deceived. What God reveals
to us is the truth – a truth about God and the truth
about ourselves – a truth on which we can base our lives
and direct our actions.
When we respond "Amen" to God's word, to God's
revelation, to God speaking to us, we are freely choosing
God with minds illumined and hearts inflamed by God's grace.
This is what we mean by the “leap of faith.”
The inner light that opens our minds to accept God's word,
solely and simply because it is God who speaks, is itself
a grace from God. Once we know that it is God who speaks,
we are prompted to accept his revelation as the truth. As
we read in the first letter of John: "If we receive the
testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater" (1
Jn. 5.9).
We cannot fully grasp the transcendent mystery of God for
he is eternal, perfect and infinite. We are temporal, flawed,
and finite. God, before whom we stand in awe and with an awareness
of our own smallness, is holy. Yet in his greatness he has
willed to be "God with us." In the confident assurance
that we do not walk alone and make our way aimlessly through
a meaningless reality, we can face each day with that peace
of mind and that assurance of soul that belongs only to a
person of faith. We can continually say, "Amen –
I believe" in the face of difficulties, trials, disappointments,
inconveniences, tragedies, and even death.
The call of God brings us to the sacrament of faith –
baptism. Here we become what Saint Paul in the Second Letter
to the Corinthians describes as a whole new reality: “If
anyone is in Christ he is a new creation” (2 Cor. 5.17).
When the waters of baptism are poured over the person being
initiated into the Church, a whole old order begins to pass
away and a new creation comes to be. The faith of the Church
clearly expressed in the New Testament is that Christ came
to establish a kingdom of the Spirit. Through his death and
resurrection, Christ won for God a new people, a holy people,
a people set apart – marked with God's Spirit. We who
are members of the Church are that new people and we are the
beginning of a whole new creation.
The creative work of God and our re-creation in the Spirit
is celebrated and brought about in the waters of baptism.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that "This
sacrament is also called ‘the washing of regeneration
and renewal by the Spirit,’ for it signifies and actually
brings about the birth of water and the Spirit without which
no one ‘can enter the kingdom of God’” (1215).
In the waters of baptism, sin – personal and original
– is washed away so that we can truly say that we have
died with Christ and were buried with him. At the same time
the water signifies an outpouring of the Holy Spirit –
God’s life-giving spirit, that brings us to a new and
elevated level of life that allows us to say we have also
risen with Christ. The new life implanted in our hearts through
the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in baptism is the life of
God – a divine seed planted within us that needs to
be nurtured, nourished, cultivated so that it can grow and
flower into life everlasting.
It is Christ who marks out his own. In the sacrament of baptism,
the Church claims the one to be baptized for Christ marking
the baptized with a seal that indicates our permanent vocation,
the call by Jesus Christ – a call to everlasting life.
Our vocation to follow Christ differentiates us from the
world. To some extent we will always find ourselves in opposition
to the “world.” Today this is particularly true
when every believer is challenged to confront our culture
and our times. In an ever increasingly secular and materialistic
age those who live by the Spirit are challenged to set an
example that will bear testimony to the goodness of Christ
and his way of life in an age that seems so uncomfortable
with the things of the Spirit.
Each Person Has a Vocation
The call to follow Christ as a Christian in this age as
in every age highlights personal commitment. The concept of
life-long commitment is almost nonexistent in our culture.
Yet it is precisely to a self-giving, permanent, nurturing
and life-giving commitment that Christ calls us and that we
in turn are called to offer. Heroic is not too dramatic a
word to use when we speak about the quality necessary to accept
and to live a permanent commitment.
The call from God comes in a variety of forms. Many are called
to marriage and to family life, some are called to a single
life dedicated to a particular purpose. Married life has always
been seen as a sign of Christ’s own communion with his
Church. One of the most beautiful images used by Saint Paul
to portray the nature of the Church and its relationship to
Christ is that of a bride whom Christ deeply loves. So much
does he love the Church that he “gave himself up for
her” (Eph. 5.25). Through his gifts, sacraments and
saving words, he cares for her and makes her holy, “having
cleansed her by the washing of the water with the word”
(Eph. 5.26) his love makes her a resplendent bride, “The
Church… in splendor without spot or wrinkle or such
thing… holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5.27).
To show his regard for marriage he raised it to the level
of a sacrament. The sacramental sign is expressed in a pledge
of enduring commitment. The love of husband and wife for each
other signifies God’s eternal love for his people and
the love that binds together Christ and his Church. We need
regularly to pray for all who are joined together in the sacrament
of marriage just as husbands and wives need to pray for each
other and parents and children need to include one another
in their prayers.
