YEAR FOR PRIESTS | The Anchor

Father Edward L. Healey Jr.: Priestly ministry, una persona a la vez

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 10:48:15 -0400

Editor’s note: As a fitting conclusion to The Anchor’s Vocational Reflection series, we offer this submission by Father Edward L. Healey Jr. as a reminder for diocesan faithful to continue to pray for priests and future vocations.

Father Healey also touches upon a subject that is becoming an increasingly important factor in priestly ministry in this country — that of the Hispanic Apostolate.

During March I was asked to say Mass for the Spanish Apostolate of Cape Cod that worships at St. Francis Xavier Church in Hyannis. I was also invited to give a reflection on my priesthood to the Couples’ Club of Holy Name of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish in New Bedford where I had served my deacon year 23 years ago.

As I celebrated the Spanish Mass and prepared to deliver my remarks about my experiences as a priest, both occasions converged to bring into focus a different insight about my experience of the priesthood that I realized I could sum up by saying that things just haven’t turned out as planned.

Even a bit more than two decades later it is easy to go back in my mind to my experience at the then-Holy Name Parish, New Bedford in the months and days before my ordination as a priest. As I recalled my expectations about the priesthood back then, I knew that I would probably serve as a parochial vicar and I imagined that I might one day be a pastor. What I could not have imagined then is all of the unexpected and deeply enriching experiences that have come with the priesthood. They are too numerous to mention here, but I will cite the Hispanic Apostolate on Cape Cod as one major example.

I had never studied Spanish until my third year in theology when I took it as an elective at the urging of Bishop Daniel A. Cronin, who wanted all the seminarians of our diocese to learn either Portuguese or Spanish. Unfortunately, the teacher had a condition called narcolepsy and kept falling asleep during class; needless to say I didn’t learn very much.

While in my first priestly assignment a family approached me with the news that a son and brother was seriously ill and returning to the Cape to live with them. Their greatest concern was that he was not expected to live more than another year or two and he was alienated from the Church. They were asking me to do the nearly impossible, which was to convince this middle-aged man to come back to the practice of the faith after having been away from it for most of his adult life. I told them I couldn’t promise anything but, if I ever got the opportunity to speak with him, I would do whatever I could.

Much to my surprise, I did bump into this gentleman several months later and, after he introduced himself, I tried to keep him engaged in conversation. I was very aware that this might be my first, last and only opportunity to do whatever I could to win him back. When I inquired as to his professional background, he mentioned that in addition to his regular work he did Spanish translations.

I then told him that I could really use a tutor to improve my Spanish and so could my friend Father Tom Mara. I asked him if he’d be interested in the job. I must confess that I hadn’t really been planning to study Spanish any further, but I was ready to do so if that’s what it might take to have the time to work on his return to the Church. Father Mara, a retired priest from the Diocese of Richmond, was a bit surprised that I was involving him in my plan, but was prepared to go along with it in hopes of winning a soul back to the faith.

Soon enough we were meeting every other Monday in the kitchen of Father Mara’s home — practicing enough vocabulary and pronunciation to make it look like we were really serious about the language, but discussing more theology and spirituality than Spanish. Within a few months the gentleman was back to Mass and the sacraments and Father Mara and I felt that our mission had been accomplished.

Yet — much to my surprise — I was soon to learn that I really did need to improve my meager Spanish. The local funeral home called the parish during this time and asked if it would be possible to provide a service in Spanish for an Hispanic man who had died tragically. With the promise of assistance from my tutor, I was able to provide the funeral service — much to the funeral director’s amazement and the family’s comfort. When I saw so many Hispanic people in attendance at the funeral I assumed that they were all from Boston, but this notion was quickly corrected when one among them who spoke English told me they were all from Cape Cod.

I asked if they went to Mass and was told that they tried now and then but felt uncomfortable in the English-speaking parishes. Instead they were gathering in homes to pray together on a regular basis. I was invited to join them. Although I was more than a bit insecure about my ability to communicate in their language, I agreed to do so. This ended up being the beginning of the Hispanic Apostolate of Cape Cod.

I sought the assistance of Father Peter Graziano, director of Catholic Social Services at the time, who secured for me the help of Father Alfredo Garcia, a Sacred Hearts priest from Spain who was on sabbatical in Wareham for a few months. Over the course of a couple of months in the late fall of 1989 and early winter of 1990, Father Garcia worked with me to help me to learn the Mass in Spanish. In the meantime, I continued to meet with the people in their homes to pray the rosary. In mid-February of 1990 we moved the little group into church to begin the celebration of a weekly Spanish Mass. By Easter, Father Garcia was returning to Spain so he left me on my own to sink or swim in Spanish. I can say that, with the patience and the help of the people, I did at least learn to tread water. It is still a bit unbelievable to me that I ended up shepherding this ever-growing community for nearly a decade until I left the Cape for Fall River in February of 1999.

When I celebrated the Mass for the community recently, I was amazed at how much it has grown and diversified in its second decade of existence since my departure. Yet as I reflect back to its beginnings, I am still amazed at how it ever came to be in the first place. An ethnic apostolate had certainly not ever been on the radar screen for me as I set out from Holy Name, New Bedford to begin my priestly ministry in 1987.

I smile now at the irony of thinking that studying Spanish was my plan to win a single soul back to the faith, yet in retrospect it seems to have been part of a larger plan to ensure that many more people, indeed strangers in a new land, would be welcomed by the Church. It is a reminder to me of how God has used me as I believe he uses all priests to accomplish his purposes and more often than not in very unexpected ways.

The call to priesthood is answered initially when a man decides to leave his other options aside and study in the seminary, and then it is answered definitively on the day of his ordination. It seems, however, that the Lord’s call to be a priest continues to be given in new, different and sometimes ever more challenging ways throughout one’s priesthood.

As I look back over the past 23 years, I know that when I have overcome my own hesitations and answered yes to these calls within the call, the Kingdom has been better served and I have been amazed at what the Lord has accomplished through me. That is why I find the priesthood to be a wonderful adventure — ever the same but never the same — and so I look forward to many more surprises in the priesthood in the time the Lord allots to me in ministry.

Father Healey, ordained in 1987, is pastor of Holy Trinity Parish, West Harwich.

Father Roger J. Landry: The luckiest man in the world

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 00:56:49 -0400

I have always believed that the seeds of priestly vocations are revealed not just in a general desire to give one’s life in the service of others — the starting point for some priestly vocations programs — but in the hunger a boy or young man has to be able to give not himself but Jesus: specifically Jesus’ Body and Blood in the Eucharist, his mercy in the sacrament of penance, and, in short, his salvation in everything a priest does.

I was first awakened to a priestly vocation when I was four. At daily Mass with my mother and my twin brother, I carefully watched our pastor, Father Jon Cantwell, devoutly pronounce the words of consecration. With a four-year-old’s sense of wonder, I was fascinated that God had come down from heaven to earth and was in our Church. I wished that I was tall enough to be able to climb up on top of the altar to peer into the chalice, because I wanted to see what Jesus’ blood looked like. Then I beheld Father Cantwell, who was 70 but frail, gingerly maneuver his way down the marble steps of the sanctuary to give Jesus to those who were fortunately old enough to be able to receive him. I remember saying to myself, “The priest must be the luckiest man in the whole world — capable of holding God in his fingertips and giving him to others.”

I then watched Father Cantwell bring the ciborium to the tabernacle, located on the side altar in front of the pew where we were kneeling. He put the ciborium behind the veil, struggled to genuflect, shut the golden tabernacle door and returned to the altar. My eyes, however, remained transfixed on Jesus behind the door. I prayed silently and simply, “Jesus, make me a priest so that I can give you to others like Father Cantwell!”

Over the course of the next 25 years, which I’ve always looked at as my extended time of priestly preparation, that desire to become a priest in order to bring Christ to others never left me. Growing up, I also naturally developed many other aspirations — to become a husband and father, a catcher for the Red Sox, a professional boxer and tennis player, a medical doctor, an actor, a Pro-Life political kingmaker, a professor and more. Whenever in my more mature moments I pondered about the future, however, I would confess to myself and others that I believed God had already given me a strong priestly identity, which I took as a sign of a vocation.

My priestly identity and vocation were nourished tremendously at my first seminary: home. My earliest memory is praying the rosary as a family, which all six of us did every night until I went away to college. There were many occasions when I would have preferred to have continued playing sports rather than praying, but I’m so grateful, retrospectively, that my parents taught me that God comes first.

The priests at my home parish of St. Michael’s in Lowell also fostered my vocation, by encouraging me to become an altar boy, then a lector, then an extraordinary minister of holy Communion. The most formative experience of all was working afternoons and weekends in the rectory from eighth to twelfth grades. The pastor, Father Paul Bailey, became like a second father to me and a genuine Christian Socrates, questioning my answers, guiding me to the truth, teaching me what a priest does and why, and introducing me to Catholic periodicals as well as to so many priests and gifted lay Catholics. The rectory was always full of good priests and future priests who demonstrated for me that the priestly life was fun, personally rewarding, and could do so much good. Father E. Paul Sullivan became a close family friend and tennis adversary. Father Leonard O’Malley always encouraged me in my desire to do more for the parish and trained me how to do those things well.

One other greatly formative experience was at Harvard College. I remember a Jesuit priest friend joking that my brother Scot and I were going to Harvard “to lose the faith.” The first time I encountered blatant anti-Catholicism was a few weeks into my freshmen year when my roommate had some upperclass friends over. They hated what they mistakenly believed the Church to be: an oppressor of women because it opposed abortion and a persecutor of gays because it taught that same-sex activity is wrong. I had many late night debates with these bright students. I learned from those tete-a-tetes how great the need was for the Church to be able to refute such errors and how much I personally needed to grow in faith and in my knowledge of apologetics and Church history in order to be a part of the solution. A great help in this regard was my finding and frequenting an off-campus Catholic study center called Elmbrook, run by priests and laymen in Opus Dei. There I began to receive formation in a daily plan of life geared not only to intellectual nourishment but to sanctifying my studies and whole young existence. The priests there, Father Dave Cavanagh and Father Sal Ferigle, became my spiritual directors, inspired me and greatly helped my discernment.

Looking back after nearly 11 years a priest, I rejoice at having been privileged, nearly 6,000 times, to celebrate Mass, including inside the empty tomb in Jerusalem; to have been able, like Father Cantwell, to give Christ, happiness incarnate, to so many communicants; to have been able with joy to pronounce the words “I absolve you from your sins” to tens of thousands of faith-filled people, one by one; to have anointed so many, including at death’s door, and prepared them for God’s imminent visitation; to have celebrated hundreds of weddings and baptisms, including, as priests say, many “good ones”; to have preached retreats to lay people, seminarians and even brother priests; to have led several pilgrimages with great people; and to have walked with so many on the narrow road leading to the heavenly Jerusalem.

There have been many surprises along the way. I would have never thought on the day of my ordination that I would have ministered so much in Portuguese, which I have really grown to love; that I would have spent so much of my priesthood as a writer and an editor; that I would have never been assigned to teach in a seminary, which others in charge of my formation had always told me to expect; and that I would have become pastor, so young, of St. Anthony of Padua, which, even as a seminarian, I called “one of the most unbelievably beautiful Churches in the country.” But God is full of surprises. I anticipate more surprises are in store!

Father Landry, ordained in 1999, is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua Parish in New Bedford and executive editor of The Anchor. This is the final installment of the Year For Priests series.

Father Luis A. Cardoso: My priestly journey

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 16:14:13 -0400

I was born in a small village on the island of Flores, in the Archipelago of the Azores. I was the last of nine children that God gave to my parents, Francisco and Maria A. Cardoso. My father was a farmer and with my mother provided for our family and gave us love, a sincere faith in God and reverence for the Church.