God calls some to the single life so that they are able to
devote themselves and their energies to a particular task
or to the caring of family members – sometimes aging
parents. Both the Church and society benefits from teachers,
nurses, professionals and non-professionals who with a single-mindedness
carry out their work.
Still others are called to manifest in religious life the
outpouring of God’s gifts on the Church. Our Holy Father,
Pope John Paul II, in the post-synodal apostolic exhortation
Vita Consecrata, The Consecrated Life, speaks of the religious
life as a call from God “to show that the Incarnate
Son of God is the eschatological goal towards which all things
tend, the splendor before which every other light pales, and
the infinite beauty which alone can fully satisfy the human
heart” (16).
The same document reminds us that in the consecrated life
“it is not only a matter of following Christ with one’s
whole heart, of loving him ‘more than father or mother,
more than son or daughter’ (cf. Matt. 10.37) –
for this is required of every disciple – but of living
and expressing this by conforming one’s whole existence
to Christ in an all-encompassing commitment which foreshadows
the eschatological perfection, to the extent that this is
possible in time and in accordance with the different charisms”
(16).
In the history of the Church the call to live and manifest
the evangelical counsels has been articulated in a wide range
of responses expressed in monastic life, the order of virgins,
institutes completely devoted to contemplation, apostolic
religious life, secular institutes, and societies of apostolic
life. For examples we can turn to Saint Anthony, the founder
of monastic life, and his commitment to the pursuit of perfect
communion with the Lord. Both Saint Benedict and his sister
Saint Scholastica offer us examples of religious life lived
according to a rule of holiness. Two equally engaging founders
of religious communities are Saint Francis and Saint Clare
with their total self-giving to God and their dedication to
the poor. Saint Dominic offers us another example of religious
commitment. In our own land we have the extraordinary examples
of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton and Saint John Neumann. All of
these are examples of a response to God’s call.
Still others are called to walk more closely in the footsteps
of Christ by being identified with him as head of his body
– his family – the Church. This brings us to the
priesthood. The New Testament contains examples of Jesus calling
his apostles so that they could be closely united with him
in his work on behalf of the whole body of his followers.
“Come follow me.” “They left all and followed
Jesus” (cf. Mt. 4.20). Out of the whole body of the
faithful some are called, yet today, to accept this wondrous
invitation to work in the name of and in the person of Christ
on behalf of all of Jesus’ people.
Priesthood, A Unique Call
The sacrament of orders allows one to participate in Christ's
mission in a unique way. It makes the recipient an authentic,
authoritative and special representative of Christ the head
of the Church. Because one is called to minister in the person
of Christ to the whole body, the Catechism of the Catholic
Church identifies holy orders as a sacrament of service on
behalf of the unity of the Church.
Saint Paul points out that the Holy Spirit is the source
of the division of labor in the Church and that the offices
are quite distinct (cf. 1 Cor. 12.4-11; Rom. 12.4-8). The
division of work follows a design set by God. Some are called
to serve as priests, others to serve in different roles –
but all are called to build up the Church of Christ (cf. 1.
Cor. 12.27-31).
Christ is the true, invisible head of his body which is the
Church. Yet just as the body of Christ is made visible and
manifest in all of the members throughout the world, so too
is it manifest in the presence of Christ the head of the Church
specifically in the priesthood which carries on the ministry
of Christ as head of his body the Church.
The Second Vatican Council's Document on the Life and Ministry
of Priests tells us that the priestly office "is conferred
by that special sacrament, through it priests, by the anointing
of the Holy Spirit, are signed with a special character and
are conformed to Christ the Priest in such a way that they
can act in the person of Christ the Head" (PO 2).
In explaining how the priest can function as Christ, the
Church speaks of the priesthood as an identification with
Christ on the most fundamental level. In their reception of
holy orders, priests are "consecrated to God in a new
way." Christ, at the Last Supper, instituted the ministerial
priesthood as a distinct sacrament, thus the priesthood of
the ordained is different from the priesthood of the baptized.
Priests become "living instruments of Christ the eternal
priest," so that they may be able to "accomplish
His wonderful work of reuniting the whole society of men with
heavenly power" (PO 12).
In preparing this letter I was drawn to the 1971 synod of
bishops’ statement on the ministerial priesthood and
to the more recent apostolic exhortation of our Holy Father,
Pope John Paul II, Pastores Dabo Vobis. It was shortly after
my ordination as a priest that the 1971 statement provided
ample material for reflection on the priesthood at a time
when there seemed to be a considerable amount of confusion
among a number of priests concerning the nature and purpose
of priesthood. It was shortly after my ordination as a bishop
that I had an opportunity to reflect on Pastores Dabo Vobis
as the Church’s teaching on the nature and purpose of
her priesthood.