One of my older brothers had become a priest and I always wanted to follow him. My family, however, could not afford to pay for my seminary tuition. But God provides. My priest-brother happened to know Father Leal Furtado, who was a pastor in the Diocese of Fall River.

Father Furtado asked Bishop James L. Connolly if he would accept me as a seminarian for the Diocese of Fall River. Bishop Connolly agreed and sponsored me at the Seminary of Angra do Heroismo, on the island of Terceira.

At the end of my seminary studies, Bishop Manuel Carvalho of Angra ordained me a priest on June 15, 1958. Three months later I arrived in Fall River, where I have happily served as a priest ever since.

My desire to follow the Lord as a priest was not a conversion or sudden decision. It took me a long time to recognize my vocation and to follow it. The example and prayers of my family, as well as my prayers to God and to our Blessed Mother, helped to show me the way to grow in faithfulness to my priestly calling.

How I became a priest may be different from the story of the average young man who was born and raised in America. I entered the seminary in Angra right after my elementary school education. I completed my high school and college studies in the seminary before I began my study of philosophy and theology. In all, my seminary preparation extended over a 12-year period. During these years, I was given sufficient time to nurture and grow in my vocation to the priesthood.

Many of my classmates, because they decided they did not have a vocation or because they could not complete the academic requirements, left the seminary before ordination. Seminary studies were challenging and at times difficult. We had to learn Latin, French, English and, of course, Portuguese. Some of our books in theology were written in Latin, which made the studies more arduous, but, thanks be to God, I was always able to pass all my exams.

After my priestly ordination, I came to the Diocese of Fall River, and Bishop Connolly assigned me to St. John the Baptist in New Bedford. I celebrated the Mass in Latin and Portuguese and spent much of my initial time conversing with the many immigrants who, like me, had come and who were still coming from the Azores. But I also had to learn English quickly, not only because it was the language of this country but because many people of my parish, especially the younger parishioners, could only speak English. I was also named chaplain at St. Luke’s Hospital, where the necessity of speaking English became more acute.

Although my first years as a priest were in a different country, serving people with a different language and culture, I always found that the people accepted me and loved me and gave me courage to fulfill my duties as a priest. Through their encouragement, I became more fluent in English and became more confident in speaking the language of my new home in America.

After nine years at St. John the Baptist, Bishop Connolly transferred me to Immaculate Conception in New Bedford. While there was sorrow in leaving my first parish, it was an opportunity for me to meet new people and make new friends. During many years of priestly ministry, I have always accepted my bishop’s decision to transfer me to other parishes. Most of my time was spent in Fall River, where I served at Our Lady of Health, Espirito Santo and St. Michael’s parishes as well. As priests, we are called not to serve ourselves but to serve the people of God. Over all these years in different parishes, I have always found it a wonderful privilege to celebrate Mass, administer the sacraments, especially to the sick, and to serve.

As a priest, it has been my privilege to minister to people in many different ways, beginning with helping children become Christians in baptism all the way through life until helping them finish up their earthly pilgrimage and get ready for the biggest journey of all. It has been a wonderful life and a great privilege to be and serve as a priest. I have received many blessings from God.

I am now enjoying my retirement. I pray and hope that other young men will hear and accept the Lord’s call to be a priest in this diocese. May all of us, priests and laity, join together and pray for more vocations to the priesthood, because the Church needs more dedicated priests to continue the work of the Lord in this diocese.

Father Cardoso resides at the Cardinal Medeiros Residence in Fall River.

Father Marcel H. Bouchard: The many people on the road to the priesthood

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 00:23:44 -0400

It all started in our own small family — just mom, dad, and me. It was a household of faith. There was never any discussion about whether to go to Mass, where to go, or even what time. The parking place and the pew were always the same.

It was the 8 a.m. Mass, and during the school year the students sat up front supervised by the Sisters. But outside of school time I was always placed at the end of the pew, to be sure I could see beyond the adults in front of me. That’s what it was like in the third pew from the back at St. Joseph Church in New Bedford.

At that time, there were the religious Sisters who staffed the school. Beyond the general role of living and practicing the faith in a relatively public fashion, they were “vocational recruiters.” They would occasionally show movies (16-mm sound movies in those days) depicting the work of missionary priests and Sisters in different parts of the world. It was while watching one of these that I thought I might be called to do the work of these priests, but not so far from home. I was in the seventh or eighth grade at the time.

The priests of the parish were also an invitation to consider a vocation to the priesthood by their presence, their prayer, and their interest. There were four priests assigned to our parish all the years I was growing up. Father Louis Boivin was the director of the school most of my time there, and I still have a clear image of his pacing up and down the sidewalk next to the church with his cassock flowing in the wind while he prayed his breviary (shorthand for Liturgy of the Hours).

In high school there was plenty of interest and help from the Sisters, lay teachers (very few there in the early days), and the chaplain, Father Joseph Powers. Father Powers paid great interest in the young men contemplating a vocation to the priesthood, and I consider him largely responsible for keeping the idea alive in my mind throughout high school.

The priest-professors at the seminary not only taught, but gave examples of the life of a priest. But after ordination it was really association with priests of various ages through the “Vincent Dwyer Retreat Group” that helped me learn how to put what I had learned at the seminary into practice. The older priests gave example and encouragement, and my peers help provide challenge and support.

Early in my priesthood I became involved in the Cursillo movement. The laity involved helped me understand better how to be a priest with and for them, even as they committed themselves to helping the best they could the priests in their own parishes to carry out their ministry.

I’ve been nourished along the way by many “moments closest to Christ.” The happiest have been when I have been able to celebrate the joy of new life at couples’ marriages or when baptizing their babies. The most challenging — the times when my faith was most used by the Lord as a sign of his caring — were at moments of the death of children from still-born to teens. Ministering to people in this situation has been the hardest thing I have had to do, but these moments have always been times when the Lord has used my faith, and in so doing, strengthened it.

I have always thought my main responsibility is to bring people to God and to help them experience the joy of faith. So it’s not surprising that I have most experienced God’s love and the love of his faithful people as they responded by their own lives of faith, their stewardship of their time and talent, their generosity with their treasure, and their affirmation that they felt I was an agent of God’s goodness and grace.

If there’s one moment, or one experience, that really stands out in my priestly ministry, it would be from 1980-1984, when I was the director of Continuing Formation for priests in our diocese. In this position I had the opportunity to get to know just about all the priests in our diocese. I was continually impressed by the loving priestly hearts they manifested for the people they were sent to serve.

Through my involvement with the national organization I was able to meet and work with some of the most wonderful priests throughout our country. Their ministries, their ideas, their hard work made a lasting impression on me.

I had the same experience with the priests with whom I was on sabbatical a couple of years ago at the North American College in Rome.

This all makes me feel so gifted by God — to be called to share the challenge and the joy of the ministry of the ordained priesthood in and for the Church.

The heart of my ministry is the joy of faith. It beats with the love of service. It’s nourished with the rewards of the prayer and work of the ministry. And it is sustained through the prayer of the people. It’s all God’s grace, but I want to thank all the wonderful, loving, supportive people who pray for priests regularly. I’m convinced that it’s their prayers that have made my priesthood so wonderful and so happy.

Father Bouchard was ordained in 1972 and is pastor of Corpus Christi Parish in East Sandwich.

Father Paul E. Canuel: ‘What kind of a priest do you want to be?’

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 00:21:04 -0400

I can still hear my father’s question to me as we huddled together in what was the only “private” place in our house: the bathroom. I had just revealed to him the reason for my wanting to go to a Catholic high school instead of the local public high school. It was something we could ill afford and he wanted to make sure I knew what I was asking for. I didn’t, so I asked him what he meant. “Well,” he said, “do you want to be a priest like Father Parent, or a priest that goes out to the missions?”

There was no doubt in my mind. I wanted to be a priest like Father Maurice Parent, the assistant priest in our parish. I had seen Father Parent as he visited the classrooms of our school to give out the report cards; as he came to the meetings of our Boy Scout troop; as he projected the Saturday morning movies in the basement of our school; as he tirelessly rehearsed Holy Week services with the altar boys; as he raced around the parish in his Ford station wagon delivering groceries to needy families; as he passed the collection basket with a smile and a wink during the pastor’s sermon. He seemed to be everywhere and was the glue that held us all together as a parish family.

I wanted to be like him because to me he was the most like the Christ I had come to know and love through the Sisters of St. Joseph who had taught me at St. Roch’s (Fall River) and St. Michael’s (Ocean Grove). And so began the journey.

Along the way there have been others who nurtured and challenged the seeds of a vocation to the priesthood that were planted by God, family and parish but always there was the example of a humble, hard-working parish priest.

As a parish priest of the Diocese of Fall River I have experienced extraordinary moments (what I call close encounters with God) of grace in the many (11) parishes and missions I have served during my 44 years of priestly ministry. I have worked and lived in parishes that were labeled French, Irish, Portuguese, Spanish and Polish.

I have been blessed with the unique opportunity of serving the Church in Peru and Honduras. I have had to make sacrifices that challenged me but I also have received graces and blessings I never imagined possible.

I have slept in rectories worth millions of dollars and in adobe huts on sheep hides covering a dirt floor. None of it matters.

What matters most to me, as I look forward to the next stage of ministry, i.e., retirement, what would make it all worthwhile, would be to hear some young man from any of the places I have served, nervously saying to his father: “I would like to be a priest like Father Canuel.”

Father Canuel is pastor of St. Mary-Our Lady of the Isle Parish in Nantucket, and will be retiring next month.

Father David C. Frederici: Getting out of God’s way

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 00:19:25 -0400

I often tell people that one of my fears is public speaking. They often think that I am joking, but it is true. I get anxious and uncomfortable. I would rather be in the back of the room than in front of everyone. This is true for any setting: Mass, retreats, giving invocations or Benedictions, etc. Yet somehow I manage to get through these times without passing out or worse. The reason, I suspect, explains how I became a priest: Basically, I’ve learned to get out of God’s way.

When I get anxious, I am focused on myself, what I’m going to say or do. Usually when I give up the concern, I trust in God and he is then able to use me to deliver his message in his way.

It was soon after I was ordained that my pastor at the time, Father Mark Hession, gave me valuable advice. I was getting stressed over an upcoming meeting with someone who had experienced a tragedy. “I’m not sure what I am going to do.” His response was: “She is a child of God. You are a priest of God. Deal with it.” The message was essentially: “Who cares what you think you should do? Stay out of God’s way.”

When I was in high school and college, there were aspects of the priesthood that appealed to me. There were also some aspects, mainly misconceptions, that frightened me. I wasn’t crazy about the whole celibacy thing. I had always assumed I would have a career and family. My plan was to teach history. I wanted to do something in life that was important, that was relevant to society and peoples’ lives. While I had many positive experiences of Church, I was put off by some of the practices, arguments and energies that seemed archaic and focused on things that I thought were irrelevant.

Gradually, I came to understand faith and religion was about an experience of the love and presence of Christ. He established the Church as the family of faith to help strengthen and nourish us so that we may see him in our daily lives, particularly in those with whom we interact each day. The Church’s teachings are meant to keep us focused on him and to help us to live the Gospel daily. The rituals and practices help draw us into the mystery of God.

There have been times that the humanity of the Church has gotten in the way of the divine mission entrusted to her. There have been times when some practices and rituals (not the teachings they are meant to draw us into) have become archaic and irrelevant. The Spirit, however, is with the Church and guiding her, and, despite being painful to live through, the Spirit works to get us back on track.

It was the example of other priests that helped me realize the importance and relevance of the Church and it was their example that began to stir something within me. I saw how the ministry of the priest included those activities I was seeking in life: teaching, doing something that was important, that was relevant to society and people’s lives. These are found in priestly ministry, and much more. I teach, although at times in a setting different from an academic classroom. I am present to people in some of the most important moments of their lives: marriage, birth of a child, first Communions, confirmations, graduations, times of illness, times of transitions, times of tragedy, times of great joy, etc.

My favorite aspect of being a priest? Without a doubt, it is preaching, although I have not lost the fear of public speaking. I love the hours of prep, of study and prayer. I love writing and then rewriting and then rewriting again. I love being able to preach the Word at Mass, retreats, missions, etc. I love it even more when the message that a person comes away with is not what I had thought I delivered. It reminds me that I am just an instrument of God; at those moments, I have successfully stayed out of his way.

Father Frederici, ordained in 2001, is chaplain at Cape Cod Hospital and diocesan director of Scouting.

Father Thomas L. Rita: Things happen

Mon, 10 May 2010 14:06:16 -0400

Increasingly, we hear talk about the lack of priestly vocations. Many folks wonder out loud: “What’s happening to the priesthood?” or “Why are there fewer vocations to the priesthood?” While many responses are given to these questions, I note that parishioners in our parishes are dismayed by such news, brought home to them by the inevitable effects this shortage has on keeping parishes operating.

During this Year For Priests, while I look back on my 40 years of priesthood and the years that led up to ordination, let me say that “things happen.”

When people asked me as a child what I wanted to be when I grew up, I responded, “I want to be a priest.” My grandparents encouraged me to be a priest in word and in deed. They already had a nephew who was a priest. They had a picture of him in the living room and often I heard stories about Father Eugene and his love for Mass.

While living “next door” to my grandparents, I grew up in a family setting and neighborhood where there was much love and a good deal of faith. The priests and nuns at St. James’ Church in New Bedford knew the Rita boys (four of ’em) — for a variety of reasons. Each of us was an altar boy, trained (for Latin responses) by Sister Teresita.

“Things happen.”

My appreciation of holy Mass continued through childhood, almost a daily communicant during my seventh and eighth grade and high school years. It was during my senior year of high school (1962) that I approached Msgr. Gallagher, my pastor, and asked about entering the seminary and becoming a priest. He and Sister Virginia, the principal of Holy Family High School, urged me to go on a vocations retreat at Cathedral Camp. (In late 1970, one-fifth of the active parish priests of the Diocese of Fall River were graduates of Holy Family High School.) I went on the retreat.

Meanwhile, Msgr. Gallagher made an appointment for me with the then-Msgr. Humberto Medeiros, diocesan chancellor, perhaps the most gentlemanly priest I have ever known. He encouraged me to enter the seminary. Soon I heard from Bishop James L. Connolly and was sent to St. Mary’s College in Kentucky to learn that Latin again. I was assigned later on to St. John’s Seminary in Brighton.

Those years were the 1960s, quite an eventful decade for our society and for our Church. At the seminary I made friends with faculty and other seminarians, friends who are still very much a part of my life today.

“Things happen.”

Vatican II happened, demonstrations happened, and so did the Vietnam War. What times. Our teachers were (mostly) excellent. With family and friends encouraging us as we studied, philosophized, theologized, and with much prayer and soul searching, six years later our class of five men was ordained by Bishop Connolly.

“Things happen.”

We new priests were assigned to parishes. St. Mary’s in Mansfield would be “my first love.” Do not underestimate my affections for the people in the other parishes and ministries in which I have served. During my time there I was sent for classes in Church law at Catholic University, preparing me for work in the Marriage Tribunal, work which I continue to do today. As a young priest, I was appointed assistant director of Catholic Social Services for the diocese and was director of St. Vincent’s Home of Fall River and the former St. Mary’s Home of New Bedford. I enjoyed those ministries for so many youngsters and doing so while working with dedicated and hardworking people.

“Things happen.”

Priests have families. In my family I have baptized babies, later on given some of them their first holy Communion, and have witnessed their marriages. Some of my family members have entered into eternity. It has been a gift for me to encourage my family as a son, a brother, an uncle, and to comfort my family as a priest.

“Things happen.”

Assignments at parishes over the years were great joys for me. The Cape Cod pastorates were special. During this 40th year of priestly service, I am excited by my recent pastoral re-assignment to St. Mary’s of Seekonk. I have been asked to join with a good friend, Father Jim Morse of St. Stephen’s Parish, so that we may help with the merger of our two wonderful parish communities.

By the way, there is a priestly fraternity, a spirit of camaraderie that grows over the years. Some, maybe several, close priest friendships develop over that time. I know that we priests continue to renew our dedication and friendship, remembering those who have gone before us.

“Things happen.”

I know that my priestly ministry and all the work in God’s name have brought me closer to him, probably the chief reason for my persevering. Personally, in spite of my weaknesses — and I have many — my life as a priest has brought me much joy. I am blessed by the Master who said to us all at his Last Supper: “You are my friends. … Do this in my memory.”

Yes, “things happen.”

Father Rita, ordained in 1970, is pastor of St. Mary’s Parish in Seekonk.

Father Henry S. Arruda: Decades of delight in the presence of the Lord

Tue, 04 May 2010 16:15:18 -0400

Ever since I can remember, when asked what I would like to be as I was growing up, the immediate response was: first and foremost, a priest; secondly, if I could not be one, an architect; and thirdly and lastly, a tailor (my oldest sister Emily, whom I admired and was like a second mother to me, was an excellent stitcher and I always admired her tailoring creations).

How did God call me to be a priest?

Well, Father António Nunes — the priest who baptized me, was ordained in 1940, was assigned to my parish and remained in the same and only parish as pastor until he died some 56 years later — had a tremendous influence on my vocation. At the very tender age of five I was already serving as an acolyte for the daily 5 a.m. parish Mass; and, even before concluding grammar school, I was insistently begging him to send me to the minor seminary, as there was no other vocation that I wanted to pursue more than the priesthood.

In my tender years, I was much impressed by the Dominican priests who would come to lead Lenten missions in the parish. These Portuguese Dominicans followed their own specially-approved liturgical rite from Braga, Portugal, which meant they would begin Mass with the offertory, preparing the altar for the celebration of the Eucharist. I immediately concluded, to my delight, that the Mass would be shorter, only to find out that these preparation rites would be followed by the initial rites and the liturgy of the Word, just like in our Latin Rite.

Giving in to my insistence, and after consultation with my parents who were not too supportive of my determination to be a priest — since one of my older brothers had already entered the seminary, only to leave after a couple years of studies, and since my desire to be a Dominican priest meant that my schooling would take place on the continental mainland of Portugal, far away from home — Father Nunes wrote to the Dominican fathers requesting that I enter their minor seminary. Shortly afterwards I was hit with bad news: there was no room for any more applications in the mainland Dominican seminary. Consequently, I begged the pastor again to write to the diocesan seminary in Angra do Heroísmo, Terceira, Azores, only to be disappointed with the same response: there is no room.

Yet, so enamored and in love with priesthood, I did not desist. I felt that God was calling me and, in the words of Psalm 40, I also wanted to say, “Yes, Lord, here I am. I come to do your will.” So I spent approximately a year with my godparents and their son, Father António Tavares, who fed and encouraged my vocation and initiated me into the study of Latin and mathematics. In the following fall I finally entered the diocesan seminary where I concluded my secondary, college and philosophy studies. From there, I entered St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Baltimore, Md., for my four years of theology. I was ordained by Bishop James L. Connolly in May of 1967 for the Diocese of Fall River.

I was very happy in the Azores as a seminarian, but at the steady encouragement of Msgr. Humberto de Sousa Medeiros — at the time chancellor of the Fall River Diocese, and later Cardinal Archbishop of Boston — and of Bishop Connolly, I finally was persuaded to become incardinated in this diocese, where there was a great need for Portuguese-speaking priests to assist the growing influx of Portuguese-speaking immigrants.

Thus I began a very happy priestly ministry in the local vineyard of the Lord for the past 42, almost 43 years. My love and involvement in liturgy, with liturgical music and, in particular, with the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, has been very rich and a ceaseless font of blessings-upon-blessings. In some of these privileged and sacred moments I have delighted, as one among many, in a real presence of the Lord who is “holy, holy, holy.”

I feel especially privileged to have been born before the Council of Vatican II and to have experienced such a rich enhancement of the Church’s life born out of this historical and memorable Council, which “opened wide its doors to the Redeemer.”

Being part of the amazing work of evangelization in today’s Church is uplifting indeed. We have, of course, experienced and have been rather oppressed in the crossing of some rough ways involving rather needed cleansing and purification, yet the Lord’s powerful, grace-filled and refreshing presence has always been energizing, comforting and uplifting. When you least “feel like it,” or when you really “need a break or rest,” your spirit gets filled with joy, because you listened to a burned soul who felt depressed and crushed with remorse for hurting a loved one, only to leave my office a new and grateful child who re-experienced exhilarating joy from the pardon and love of the Father of the prodigal son.

I could write ceaselessly about countless other experiences and moments of grace in my priestly ministry, but it suffices to say that, for me, sharing in the priesthood of Jesus the high priest has simply been humbling, grace-filled and most fulfilling.

Glory, praise and honor to Jesus our high priest.

Father Arruda, ordained in 1967, is pastor of St. Anthony Parish in Taunton.

Father Thomas M. Kocik: Son, brother, friend, ‘father’

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 01:09:05 -0400

Like some of the other priests who have reflected on their vocation in these pages, I’m hard-put to specify a moment when I heard the Lord calling me to serve him as a priest.

Then again, I really haven’t given it much effort. And with good reason: it’s tricky business, sorting out subjective experience and egotistic assertiveness from the workings of grace.

In the easy wisdom of hindsight, the most I can safely say is that the seeds of a priestly vocation were planted in my boyhood and nurtured over the years by loving parents, a careful commitment to Mass on Sundays (I didn’t mind having to go, even after I was confirmed!), the privilege of serving at the altar, Catholic schooling, prayers in the home, affable parish priests, and a dedicated priest-uncle (my dad’s brother Frank).

This isn’t to suggest that mine was an especially devout upbringing or that I was conspicuously saintly. I didn’t lack for shortcomings, and I behaved at times with a selfishness that I can only recall with shame.

As a young man I began to question my faith. That’s neither unusual nor bad; for, as Cardinal John Henry Newman understood, a thousand questions don’t add up to a single doubt. The more I read and inquired, the more I came to appreciate the Catholic faith as an intellectually coherent and compelling account of God and the world. Or, to put it more boldly, I accepted Catholicism as the fullness of divinely revealed truth.

Eventually I found myself relishing every opportunity to defend and share this pearl of great price. That alone, of course, is no indicator of a priestly calling. One needn’t wear a Roman collar to profess the good news of what God has done, is doing, and will continue to do for us in Jesus Christ.

What led me to the seminary and ultimately to the altar of God was a graced attraction to the work of the priesthood: preaching the Gospel, teaching the eternal truths of the faith, administering the sacraments, and, above all, offering to God the sacrifice of Christ for the world’s salvation.

The “above all” in the preceding sentence is quite deliberate. While I’m not indifferent to other “models” of priesthood, I believe the act of offering Christ’s atoning sacrifice in the liturgy of the Mass is the most important factor in the priest’s sense of who he is. Apart from this, the ordained priesthood simply makes no sense.

Neither, for that matter, does the priesthood common to all believers (1 Pt 2:4-10). For the role of a priest is to offer sacrifice. This holds true not only for ordained priests but for all Christians, too. The offering of one’s own life, that is, all the good one does and all the evil one avoids, in union with the perfect sacrifice of Christ, is what being a “priestly people” is all about. Whatever our vocation, the Eucharist is the “source and summit” of the entire Christian life, to quote the Second Vatican Council.

I realize that there is more to our life of faith than the Eucharist or liturgical worship in general. But our whole life as Christians should be permeated with the spirit of the liturgy. By that I mean thinking, acting, and living liturgically: taking God’s word into our hearts and being transformed by the Church’s sacred rites.