In writing this letter I cannot help but reflect on how constant
and clear the teaching of the Church has been decade after
decade even in the face of varied and contradictory theories
annunciated by a variety of theologians, writers and teachers.
As we reflect on the need for vocations to the priesthood
and our challenge to help people understand the importance
and purpose of priesthood, we do well to review the teaching
of the Church clearly enunciated in her many magisterial statements.
These documents speak of the priest as “configured to
Christ.” In this sense the priesthood is a permanent
part of the priest’s being. “Priestly character”
is in some way introduced into the life and being of the priest.
Its purpose is to express the fact that “Christ associated
the Church with himself in an irrevocable way for the salvation
of the world.”
Priestly character then is not merely a designation of office
“imprinted on the soul” as if it were a badge
or insignia of rank. Rather it is a new reality expressing
the redemptive power of Christ breaking into this world. As
such it is both a sign and an effective means of the Lord’s
presence.
Because of sacred ordination the priest stands in the midst
of the Church as its leader – its head. He also functions
in the name of the whole Church specifically when presenting
to God the prayers of the Church and, above all, when offering
the Eucharistic sacrifice.The work of the priest is a continuation
of the unique work of Christ which is preeminently achieved
in his death and resurrection which won our redemption. Hence
the priesthood is intimately tied to the Eucharist which continues
to make present the life-giving effects of the great Passover.
On the same first Holy Thursday on which he instituted the
sacrament of the Eucharist, Christ conferred priesthood on
the apostles: "Do this in remembrance of me" (Lk.
22.27).
In the Church, and on behalf of the Church, priests are a
sacramental representation of Jesus Christ, the head and shepherd,
authoritatively proclaiming his word, repeating his acts of
forgiveness and his offer of salvation, particularly in baptism,
penance and the Eucharist. The priest, as the presence of
Christ in his Church, is to show his loving concern to the
point of a total gift of self for the flock. Priests in their
sacramental ministry and in their teaching gather the flock
into one and lead it to the Father in Christ through the working
of the Holy Spirit. In a word, priests exist and act in order
to proclaim the gospel to the world and to build up the Church
in the name and person of Christ the head and shepherd.
The Whole Church Is Involved
My purpose in writing this letter is not only to review
our faith conviction in God’s call and specifically
the call to priesthood, but also to invite this entire local
Church to help young and not-so-young men respond to God’s
call to set aside everything else and to give their lives
to Jesus as a priest for his people. Jesus once remarked that
the harvest is great and the laborers few (Lk. 10.2).
The same situation exists today. In this diocese of nearly
800,000 Catholics, the harvest is indeed great. We have witnessed
the inspiring response of the faithful of this Church to the
call to continuing spiritual renewal, particularly in this
period of preparation for the Great Jubilee. Another sign
of the spiritual renewal is the exceedingly large number of
people received into the Church through the Rite of Christian
Initiation of Adults. For the last several years we have had
over 1,000 young men and young women come forward at the Rite
of Election to announce their intention to receive the sacraments
of initiation at the Easter Vigil. With so much positive spiritual
ferment it must also be true then that God is calling a sufficient
number of men to serve it spiritually and pastorally as priests.
Our task is to help identify these men whom God is calling,
encourage them to be open to the call and support them in
their discernment and eventual preparation to accept and to
live out the call.
The call to priesthood is a quiet whisper heard first in
the heart. It is true that some like Saint Paul receive an
exceptionally clear invitation. We recall how on the road
to Damascus he was knocked from his horse and personally challenged
by the voice of the Lord Jesus. For most of us the call comes
in a considerably less emphatic manner. Often it is heard
in the voice of another believer who awakens our awareness
of God’s call by a word of encouragement or recognition.
In whatever form the call comes it is God speaking to us.
Because the first whisperings of the call and the movement
of the Spirit take place within the family and in the parish,
every one of us should feel free to identify those around
us whom we think have the qualities of a good priest, engage
that person in conversation and encourage them to think seriously
about the possibility of priesthood as their response to God.
In identifying a potential priest, what are some of the qualities
that we would expect to find? The answer to that question
is found in the response to the question what sort of priests
do we need? Obviously a priest must be a person of character
with the human abilities to function as a pastor of souls.
He must exhibit a readiness to help others and a zeal for
Christ and his Church. Saint Paul reminds us that we have
received no cowardly Spirit but one moved by faith and love
of God capable of hearing and responding to God’s will
(cf. 2 Tim. 1.6-7).