As I see it, my job is to help the Catholic faithful develop a “liturgical spirituality,” drawing them into spiritual conversion to Christ principally through the sacred liturgy. This is a huge challenge, because participation in the liturgy demands self-offering, childlikeness, humility, confession, the soul of a martyr.

When I consider the shadow side of the digital revolution — individualism, introversion, consumerism, the “freedom” to escape into our own private world at the click of a button — it makes me wonder whether we moderns are capable of liturgical celebration, no matter how energetically we might sing, or what liturgical books we might use. Yet I know that the sacrament of holy orders has given me special helps so that I can inspire, guide, and teach God’s people in the face of any challenge to living fully the faith that we profess.

Nearly 13 years have gone by since my priestly ordination at St. Mary’s Cathedral in June 1997. Over the years, I’ve served Christ and his people as a parish priest, hospital chaplain, high school chaplain, spiritual director, teacher, and writer.

The longer I’m a priest, the more I experience a sense of how privileged I am to be invited into people’s lives during times of joy and sorrow, happiness and pain. Many priests will tell you that. In fact, it has become almost a cliché to say that. But so many priests say it because they know it to be true. It is indeed a great privilege to be afforded such intimacy and trust, to offer the wisdom of the Gospel and the grace of the sacraments in good times and bad. What a consoling thing it is for me to receive unexpectedly a letter or email informing me of the difference I’ve made in someone’s life — or rather, the difference God has made through my spiritual fatherhood in Christ.

Keenly aware of my own unworthiness, I’m profoundly grateful to our merciful Savior for having called me to share in his unique priesthood: teaching, preaching, blessing, reconciling, offering sacrifice, and renewing the bonds of friendship between heaven and earth. I look back in gratitude. And I go forward with a heart filled with love for all those who, to my eternal responsibility, have called me son, brother, friend, “Father.”

Father Kocik is parochial vicar at Santo Christo Parish in Fall River.

Father Andrew Johnson, OCSO: Hijacked in Rome

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 02:04:55 -0400

I know very well that the roots of my vocation go all the way back to my family and to my upbringing in Boston.

Both of my parents had been raised Catholic and lived it out with real conviction with us three kids. Mum was a classic Boston (Brighton) Irish Catholic girl of deep faith; dad had a more unusual background, raised in a Swedish/French Canadian farm family in Barre, Vt. His mother was the French Canadian half of the marriage, and saw to it that all six Johnson children received their sacraments and got a good grounding in the faith.

That said, my mother’s faith was the real driving force in our faith formation. She had a deep love for priests and a long time respect for the Jesuits, several of whom she had come to know well. As a boy, I thought about the priesthood for a while, but not for long and not very seriously, so I astonished everyone when I graduated from college, took a year to pay off some student loans, and then entered the Trappist Monastery in Spencer in 1974.

It wasn’t always an easy road, of course, but I loved monastic life: so much, in fact, that I was happy being a plain old monk and had no desire to go on to ordination. I made final vows in 1981. Two of my abbots did me the great honor of urging me to become a priest, but I just couldn’t see myself in the role of priest-monk. I felt happy and fulfilled as I was.

Nonetheless, I did continue philosophical and theological studies at a pretty leisurely pace and by 1986, I had finished the equivalent of the first year in theology. Actually, I wasn’t too thrilled with the idea of continuing.

At this point my new abbot, Dom Augustine Roberts, called me in and said, “Look, Brother, you don’t have to get ordained, but you have to finish your theological studies. If you don’t study sound theology, you’re the type who will make up your own.”

What could I say to that? “OK, Reverend Father.”

Then he said, “You’ve already got some Italian so why don’t we send you to the Gregorian University in Rome?”

“OK, Reverend Father,” I replied, and tried to hide my excitement. I then asked the question I knew I had to ask: “No pressure to get ordained?”

“No, none. Just finish your theology.” Then he smiled a little. I’ll bet he knew something would happen to me during those years in Rome.

Well, something did. I lived at Sant’Anselmo on the Aventine Hill with the Benedictines. Rome was great all around. I loved every minute of it, and am forever grateful for that opportunity, but what changed me was this: twice I had the incredible honor of attending the pope’s Mass in his private chapel with a group of other monks. It only needed to happen once for me to have my eyes opened and my life changed. I simply met one of the greatest priests of our age, Pope John Paul II.

I didn’t change all at once, it wasn’t a lightning bolt, but it began immediately. I said to myself when he came out to greet us individually after Mass, “This is what it means to be a priest. This is a priest.” Not that I hadn’t met real, good priests before, but this was a total revelation on the gut level and every other level.

The more I thought of that experience over the coming weeks and months, the more I said, “I want to be like this man, and I think God wants me to, as well.” My desire was not to be another John Paul, of course, but a priest of Jesus Christ such as I myself could be, inspired by that first insight: “That’s a real priest.”

I never looked back, never questioned again. I finished up a glorious course of studies in Rome in 1990, went home to Spencer and asked to be ordained. I think the abbot was surprised at first, but then he smiled a little. I was ordained priest in 1991.

All the sacraments have been great gifts in my life, but the priesthood is the most astounding because I am so utterly unworthy of it. I try to give thanks for it every day, with all my heart.

Father Johnson is chaplain at Charlton Memorial Hospital and in residence at St. Michael’s Parish, both in Fall River.

Father Herbert T. Nichols: When the full moon is under eclipse

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 02:05:51 -0400

Pope Benedict XVI, last year when he marked his fourth anniversary as successor of St. Peter, did not celebrate with triumphant tones but surprisingly referred to the alternating phases of the moon, which ceaselessly wax and wane and whose splendor depends on the light of the sun, which is the image of Christ.

Most of us are pretty much aware of at least the existence if not the experience of the monthly cycles of the moon as it is able to reflect or not the light of the sun. I think this imagery can be used well in our spiritual life. Like the moon we reflect or at times are hidden from reflecting the light of Christ. But sometimes it takes a special positioning like a huge harvest moon or a total lunar eclipse to catch our attention.

Using this analogy, I would like to share an extraordinary moment of awakening that I had the opportunity as a priest to provide over 30 years ago soon after I was ordained. I was on vacation in Zurich, Switzerland. Early one morning, I went for a swim in the pool on the 36th floor. Afterward, I entered the sauna where a gentleman was sitting. We exchanged “good mornings” and he asked where I was from and what I did for a living. While sometimes telling another you’re a priest can be a conversation stopper, I saw no reason not to tell him forthrightly. His response I’ll never forget. He replied, “O my God, Father, please sit down,” and, after telling me he had been away from the practice of the faith for decades, he began to tell me his story.

“Every Sunday afternoon, I take a walk, the same walk, but last Sunday as I passed a certain church I felt myself sucked through the doors like a vacuum cleaner. I landed on my knees in the middle aisle facing the gold cross (which he later discovered was a monstrance holding the Blessed Sacrament). For a few moments I was unable to get up. I wept, saying: ‘Dear God, I would really like to come home (to the practice of the faith) but I’m terrified of going to confession.’”

As soon as I heard those words, without any further thought, I made the sign of the cross and said: “May God be in your heart so that you can make a good confession.”

He was startled. He said, “Here? Like this?,” highlighting the fact that we were both dressed like Adam before the Fall.

“There’s nobody here but the three of us,” I answered, “you, me and God — and he sees and knows it all.”

He chuckled and said, “I think God has a sense of humor,” and he made his confession.

He told me afterward that he thought he would have to wait until Sunday to receive Holy Communion for the first time in decades. I told him that if he knew where there was a morning Mass, he would have to wait no longer.

This eclipse was over.

Three years later I had the opportunity to participate in the young adult and youth conference at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, After an illuminating talk concerning the sins that most teens and young adults never think of and a second talk challenging them to reconciliation, 1,600 young people came like lost sheep to the 13 confessional set-ups within Christ the King Chapel to be shriven of their sins and the demons that howled at them like wolves, disturbing their peace. It was the most awesome penance service that I’ve ever experienced, even to this day.

But I would like to conclude with the more common and ordinary. When I attended parochial school back in the 1950s the good Sisters “advised” us to go to confession every other week. And parents, even if they had outgrown the good “advice” of the good Sisters, enforced it for their children. I didn’t particularly like interrupting my play schedule on Saturday afternoon to run to church and wait in line. And like almost everyone I know, I didn’t particularly enjoy going into the dark confessional and having to tell my sins. But I certainly did enjoy coming out — into the light and the reconciliation of life with the Lord. It was like jumping in a pool or a cool shower on a hot summer day and emerging refreshed and renewed.

Whether as a penitent in need of reconciliation or as a priest now empowered to restore that life-giving grace, the experience of the sacrament of reconciliation has been for me the most awesome experience of priesthood. And like the pope, I recognize the howling of wolves cannot withstand the prayers of the Church, which like the moon draws her light from the Son.

Father Herbert Nichols, ordained in 1975, is in residence at St. Anthony of Padua Parish in New Bedford.

Father George C. Bellenoit: Steward of the mysteries of God

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 22:28:13 -0400

Thirty-eight years ago along with three other men, I was ordained to the priesthood at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Fall River by Bishop Daniel A. Cronin. Thus began a priestly ministry that has been varied and exciting; a ministry in which the Lord continues to regularly broaden my horizons and stretch my imagination.

The parishes in the Attleboro Deanery where I was a parochial vicar in my younger days were vibrant with many young families and children in Religious Education. The Cursillo movement was very much alive in our diocese and many couples returned to the parish from the Cursillo experience enthusiastic about getting involved in parish ministries. They became the leaders in the parish and encouraged others to seek what they had found. Their spirit and their witness had a profound effect on my own spiritual growth.

Along with parish ministry I spent five years as a chaplain at Bishop Feehan High School, where I enjoyed working with a wonderful team of teachers dedicated to educating the students by word and example that they might mature spiritually, academically, athletically and socially.

The next decade of my life was devoted to hospital ministry in Fall River. Ministering full time with the sick, their families, and those who care for them was a new and rewarding experience. Two years of clinical pastoral education was my specialized preparation for ministering in the hospital environment. My days were filled with pastoral visits that often included celebrating the sacraments of penance, Eucharist and anointing of the sick. As I witnessed the Lord touching the lives of recipients, I realized that their faith inspired me.

Since leaving hospital ministry 17 years ago, I have had the privilege of pastoring parishes in Somerset, Mansfield, and now in South Yarmouth. As in previous assignments so also in parish ministry it is a gift to be with and minister to people in the course of daily living. As people transition from infant to toddler, child, teen-ager, young adult, adult, and senior citizen, God is working in their lives visibly and invisibly. Through the gift of priesthood, I have been privileged to accompany many people through life’s transitions. Many have been joyous and others have been painful for them and for me. Upon reflection the hand of God has always been present guiding them and me. I continue to be inspired by people’s faith.

In the variety of ways that faith is evident; however, I wish to highlight one in particular: stewardship. It is a way of life that I see people living and seek to live myself. It is a living out of the great Commandments of love of God and neighbor.

Stewardship is scripturally based and people who seek to live a stewardship way of life realize that all that they have are gifts from God. In gratitude for his gifts, they develop and share the gifts, giving a portion back to God. The variety of vibrant ministries present in the parishes where I have ministered has enriched the people and the faith communities. They are there because people are truly appreciative of their gifts, develop and share them. They are living stewardship and are an inspiration to me. I attribute much of my spiritual growth to the example of the people I have been privileged to work with over the years.

As I reflect on the invitation to ministry which the Lord extended to me many years ago, I am grateful for having accepted his call. Serving the Lord and his people is a blessing and a privilege to which willingly I recommit myself daily.

In this Year For Priests, with the example of St. John Vianney as a patron, please pray for all in priestly ministry and for those who are contemplating accepting a call to ministry.

Father Bellenoit, ordained in 1972, is pastor of St. Pius X Parish in South Yarmouth.

Father Jon-Paul Gallant: Thirty-one ‘Years For Priests’ and counting

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 22:20:07 -0400

When I first heard that our Holy Father had declared a Year For Priests, I was encouraged at the thought of the prayers and support that this designation would garner for me and for all my brother priests. After all, we can surely use all the prayers we can get.

Yet, as I reflect back on more than 30 years as a priest, I can’t help but think that each year and every assignment was in some way a “Year For This Priest.”

I have been blessed with a variety of assignments over the years mainly as a parish priest; however, I was also assigned to studies in Rome, some administrative duties in the chancery office, as well as the first director of the Office for Worship.

I have served in every area of the Diocese, from Fall River to Cape Cod, from New Bedford to Taunton to Attleboro and back again.

I have met so many wonderful parishioners, parish staffs, deacons and fellow priests from one end of the diocese to the other that it would be an enormous task (and a rather lengthy article) just to describe them. Please note: None of these assignments has had the address of “heaven,” so I will not say that they have been perfect or that I have been perfect in them. We are, after all, sinners, on a pilgrimage to our eternal home.

But as we recalled yesterday on the solemnity of the great mystery of the Incarnation of Jesus, literally his taking on our human flesh, we realize that our journey is not without purpose and not without the companionship that we call the Church, the Body of Christ. For as Christ is our head, so we all are the members of his Body in all our diversity.

My experience as a priest has given me the opportunity to observe the many ways that the grace of our faith builds upon our human nature. The good news is that there is no part of God’s creation — at least the parts where I have been privileged to serve — that is beyond redemption.

The “work” of a priest is as varied as his personality and assignments. The typical pastor is expected to be everything from a CEO of a small business to a handy man, counselor, religious educator, florist, snow removal expert, preacher like Bishop Fulton Sheen — and do all this and more with the patience of Job. And, by the way, could you please celebrate Mass in 45 minutes or less.

Yet the essence of the priest is always the same, to be “another Christ” as a mediator between God and his people, to guide, teach and sanctify through the sacramental life of the Church and especially at the Eucharist.

This is the unique gift of the priesthood, which our great high priest, Jesus Christ has willed for his bride, the Church.

None of us is worthy of this vocation, but with the help of the one who once called a motley collection of fishermen and tax collectors as his first priests, we can suffice and even occasionally, like John Vianney, the Curé d’Ars, become saints.

Father Gallant, ordained in 1978, is pastor of St. Theresa of the Child Jesus Parish in South Attleboro.

Father Robert Powell: A response to God’s loving presence

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 15:00:03 -0400

I credit my vocation to the priesthood to a profound experience that I had while in the eighth grade.

It was a Saturday afternoon and I was the only person in the church as I was preparing to go to confession.

During my preparation I was acutely aware of the habitual sins in my life that I seemed unable to change. After confession, as I was kneeling and saying my penance with my eyes closed, I became aware of a presence with me.

I began to weep in sorrow for my habitual sins, something I had never done before. But this divine presence did not seem to be as concerned with my habitual sins as I was. I suddenly heard a soft whispering voice say to me, “Bob, I love you. I have always loved you and I will always love you no matter what.”

I then began to realize that I had been focusing on the wrong sins. The greatest sin of all was not to realize this unconditional loving presence that had always been with me throughout my life.

My tears flowed even more intensely with this realization as I asked God’s forgiveness. How could I have not realized this unconditional loving presence in my life?

I then experienced myself being embraced and lifted up by this divine presence, with the following words being whispered to me: “Bob, don’t be afraid. Stop trying to stand on your own two feet and trust me.”

I then vowed never to turn my back on God again. I resolved never to live my life unaware of God’s loving presence with me and in me.

After some time, I left the church and felt reborn. Everything looked different and I felt different. In a sense you could say that I had fallen in love with God.

My life changed radically from that moment on and it was then that I decided that maybe, by becoming a priest, I could fulfill my vow to God never to be unaware of God’s loving presence in my life.

I wasn’t quite sure how to go about fulfilling this private vow of mine. I was already an altar server but wanted to do more. I then joined the parish choir, became a certified catechist and taught CCD, joined the Legion of Mary and the Sodality in high school.

The following year I became a student at Bishop Stang High and read the book “Damien the Leper,” which confirmed and deepened my desire to focus my entire life on serving God in response to God’s loving presence in my life.

As they say, all the rest is history. Without question my experience in the eighth grade has been the guiding force of my life and my priesthood. As a priest I try to help people come to know God’s unconditional loving presence in their lives.

Father Powell, ordained in 1976, is pastor of St. Joan of Arc Parish in Orleans.

Father James Fenstermaker, CSC: Caught by the Hound of Heaven

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 20:13:05 -0400

I experienced my initial interest in the priesthood in a most unusual setting: at a sports camp I attended a few weeks before my junior year of high school.

The sports camp was primarily meant to prepare the cross-country team at Holy Cross High School in Queens, N.Y., for the fall season. Run by the three Holy Cross Brothers who were our coaches, it was held at the Brothers’ spiritual life center in upstate New York. A diocesan priest at a parish near the high school joined us as chaplain for the sports camp, and awakened in me an excitement for religion and worship that I previously had not experienced.

I discovered my call to religious life through the wonderful witness of the Holy Cross Brothers at my high school, and my call to priesthood through a young diocesan priest who showed me the joy of the priestly ministry of word and sacrament.

I attended Stonehill College after high school graduation. After three years in the Holy Cross formation program at Stonehill, I completed my senior year and graduated with a major in psychology and a minor in religious studies. For the next two years I taught religious studies at Cardinal Spellman High School in Brockton while doing graduate studies in theology at Boston College.

During my years of teaching, the call to religious life and priesthood returned and grew ever stronger, to the point where I could no longer escape the “Hound of Heaven.” I re-entered the Congregation of Holy Cross, and after completing my novitiate year in upstate New York, I attended the University of Notre Dame where I earned my master of divinity degree. I professed final vows in the Congregation of Holy Cross at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart at Notre Dame in the fall of 1983. I was ordained to the priesthood the following June at Holy Cross Parish in South Easton, where I returned 24 years later as pastor.

When I served as vocation director for the Holy Cross priests and Brothers several years ago, one of the most common questions asked when I visited high schools was, “Are you happy being a priest?”

My answer was invariably, “Yes, I am very happy being a priest, and always have been.” I would add “I would not have become a priest if I didn’t think it would make me happy. I didn’t become a priest to make God happy — God doesn’t need me to make him happy — but to make myself happy.”

Although I enjoyed being single and teaching high school, and believed I could be happy being married and having a family, I came to believe that I would be happiest being a priest and a religious.

Many laypeople will speak of the sacrifices that one makes in becoming a priest, and while there is truth to that statement, it is also true of all who make the decision to marry and have a family. I often see my life as a rather easy and almost carefree one compared to the challenges and sacrifices made by husbands and wives on behalf of their spouses and by parents for the sake of their children.

And while I gave up the possibility of marriage and children, I have had the privilege as a priest of entering into the lives of many families and individuals in a way that few others ever have the opportunity to do. The love and support of so many people, as well as my own religious family of Holy Cross Sisters, Brothers, and priests, has more than sustained and satisfied me in my 25 years as a priest.

I have found the life of a priest to be one of great freedom. While my religious vow of obedience, like a diocesan priest’s promise of obedience to his bishop, puts me at the disposal of the Church to serve as needed, my religious life in Holy Cross has afforded me the opportunity to serve in various locations to diverse segments of God’s people: Mexican-Americans in South Bend, Indiana; middle class whites in Saco, Maine; African-Americans and Latinos in Brooklyn, N.Y.; college students at Stonehill; and now the wonderful people of Easton at Holy Cross Parish.

“If I’m never tied to anything, I’ll never be free” is my favorite line from the musical “Pippin.” In tying myself to religious life and priesthood, I have found great freedom to live my life to its fullest, in union with Jesus Christ and in service of God’s people.

I can’t think of a better way to spend one’s life.

Twenty-five years of priesthood have passed quickly, a testament to the richness of the Catholic priesthood and the great satisfaction one can find in this life and ministry.

Father Fenstermaker, ordained a priest of the Congregation of the Holy Cross in 1984, is pastor of Holy Cross Parish in South Easton.

Father Henry J. Dahl: The two most important things in life

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 22:55:25 -0500

William Barclay, a Presbyterian professor who wrote a set of commentaries on the Gospels, once said that there are two most important days in a person’s life: “the day we are born and the day we discover why.”

Barclay’s words remind me of a woman I knew who, on the occasion of her 95th birthday, declared to me that she had never discovered God’s purpose for her life. I was initially startled by her comment until I realized it had taken me almost four decades to discover my own calling.

I was baptized into a mainline Protestant denomination, the faith of my parents. My formative years were spent in that denomination and I continue to have a deep and abiding love for those in this denomination who took me by the hand and led to the knowledge of God and his divine Son.

I grew up in Staten Island, N.Y., surrounded by Catholic friends and neighbors. Our home stood in the shadow of Our Lady of Good Counsel Catholic Church and its parochial school, which stood on the bluff of a nearby hill.

One winter afternoon when I was eight years old and full of curiosity, I climbed the hill to Our Lady of Good Counsel Church and hesitantly stepped inside. The interior of the church was dark and the only visible light came from the glow of the lamp suspended above the tabernacle. Since I had never been in a Catholic church, I knew nothing of tabernacles or sanctuary lamps. I was, however, transfixed as I stood quite still and stared at the glow coming from the lamp. Although I was totally unaware of the presence of our eucharistic Lord in the tabernacle, our Lord was there and I remember that was the instant I knew in my heart I wanted to become a Catholic.

Eleven years later I enlisted in the Air Force and was sent to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, where I arrived on a Saturday afternoon. The next morning I sat on a footlocker and wondered what was in store for me. Suddenly, an officer walked into the barracks and ordered all Catholics to line up on the road outside so they could march to the chapel for Sunday Mass. “What is this? Why does the Air Force make sure all Catholics get to Mass on Sunday?” Sitting there I made a promise that as soon as basic training was over I would seek out a priest and find out about Catholics and what seemed to make them so special.

When I reached my permanent assignment, it didn’t take long to find Father Patrick O. Higgins, a young chaplain with a thick Irish brogue.

Father Higgins and I spent the next six weeks studying the Catechism and some history of the Catholic Church. One day when Father Higgins was showing me around the chapel, pointing out things of interest, I asked why Catholics genuflected when they entered church. “Well, Henry,” he said, “it’s because our Lord is truly present in the tabernacle.” That’s when it hit me that our Lord had been speaking to my heart that day years earlier when I was transfixed before the tabernacle. Unaware at the time, it had been one of the defining moments in my life.

In spite of the great confusion and countless myths that circulated between Protestants and Catholics regarding each other’s religions, I never had the slightest doubt that I had finally reached home.

Soon after completing religious instruction, I was welcomed into full communion in the Roman Catholic Church. I made my first confession and the next day received my first holy Communion. Now I knew what had been missing in my life and what would fill me with God’s grace. As I grew in faith and understanding, the Catholic Church would become my anchor and the most important thing in my life.

The next defining moment came a quarter of a century later as I sat on the deck of my house and gazed at a glorious Oregon sunset. “I’m 45 years old,” I thought to myself, “and don’t know what to do with the rest of my life.” Musing over this, the thought crept into my head, “Why not become a priest? Isn’t it time to thank God for the grace I’d been given?”

Over the next few weeks the idea became clear that God might be calling me to priesthood. Although I was frightened by all the hurdles that would be ahead, I decided not to second-guess God. There was so much to do. I had never been to college. I’d have to do that first. When I told my boss I was giving up my position with the company to go to college full-time, he said, “Henry, you’re having a mid-life crisis: ignore it.”

But I didn’t ignore it. I quit my job and went to college and earned a degree.