Our Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, speaks of these qualities
in Pastores Dabo Vobis. Here he calls them “virtues
such as faithfulness, integrity, consistency, wisdom, a welcoming
spirit, friendliness, goodness of heart, decisive firmness
in essentials, freedom from overly subjective viewpoints,
personal disinterestness, patience, an enthusiasm for daily
tasks, confidence in the value of the hidden workings of grace
as manifested in the simple and the poor”(26). What
a striking job description for priesthood!
If a member of your family, a friend, a member of your parish,
senses a call from God to priesthood, you will hear about
it far sooner than will I. In fact I will probably be the
last one to know. It is up to every individual, priest, religious,
parent, friend, family member, parishioner – in fact
every member of this Church – to help foster a vocation
to the priesthood.
How can you be involved? I believe there are a number of
ways. Each of us can identify out of the people we know a
young man whom we believe has the qualities of a good priest
and whom we also believe would make a good priest. What we
need to do is have the generosity of spirit to speak to that
young man about our perception of his potential role in the
Church. Speaking from the heart is probably the most candid
approach. To offer our clear counsel and our conscientious
observations. Identification of potential priests is not the
work of a priest or the bishop or a vocation director or a
religious. It is the work of the whole ecclesial community.
In addition to identification there is also encouragement,
the moral and spiritual support, that helps that quiet, still
voice of Jesus in the heart of a young person grow loud enough
to be heard. Our culture is characterized as aggressively
secular, to such an extent that the environment can be actually
hostile to a commitment to priestly life and ministry. At
times our society seems almost entirely focused on the material
world.
Concomitant with this is the disintegration of the community
and social structures that once supported religious faith,
encouraged family life and nurtured vocations. In fact the
heavy emphasis on the individual has greatly eroded the concept
of permanent commitment and celibacy as a rich and meaningful
life style
We live in a world of great noise that can drown out the
urgings of the Holy Spirit. We must create the quiet time
for persons to discern with a member of the parish the very
signs that are so evident to everyone else.
It is our responsibility also to create an atmosphere of
vocation and readiness to hear the call. Some of the elements
of that atmosphere are a respect for the priesthood, readiness
to see the many ways it is exercised in the Church and its
essential importance for the life of the Church. If all one
hears is criticism and rejection of priests in one’s
experience or if parents do not esteem this vocation, few
will be ready to embrace it. To build an atmosphere of vocations
everyone in the parish can contribute, parents, religious,
teachers, and certainly the priests themselves.
Prayer is also an important part of the process. Parishes
and families should regularly engage in prayer for vocations
in such a way that the importance of responding to God’s
call is clearly accepted and lived.
A Parish Council
How do we best foster a climate of discernment, identification
and encouragement of priestly vocations? It will not happen
on its own. There must be some systematic way in which all
of us together recognize our obligation and then work to carry
it out.
I am suggesting that every parish establish a vocation council.
It should be made up of members of the parish who will take
on the task of praying for vocations, identifying people within
the parish who appear to have the qualities that mark a vocation,
and explicitly encouraging these men to listen for God’s
call to priesthood. The members of the parish vocation council
should make their mission the work of helping a potential
candidate for priesthood pursue the hints of God’s call.
Those identified as possible vocations should be encouraged
to speak either to the parish priest, to the vocation director,
to someone at Saint Paul Seminary or to me about the possibility
of God’s call to them to be a priest. In order that
the parish vocation council can become a real and vital part
of the parish I invite each parish council to provide an opportunity
sometime in the course of each year for the vocation council
to report on its activities and to share with the pastor and
parish council the success of its past effort and its plans
for the future. The pastor can also find occasion in the bulletin
to relate to the parishioners the work of the vocation council
and some of its activities.
On Sunday, April 25, 1999, at Saint Paul Cathedral we will
have a diocesan celebration of World Day of Prayer for Vocations.
My hope is that many of our priests, religious and faithful
will join me in asking God to bless this Church with many
and fruitful vocations. In a particular way I extend this
invitation to all of the members of the vocation councils
diocesanwide as a way for you to bear public witness to this
important activity of our diocesan Church.
A Personal Invitation
These words I address directly to any young man in this
Church who feels some attraction to Jesus in his service of
his people, to the priesthood as a way of life, to walk in
the footsteps of our Lord. I would be happy to hear from you
and delighted to talk with you. I am easy to reach and the
invitation is an open one.
As Bishop of this local Church, I personally invite you to
visit Saint Paul Seminary by registering to attend the regularly
scheduled open houses. Saint Paul Seminary is a house of formation
for men on the undergraduate college or postgraduate pre-theology
level who are discerning a vocation. In addition, Saint Paul
Seminary houses the Office for Vocations which conducts an
array of vocation programs throughout the year. These programs
are designed for those who are considering a vocation. I invite
you to participate in these programs.