In 1992 I entered Holy Apostles College and Seminary and was almost simultaneously sponsored by the Diocese of Fall River. Four years later, at the age of 55, I was ordained on June 8, 1996 by Bishop Sean O’Malley. Father Higgins, the chaplain who brought me into the Catholic Church 38 years earlier, was present at my ordination and was a concelebrant the following day for my first Mass.

I spent the first four years of my priesthood at Corpus Christi parish in Sandwich. In 2002 Bishop O’Malley named me the pastor of St. Peter the Apostle Parish in Provincetown.

I have been here at St. Peter’s for more than seven years and am truly blessed to be the parish priest of this wonderful community of faith. The parishioners of this parish, whom I am honored to serve, have not only validated my call to priesthood, but in so doing, have helped me discover why I was born. My head spins as I recall how quickly things moved from the evening I sat on my deck and thought God might be calling me to priesthood.

Barclay was right when he said, “The two most important days in a person’s life are the day we are born and the day we discover why.” When someone asks why it took me so long to become a priest, I tell them I came as soon as I was called. They really don’t have to know it took 47 years for me to process the call.

Father Dahl, ordained in 1996, is pastor of St. Peter’s Parish in Provincetown.

Msgr. John J. Oliveira: The unchanging face of the priesthood

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 23:50:57 -0500

In this Year For Priests, it has been requested that thoughts be shared on the gift of the priesthood. It is a challenging opportunity to try to express, in a limited amount of words, more than 40 years of priesthood.

The priesthood, while lived individually in a person, is bigger than any of us and its expression in each of us is limited to our frail human qualities. One can never be worthy of the priesthood, but can only spend one’s priesthood becoming less unworthy of the great gift that has been given.

In holy orders, a man is ordered to serve the people of God. He does this by the administration of the sacraments and acts in the person of Christ — “in persona Christi” — at the altar and in the confessional. At the words of consecration, the priest does not say, “This is Christ’s body,” but rather, “This is my body.” In confession, he does not say, “Christ absolves you from your sins,” but instead, “I absolve you from your sins.”

In older terminology we would say the priest in an alter Christus, another Christ. We were always to be Christ to others. This is a challenge that, as we have so recently seen, is not always attained.

Times change, people change, the focus of the priesthood might change, but the work of the priest does not change.

In the years I have been a priest, there have been four bishops in our diocese and five popes. During that time, the work did not change nor did the sacramental ministrations essentially change. The priesthood is beyond personalities or time or even location.

The priest is one of the few people who are involved with people at every event of their lives. He is present as they come into the world to baptize them; he is there to assist them to confess their sins and receive the Eucharist for the first time. As the spirit of God comes to them in confirmation, he is there. As two people commit themselves in marriage, he is their witness for the Church. In their illness, he is there with the sacrament of the sick. At the loss of a loved one, he is there to bury them. He is there to help them in the difficulties of their life; he is there to bring them the grace of God in sacramental and non-sacramental ways. He is there for them.

For the most part he is welcomed and respected. He hears things no one else ever will. He will help people make decisions that will always be confidential. Once the clerical collar is seen, for better and worse, a mind-set is formed. Much of the respect for the priesthood comes from those who have come before us. We add our own image that will last long after us.

How my 40-plus years of priesthood were exercised is of less importance than the fact that I am privileged to be a priest. It is something I had always wanted to do since serving as an altar boy in grade three. That vocation was nourished in Catholic grammar and high school. My education took me to college in Rhode Island and graduate school in Baltimore, Md.

My interest in education allowed me to serve as chaplain in various diocesan high schools and now I have a parish with a school. Today, a parish school is a different challenge than those days when schools flourished and were supported by priests and people alike.

While we may design our life, for the priest, it is designed by God. My parish work was to be limited for a period of time. I served in the chancery for 23 years of my priesthood; it allowed me to see beyond a parish to a diocese. As mission director, I am able to see the Church beyond our country, and, as archivist, I learned how the past is part of the present. As director of the diocesan Permanent Diaconate Office, I have come to a better understanding of holy orders and the goodness of those who want to make Christ present as permanent deacons.

As secretary and master of ceremonies, I came to know our bishops in a more personal manner and was able to help my brother priests in a variety of circumstances. It also allowed me the possibility of visiting all the parishes in our diocese. God chose to have me exercise my priesthood in a different manner, but it was priestly ministry.

Now I am pleased to be a pastor of a wonderful parish and continue to exercise my priestly ministry in that special and wonderful way.

It is my hope that as priests share their love of the priesthood in this Year For Priests, many will come to appreciate the gift of the priesthood and other men may be inspired to beg the Lord to call them to share in the special gift of the priesthood.

Msgr. Oliveira, ordained in 1967, is pastor of St. Mary’s Parish in New Bedford.

Father James Morse: It’s all about relationships

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 12:58:08 -0500

It is said that parish priests have a significant influence on awakening the call of God to priesthood in the young men in their parish. For me that parish priest would be Father Anthony Kacevicius, a young Lithuanian curate at St. Margaret’s Parish in Rumford, R.I. His modeling of the priesthood is one of those mysterious and unconscious influences the Spirit used silently and subtly to raise the consciousness in a young teen-ager to that call to serve. Once recognized and accepted by me, the early priestly mentoring and support was provided by Father Edmund Mullen, a seasoned pastor with a savvy sense of Church and ministry and a keen compassion for people, who at the time was serving as pastor of St. Joseph’s in Hope Valley.

My seminary years provided an ample variety of scholarly educators, and there were several who influenced my thinking and values in those early developmental years. The first was a Jesuit, Father Mortimer Murphy. Another was Father James Conefrey, whose firm discipline and caring kindness was recognized and remembered by many priests in the Hartford Archdiocese. There were also other academics like Msgr. Russell Collins in philosophy, Fathers Philip King in Scripture and James O’Donohoe in liturgy and moral theology. Their competence in their disciplines and effectiveness as teachers impressed many a seminarian in Boston.

The saying, “Tell me who you walk with and I’ll tell you who you are,” also reflects my development as a priest. In the summer of 1969 the Diocese of Fall River changed the priest’s annual retreat policy. We would no longer be required to make our annual retreat at Cathedral Camp, but were given the option to choose our own venue. That August I chose to join 14 other priests from our Fall River Diocese at the Jesuit Retreat House at Round Hill in South Dartmouth. The group was made up of young priests newly ordained as well as older priests in their 60s. Our present Ordinary, Bishop Coleman, was one of those 14 priests. The Spirit was touching us not only individually but also as a group so much so that the director at the end of the retreat observed that it would be a missed moment of grace to walk away from the fraternal priestly bonds that had formed during the week. As a result of his encouragement we committed ourselves to meet monthly for prayer, theological reflection, social time and fraternal support. During that first year we had shared the experience with some of our other brother priests who also expressed interest in what we were about. And so over the next two years an additional 30 priests from the diocese became involved in the process bringing the total participants to more than 40 priests.

I didn’t realize it at the time but that week at Round Hill in August of 1969 was to have a profound effect on my spiritual life and ministry. This simple and unassuming model that the 15 of us had experienced that summer and the subsequent follow-up years would become the basis of a Ministry to Priest Program that would extend around the English-speaking world. Thanks to the generosity of my bishop, I was to become a small part of a worldwide program for priests. For approximately 20 years I traversed large parts of this world, working with priests in 65 dioceses in the United States, 19 dioceses in Canada, 15 dioceses in Australia and 14 dioceses in England and Scotland. It was a profound privilege to come to know so many dedicated priests interested in coming closer to God through dialogue with their brother priests. They shared their joys and struggles, their failures and successes, their hopes and disappointments, their concerns and visions with one another and a brother priest from a far away diocese in southeastern Massachusetts. It was an opportunity to share in the universal solidarity with priests that I could never have imagined, let alone hoped for. It was a defining experience in my commitment to the priesthood. This was a time for deepening growth of my love for priests and my joy at being in their presence.

What I learned from this ministry is that priests like all people develop in a world of relationships. I learned that growth is holistic, touching all aspects of who we are as persons. Through the process I became aware of the uniqueness of the person and the journey, the fact that learning is lifelong, and that to say “yes” to his invitation to follow him is to set out on an exciting adventure and great love affair! I feel profoundly privileged to have experienced both.

As I approach retirement I only wish I was able to do it all over again. Spending time with priests is easy for me. Perhaps it’s a natural fit with my extroverted personality or the common lifestyle that we share. I know that it is an important part of my spiritual life, right up there with prayer, the Eucharist, and theological reflection. Certainly there are times when it’s inconvenient to get together, but I’m always energized when I make the extra effort. It’s a discipline that has reaped great rewards for my spiritual growth.

These are some of the priests who helped make me the priest I have been. There are many other men and women who have taught and formed me in my journey back to God but that’s another story for another time.

Father Morse was ordained in 1967 and is pastor of St. Stephen’s Parish in Attleboro.

Father Craig A. Pregana: Direct service

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 23:42:38 -0500

I couldn’t imagine leaving my family. That was the reason why I didn’t enter the Franciscans or the Jesuits. I just couldn’t imagine moving to another part of the world, far from those I know and love, so I became a diocesan priest. It doesn’t sound very spiritual but it seemed a little “safer” to be committed to the home diocese, rather than be sent to other parts of the globe. That’s how I saw things in my late 20s, but it is amazing how God’s plan unfolds in our lives.

The ironic part is that I am writing this reflection from Honduras in Central America, where I serve as the pastor of St. Rose of Lima Parish, living many miles away from my family. No, I am not a Franciscan Friar, nor a Jesuit priest; I am a diocesan priest of the Diocese of Fall River in Massachusetts currently “on loan” to the Archdiocese of Tegucigalpa, Honduras. No, the bishop did not send me here as a punishment, nor was I “out of work” looking for a new ministry. I am here serving in a mission parish that our diocese sponsors. The story doesn’t begin in Honduras; rather it began when I was in high school with a desire to serve God.

The Jesuit priests who ran the high school were admirable men. They were smart, engaged in the mission, and engaging in the classroom. They cultivated a desire to learn and broadened our horizons beyond Fall River. They promoted a sense of service to others and taught us to be “not only hearers but doers of the Word.” In that daily environment in high school, the priesthood was a truly viable option for a life vocation.

Coupled with the example of the Jesuits, our parish was staffed by Franciscan Friars for much of my youth. They were men dedicated to the parish and they reached out to the poor. In addition, they actively promoted vocations. They regularly invited a group of servers to their formation house to experience firsthand the life of a seminarian. This contact showed that the priesthood was tangible and attainable. It was clear that serving God was dynamic and fulfilling but who wants to leave family to be elsewhere … certainly not this kid from Fall River. So I “settled” for the diocesan priesthood thinking that it was the safer choice, even if it wasn’t as dynamic.

My first parish assignment as a newly ordained was a typical parish, with a school and hospital coverage. The pace was hectic but the work extremely fulfilling. After approximately six years in that one parish assignment, I was asked to do vocation ministry, as well as be a “fill-in” administrator when a priest was on sick leave. As time went on I was asked to serve as a high school chaplain even though youth ministry was not on my “top 10” list and the thought of working with youth daunting. All in all, the ministries were varied and they expanded my understanding of how a diocesan priest is called to serve the needs of the diocese. It also was a preparation for the next part of God’s plan.

After serving as a high school chaplain, I “graduated” to the university, the same university where I earned my undergraduate degree. Being a college chaplain was another stretch beyond the comfort zone, but the campus was a very familiar setting. In one way it was an act of divine justice because during my four years as an undergrad, I had never darkened the door of the campus ministry office. Now as the chaplain, I would spend time and energy trying to get young college students involved in the life of the Church.