The Seminary Affiliate Program is geared toward men ages
eighteen to forty who are discerning a vocation. Affiliates
visit the seminary once a month to experience a taste of the
spiritual, academic, communal and pastoral components of priestly
formation. The Affiliate Program concludes each year with
a discernment weekend at Saint Paul Seminary.
The High School Contact Program for high school students
takes place four times a year at Saint Paul Seminary. These
gathering begin with Sunday liturgy, continue with brunch
and conclude with a presentation by the seminary faculty.
The Saint Paul Seminary Scouting Outreach program is offered
for scouts who are required to visit a seminary to achieve
the “Ad Altare Dei” award or the “Parvuli
Dei” award. This program takes place on five Saturday
mornings throughout the year.
Families remain at the very heart of the Church and therefore
vocations. Just as it is the primary obligation of parents
to instruct their children in the faith, so it is as well
to foster their child’s openness to God’s plan
for them and to help them hear the call perhaps even to religious
life or priesthood. Mothers and fathers continue to be an
essential witness to the faith in each family and the first
and primary encouragement to respond to the call from God
to serve as a priest.
Parents need to be strong in the faith to recognize and encourage
a call to priesthood. This is all the more important today
when that call is not nurtured from many other sources. Praying
together within the family and even simply telling others
you are praying for their readiness to hear God’s call
can be an effective way to foster God’s grace and at
the same time build up the very bonds of the family itself.
The use of the family vocation prayer at meals is one practical
way daily to invoke God’s grace on the effort to foster
vocations. This prayer is included in this pastoral letter
and is available in larger quantities from your pastor or
the diocesan vocation office.
Each parish through its vocation council can encourage prayer
for vocations. Two particularly effective ways are the inclusion
of petitions for vocations in the prayers for the faithful
and the establishment of a holy hour of adoration to which
members of the parish are invited. Youth groups and groups
of young adults could also participate in the hour of adoration
as a way of nurturing their own prayer life while at the same
time focusing on the greater needs of the Church.
Religious instruction both in school and in religious education
programs should include a presentation on the nature of God’s
call, the call to priesthood and our readiness to respond.
In this setting perhaps a priest or a seminarian could be
invited to share something of his own experience in hearing
and responding to the call. A recently prepared vocation video
entitled “Is God Calling Me?” is available for
use in a variety of parish settings including homes and religious
education classrooms.
Parishes and campus ministry programs in a particular way
should address the presence of college age men. It is in this
age group that today God’s call seems to be finding
some consistent response.
Much can be done on the parish level in terms of identifying
and encouraging a response or even an initial discernment.
The next step is to engage the vocation office and seminary
faculty in a way that will allow some ongoing contact to foster
the discernment process.
We have been blessed with a number of men, although not nearly
enough, who have responded to God’s call and who are
now in theological preparation for ordination. Their academic,
pastoral, spiritual and personal formation requisite for ordination
takes place first in the college years at Saint Paul Seminary
and then in their years of graduate study of theological preparation
for the priesthood at either the North American College in
Rome or Saint Vincent Seminary in Latrobe – both excellent
seminaries that have served our diocese for more than a century.
All of us need to keep these future priests in our prayers.
I invite my brother priests, deacons, religious men and women
and the faithful lay women and lay men of this Church to become
personally and actively involved in the effort to identify
men with the apparent qualities for priesthood, encourage
them to discern the will of God in their lives and engage
the vocation office in the process of coming to know these
potential vocations.
Let us commit ourselves to fervent prayer that the call of
Christ the Priest, to walk in his footsteps, will echo in
the hearts of the next generation and that it will be nurtured,
sustained, so as to grow and flourish.
May God grant all of us the grace to follow his call and
the joy of inviting others to respond to that call.
Faithfully in Christ,
Donald W. Wuerl
Bishop of Pittsburgh
September 30, 1998
Saint Jerome
Priest and Doctor
FAMILY VOCATION PRAYER AT MEALS
Good and gentle Shepherd,
you tend the flock of the Church
with your loving and generous heart.
You feed the flock with your word and sacrament.
You know the flock and call each member by name.
Bless this little flock, our family,
gathered around this table.
Lead us through the everyday changes
and challenges of life.
Help us to hear the sound of your voice
calling us to serve the world
according to your Father’s will.
Send your Spirit so that more men will respond to your call
to give their lives as priests for the Church.
We ask this through Christ, our Lord.
Amen.
(with ecclesiastical approbation)
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