While serving as chaplain at UMass-Dartmouth, our diocese began a connection with the Archdiocese of Tegucigalpa by staffing a mission parish there. As the Diocesan Mission developed, it occurred to me that it could be a great site for an “alternative spring break” for the university students. We worked on the arrangements and advertised the trip. With a couple of students I traveled to Honduras for a week of mission work. The ministry was eye-opening and heart-wrenching at the same time. Although we had running water and electricity, the conditions were “rustic” at best. The students enjoyed their alternative spring break, and the program grew. The following year more students applied for the trip and the return to Honduras was a little easier.

One night after supper during the spring break trip one of the students, named Patrick, said to me, “You could never do this.” “What do you mean?” I asked. “Be a priest here and live in a place like this,” he said. We both laughed, partly because he was right, and partly because he said it with an attitude of “I dare you.” I explained to Patrick that I saw my role, especially at the university, as the one that connects people with learning experiences. “I don’t do direct ministry,” I explained to Pat. “Instead I like to make connections for people.” I laughed again at the thought of living in the missions.

On the way home, and in the time to follow, my own words began haunting me. “I don’t do direct service.” Had I come so far in ministry as priest that I couldn’t work among the poor? At the university, we had begun to work at a local soup kitchen with the students, so I knew that I could work with the poor. I could make a plate of food, clean the tables, sweep the floors, talk to the guests, etc. Yet deep down inside I knew that I was living in the “safe zone.” I trusted God but only to a certain point; I was afraid to let go completely. Gently, softly, came the invitation again: “Put out into the deep and lower the net for a catch.”

It has been five years of ministry in Honduras that has helped me to understand a bit more how the Jesuits, the Franciscans and so many others are able to leave home to serve God. The real challenge is trusting God, who not only walks beside us but is already there waiting.

Father Craig Pregana was ordained in 1988 and is pastor of St. Rose of Lima Parish in Guaimaca, Honduras.

Father Christopher Santangelo, SSCC: Never out of God’s sight

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 18:28:13 -0500

After 10 years as a Catholic priest, I can honestly declare that my priesthood is intertwined with my identity as a religious of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. I am who I am as a man of God because of my union with my religious family and because of my service to this religious family and God’s people as a priest.

After one year of engineering studies, I understood that I needed to move in a different direction to live a fulfilling life. I had been faithful in my church practices into my teen years, so I thought I’d investigate the possibility of a priestly vocation.

While it seemed a counter-cultural career path in our modern world, the one thought that continued to gnaw at me was that I didn’t want to look back on my life after 50 years and wonder if the priesthood was the right direction for my life. This gave me the courage to attend a diocesan Vocation Awareness session and eventually apply for admission to a diocesan seminary.

During three years of seminary college and another three years of theological studies, I was able to delve into topics about the Catholic Church faith that I could never have imagined. These helped to expand my mind and soul as I desired to figure out how I might to serve God. I was very blessed to be able to interact with other men who similarly were trying to listen to God in their own lives. Some painful moments for me occurred when gifted and holy men whom I perceived would make wonderful priests decided to leave the seminary and not be ordained. This prompted moments of ongoing prayer and discernment so I might grow in respect of the mystery of the life I was seeking to enter.

I had to come to terms with trusting in God deeply when I discerned my own need to leave seminary before ordination. I needed to trust that the God who walked close with me while I was moving toward the priesthood would be the same God who walks close with me – and with the laity – outside the formal path toward priesthood. It was during this time of renewed trust in God that I realized my response to God would be more properly answered as a member of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

One of the gifts I’ve received in serving as a Sacred Hearts priest has been in sharing in the journeys of many diverse people, particularly in missionary settings. While in the Philippines for religious training I had the experience being a minority for the first time. I learned to cope with uncomfortable feelings of being a guest in another country, and growing to accept areas of prejudice that needed to be converted in my life. I was able to use this appreciation for respecting other people and cultures when I went to the Bahamas as a priest. I was taught by these people to share my ministerial gifts and allow them to train me in their local customs as I grew in priestly experience. I have heard it said that a priest’s first assignment can have an indelible impact on the rest of his priestly ministry. I believe this to be true – and I was gifted with a full and enriching first priestly assignment in the Bahamas.

My experiences in rural ministry in New Mexico gave me an understanding of how people live their faith where ministerial resources are at a premium. And serving the people of God in the Fall River Diocese has shown me a people who strive to remain faithful to God despite the changing landscape of ministerial life. Walking with people in their fears about Church life has helped me cope with my own concerns for emerging changes in our local and universal Church.

Throughout my priestly life I have had to grow in my ability to be adaptable and teachable. I can remember an Easter Vigil in the Bahamas where we had to delay the start of our celebration because an elderly gentleman who was being welcomed into the Church had fallen asleep in his home. This man who had very little in material wealth evangelized our parish family through his witness of trusting in God who was with him throughout his checkered life. A few weeks later he died – and our celebration of his life was one that had deep effects for the growth of our parish.

I could never have imagined the depth of God’s faithfulness to me throughout my life as a religious priest. Though I have had moments of wavering faith and trust, God through God’s people has witnessed to me that any knowledge I have as a Catholic priest pales in comparison to the ways God reminds me that I am never out of God’s sight.

Father Santangelo, ordained in 1999, is pastor of Our Lady of the Assumption Parish in New Bedford.

Father Jeffrey Cabral: The priest as a spiritual father to young people

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 14:57:17 -0500

“Cling to him, forsake him not, thus will your future be great.”

These words from Sirach 2:3 were inscribed into a Bible that I received from my home parish of St. Julie Billiart in North Dartmouth in 1991, as part of a ceremony blessing high school graduates in all of their future endeavors.

Fast forward to the year 2002, one that would be very memorable and unforgettable for two very different reasons.

First, the Church would be rocked by the nationwide crisis of sexual abuse of minors by clerics. This was certainly a troubling time, not only for priests, but also for the entire Church. In fact, at the height of the crisis, I was still studying at St. John’s Seminary in Brighton.

That brings me to the second memorable event of 2002 — my ordination to the priesthood on June 8. In the midst of crisis, scandal, doubt, and uncertainty, I took a leap of faith to be ordained a priest of Jesus Christ. Why? Because of those words that have been with me ever since I graduated from high school: I clung to the Lord, I never forsook him, and always looked to a great future with a deep faith and hope in our good and gracious God.

My involvement in youth ministry as a high school and college student enabled me to respond generously to God’s call in my life to serve him and his Church as a priest. It began with my willingness to serve as an altar boy (there were no altar girls in my day), with the privilege of serving at the funeral Mass of Father John Hogan, the first pastor of St. Julie’s. Many will also remember Father Hogan as the longtime director of the televised Mass.

It continued with the various social, service and spiritual activities of the St. Julie’s Youth Group. I became even more involved with the Youth Group after my wonderful experience in the summer of 1990 with the diocesan-sponsored Christian Leadership Institute or CLI, where I learned various skills to be a lay leader at my parish. I attended the very first YES! retreat in 1991 and also had the privilege of making the pilgrimage to Denver, Colo. in 1993 for World Youth Day to welcome and participate in the various activities with Pope John Paul II. I was involved in campus ministry at UMass-Dartmouth, where I eventually received my degree in mathematics in 1995. Through all of these pursuits, diocesan priests were constantly engaged in youth ministry, shaping me to become the man, and the priest, I came to be.

As I was preparing for the priesthood, I had always envisioned that I would continue to be involved in various youth ministry activities. Young people need to be taught and shown God’s love for them. But more than that, young people have to be shown that they are not only the Church of the future, but they are certainly the Church of today. Young people should be encouraged to be involved in their school and parish communities, and that encouragement starts with the priest.

The perfect example of a priest who was committed to ministering to young people was our beloved late Pope John Paul II. The people’s pope, and certainly the pope of the youth, had always been involved in youth ministry, from the time he was a priest in Poland to the pope who started the World Youth Day celebrations. In fact, in the jubilee year of 2000, during his annual address to the clergy of Rome, the Holy Father observed: “We cannot forget that the priest, by vocation, is an evangelizer and spiritual father to the young people entrusted to him by the Lord. They need to find in their priest an available and sincere friend, but also a witness who lives his calling with joy and with spiritual and moral consistency. Then they will be helped, in turn, to discover, and to accept the vocation that gives their whole life meaning and value.”

Even though youth ministry has changed since 2002, this basic truth has not. The priest is indeed an evangelizer and a spiritual father to the young people entrusted to him.

Through my seven years of priestly ministry, I have been privileged to be involved in youth ministry activities at St. Anthony’s Parish in Taunton, to be the chaplain of both Taunton Catholic Middle School and Coyle-Cassidy High School, to help coordinate a monthly Youth Mass in the Taunton Deanery, to be a team leader and spiritual director for CLI, to share the sacraments with young people — especially offering the gift of God’s mercy and forgiveness in the sacrament of reconciliation — to participate in the YES! retreat, Emmaus retreat, Steubenville East Conference, Extreme East, confirmation retreats, and countless other moments of youth ministry.

Each time I minister to youth, I am conscious of my humble role as a spiritual father and evangelizer to the youth. I pray that through my example and service of the priesthood, I may encourage many young men to be open to hearing God’s call to serve his Church as a priest. May those same words that sustained me as a high school student, and continue to do so today, encourage a new generation of priests: “Cling to him, forsake him not, thus will your future be great!”

Father Cabral is studying canon law at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., with residence at the Church of the Little Flower in Bethesda, Md.

Father Dariusz Kalinowksi: A life with extended arms, palms up

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 22:13:33 -0500

Most Catholics know that when we meet the Holy Father, it is very polite, and a sign of reverence, to kiss the pope’s fisherman’s ring, which is a sign of his office. This little gesture, however, is not only limited to the pope. It is still practiced, today, mostly by older people in small villages and towns throughout Europe towards every priest. In this case, of course, it is not a ring being kissed but the priest’s hand. I have experienced it a few times here in the United States with people who came from one of the old countries.

When I was a young shy seminarian, I didn’t know how to react to this gesture. When I talked about this with my spiritual director he gave me an answer that I will remember for the rest of my life: “Dariusz,” he said, “when people kiss your hand it is not your hand they are kissing but the hand of Christ whom they see in you.”

What a great lesson in humility that was for me, and what a great lesson in what the priesthood is all about. I always need to remember that, because I am a priest, people will and should see Christ in me. It is hard work occasionally to overcome my own pride and not to take for myself the praise that is due to the Lord. Because of my weaknesses, moreover, it is not easy at times to reflect in my life the face of Christ for others to see.

As I write this reflection on priesthood, on my life as a priest, I stand on the threshold of a new assignment. This reminds me of a crucial part of the priest’s life: the vow of obedience to the bishop. How often we are tempted to do our own things, to do what we think is right, disregarding the guidelines and advice of our local shepherd. When this happens, when we priests follow our own way, the people in our community will see this and very often the unity of the local Church will be compromised in one way or another. Obedience, however, as hard as it is, is one of the most powerful ways to grow in humility.

Endings and new beginnings are great opportunities to pause and check our lives against the values we have chosen to follow. The year of the priesthood has just begun. I am writing these words at the Shrine of the Divine Mercy in Stockbridge, where I am here with my brother priests celebrating our 10th anniversary of ordination. For me those 10 years of service to God’s people were spent in three parishes: St. Mary’s in Mansfield, Our Lady of Victory in Centerville, and St. Patrick’s in Wareham.

These assignments point to another important aspect of a diocesan priest’s life: ordained for a particular diocese, we are attached to a particular place. For me, the question, “Why the Diocese of Fall River?,” comes to my mind once in a while. When I came from Poland to SS. Cyril and Methodius Seminary in Orchard Lake, Mich., it was up to me to find a bishop who would welcome me into his diocese. It was Bishop Sean O’Malley who invited me to Fall River. Quite often people have asked me why I chose this diocese. I didn’t always know the answer then, but I think I know it now. God put me here because of the people I have encountered and will encounter, because of the people to whom I have ministered and will minister, the people with whom I have become friends. This is the heart of my priesthood: to serve the people of God, to lead them and to walk beside them on this most amazing journey of all, the journey of faith.

The great mystery of priesthood unfolds in front of my eyes every single day, in many different ways, some expected and some most unexpected. One way that I see clearly the grace of God working in my life — and this affirms me that I am walking on the right path — is my personal growth. I used to be an extremely shy young man who wanted to be a priest but couldn’t imagine myself preaching in front of a congregation. Over the years I have become a more outgoing and confident person, not afraid of interacting with people. God has given me various challenges to form me to become a better tool in his hands. I have learned very well that one of the best ways to grow and to serve God and his people is to welcome such challenges when they come.

Every person, especially in a leadership position, needs to have a strong support group. It is even truer with us priests, since we don’t have wives and children standing beside us. Since I left my family back in Poland, my brother and sister, nieces and nephews, aunts and uncles, it is important to me to have a strong “extended family.” These are my friends. Some of them have invited me to be the godfather of their children. It is very enriching to share my life and my faith with people who know me more than just as their parish priest. In this way I am able to live and exercise my priesthood not only on a parish level but also in more of a family setting.

The sacraments and preaching are the center of a priest’s ministry. What an amazing way to encounter people and reveal to them the all-powerful and all-knowing God. It is simply unbelievable to be able to connect heaven and earth, to be able to “bring” God down from his heavenly throne to the hearts of his people, to be a tool through which this is accomplished. What an amazing grace and responsibility.

My liturgy professor back in the seminary once told me, explaining the position of priest’s hands while celebrating the Eucharist, that when the priest has his hands extended, the palms should be facing up in the gesture of holding and lifting up the prayers of the entire community. I like very much the image behind this explanation: lifting up to God the prayers of other people; helping others to be close to God, to walk in the company of Mary and all the saints. This is the wonderful ministry of priesthood in which I share.

Father Kalinowski, ordained in 1999 for the Diocese of Fall River, is currently studying canon law at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

Father Maurice O. Gauvin: From altar boy to priest

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 14:50:40 -0500

I cannot remember a day in my life when I did not want to be a priest. Even at an early age of five or six, I can always remember answering the question, “What do you want to be when you grow-up?,” with the answer, “A priest.”

When did I begin to answer the call to priesthood? My first answer to the call of service in the Church came after my first holy Communion when I haunted Father Tom Lopes, the assistant at St. Elizabeth Parish in Fall River, to let me be an altar boy.

At first Father Tom was reluctant to say yes for two reasons: my head just about reached the top of the high altar; and I had to learn Latin, since in 1965 the Latin Mass was still celebrated.

I did not take no for an answer. Every chance I had to ask Father Tom, I would — and believe me there were many opportunities for me to bug him, since he was not only the assistant at the parish but a friend of the family who often visited our home.

He had only one choice, which was to say yes to a very persistent six-year-old.

I attended altar boy classes that summer on Saturday mornings. We learned the rubrics of the Mass as well as the Latin responses, which were drummed into my head by memory because I could not read the Latin on the servers’ cards. I thank my mom for helping me with the prayers and responses. Every day we would go over the responses so that I finally had them memorized. During the Saturday morning classes, we also learned how to serve at funerals, weddings and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.

I passed the training classes and my first time serving at the altar was for a Sunday afternoon Benediction. I arrived at the church the required half-hour before it started, went to the “Altar Boy Sacristy,” and put on my cassock and surplice. Together with the older altar boys, I went out into the church, knelt at the altar rail, said a few quiet prayers before the ceremony, genuflected, and went to the priests’ sacristy. There I was struck with panic because Father João Medeiros, our pastor, was there. Until that afternoon every thing I had done in preparation had been with Father Tom; now the first time I was to serve would be with Father Medeiros. Even though Father Tom had told us that we would not only be assisting him but also our pastor, I was nonetheless caught off guard and wanted to turn around and run out.

Since it was time to begin, however, I processed out to the altar with the older servers and Father Medeiros. My role was small but needed: to bring Father Medeiros the humeral veil at the appropriate time.

Well, I missed my cue — and even now I still hear, in a deep almost Dracula-like voice traced with a Portuguese accent, “Mr. Gauvin, will you please get the cape?”

“Yes, Father,” I replied, and brought the humeral veil, placed it on his shoulders, knelt down to receive the Benediction and quickly and on cue retrieved the veil.

Why have I shared this story with you? It’s to show that a vocation to the priesthood begins at an early age for some men. An early vocation to the priesthood needs to be fostered by family and parish alike. My family and the parish community of St. Elizabeth fostered and encouraged my vocation to the priesthood.

I am grateful to my family for always supporting my vocation. I am thankful for the priests who have influenced my life’s vocation to the priesthood by their lived example of priestly life and service: Fathers Thomas Lopes, João Medeiros, Daniel Freitas, Jorge de J. Sousa, Joseph Viveiros and Manuel Ferreira have all in their own particular manner influenced my answering the call to service in the Church.

What might have happened if, at the end of Benediction some 44 years ago, I was told by Father Medeiros that it was wrong of me to have missed my cue, or if my mom and dad who were in church that afternoon together with my grandparents and godparents would had told me that I had embarrassed them so it was better for me to give up serving as an altar boy? I most likely would not be writing this article for The Anchor!

They didn’t, however, and I am proud to say that I never really left or quit serving as an altar boy. I took the next logical step for me after high school, applying for the seminary. After seven years of rather challenging studies, I was ordained to the priesthood by the Bishop Daniel A. Cronin on May 31, 1986 at the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption.

A vocation to the priesthood is a fragile thing in our times. It needs to be treated like a priceless jewel. If you know a young man who may be exhibiting signs of a vocation to the priesthood, encourage him and his family to nurture the call that he has received from God. Also please pray for vocations to the priesthood, that the Lord of the harvest will send workers into the fields. I ask that in your generosity you also pray for me and my brothers in the priesthood, that we continue faithfully to follow the Lord in our daily lives as we renew the commitments we first made at our ordinations.

Father Gauvin is parochial vicar at Holy Trinity Parish in West Harwich.

Father William H. Kelly, CSC: The changes and constants of a happy priestly life

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 12:24:04 -0500

I grew up in Lowell, Mass. and after graduating from Merrimack College, I taught high school science and math for several years. After many discussions and reflections, I decided to try to help others by my life in the priesthood.

I entered the Holy Cross Fathers seminary at Stonehill College. I spent one year in the novitiate in Bennington, Vt. and then did graduate work in Washington D.C. and received a degree from Notre Dame.

After ordination in 1970, I was on a mission band for six years, living and working out of North Dartmouth, giving missions and retreats in parish settings, retreat houses and to religious communities. The retreat work was enjoyable and I met a lot of good people searching for their Church after the changes that took place with the implementation of Vatican II. This time allowed me the chance to “fill in” at hospitals and various parishes. I spent a total of three months in the parish in Times Square as well as about four months at St. Patrick Cathedral, in New York.

During these years I saw some of the best parishes and some of the worst. I saw some of the best in religious life and some of the worst. I saw some of the best in human nature and some of the worst. It was an enriching experience indeed.

I spent the next six years in a parish in central Vermont. The Bethel parish covered close to 350 square miles and between two of us priests, there were five churches. Every other weekend there was a drive of 80 miles just to get to the churches for Mass. There was a lot of poverty in the area, including the church property. There were also two major ski areas in the parish. This was in the mid 70s, the time when a lot of people were returning to nature, giving up big jobs and taking a pay cut for the quality of life. I met some beautiful people in the hills and at the resorts. Many people allowed me to share in their lives some very significant moments.

From the hills of Vermont, I moved to Texas to be with Father Larry Bauer, CSC. He had spent 40 years in the hills of Bangladesh, worked 14 hours per day, and then made a holy hour every night. He was an inspiration to me and to all who knew him. Despite the fact that he was ordained the year I was born, I was the pastor. The parish was in Copperas Cove, near Fort Hood military base and most of the people were from somewhere else, having been assigned there for three years or having chosen to retire in the area. Again I was privileged to meet so many beautiful people at very significant times in their life.

My next assignment was back in Massachusetts in a parish in South Easton, where there were new experiences and many wonderful people.

As a gift for my 25 years as a priest, I had the opportunity to take a nine-month long sabbatical in Berkeley, Calif. For a person who grew up in Massachusetts, I always considered anything outside of Route 495 as far west. Going to California was a delightful experience. I attended workshops and classes with approximately 50 others, men and women. The speakers were some of the best and were for the most part inspirational. The Berkeley experience was exciting.

As my present to the community for the gift of the sabbatical, I agreed to be a curate in Bennington, Vt. for five years and as a curate in St. Mary’s Parish in Taunton for two. It was yet another chance to meet some wonderful people who shared part of their life with me and inspired me.

I was later named pastor and the only priest in Bennington. The staff meetings improved markedly as I always had good thoughts. Many of the staff meetings were on the chair lifts of Loon Mountain.

I have been fortunate to have never lived alone, but have lived with other priests or brothers.

Some of my activities since my ordination have had little to do with religion or priestly life. As one speaker described the life of a pastor, it concerns the big L’s: lights, locks, ledgers, lawns, laws and leaks.

During the last 39 years, many events stand out. There have been the deaths of my parents and other friends and relatives. There’s been the changing view of the priesthood, with many friends who are holier than I and much more effective, choosing to leave the active priesthood. There’s been a change in family life, with the joke that what used to be a dedicated family having several members entering religious life has now become a dysfunctional one.

As everyone who has worked in a parish, I have my share of “war stories” about weddings that most people would not believe. I have several sermons that people talk about and recall years later; many of these come from the very touching times of deaths and funerals, whether out of time or when death came as a welcome friend.

I remember the moving notes that I have received that I have never shared with anyone, the notes of people thanking me for helping them not to end their life, or about the work of God touching people though my presence. Often I have had many children call me God, but no parish council members among them. I have received great inspiration from families and friends living a faith-filled life. These are the things that come to mind.

Father Kelly is pastor of St. Mary’s Parish in Taunton.

Father Hugo Cardenas, IVE: The mystery of the priesthood

Tue, 29 Dec 2009 01:12:42 -0500

The call to be a priest is a great mystery. God calls whomever he wants, whenever he wants and however He wants. His call doesn’t depend on us at all. It doesn’t matter how good or bad we are. It is a free gift, without any personal merit.

It is not difficult to come to the conclusion that, because of our calling despite our weaknesses, God has shown priests more of his mercy. This is one way he has perhaps given us more. This, too, remains part of the mystery of the priesthood.

There are many different ideas about how God calls. Many people think that God calls us all the way he called St. Paul or some of the Old Testament prophets: by a voice, by some fire appearing in your room or another miraculous intervention. God does occasionally call a man in an extraordinary way, but most of the time it is through far more ordinary means. Regardless, eventually the idea of becoming a priest comes into a man’s mind. St. Thomas Aquinas said that such an idea can come from either God or the devil and that even if it comes from the devil, we should follow it because of the objective greatness of the vocation.

When we start to realize that God is calling us, the first reaction of many of us is, “Please, God, don’t call me. Ask me whatever you want but don’t ask me to be a priest.” Eventually we mature enough to say, “How can I pay you back for the enormous gift that you have given me?” (Ps 116:12).

My life as a priest has gone by so quickly. I cannot believe that I have already been a priest for five years. While we priests are always busy, I’ve discovered how important it is always to leave time for prayer, without which we can do nothing.

Prayer is also one of the only outlets we have for one of the activities that a priest does “alone” and can never really talk about with anyone other than the Lord: the sacrament of reconciliation. This is yet another part of the amazing and sacred mystery of the priesthood, in which the priest is the instrument by which God gives his mercy to sinners. The joy that a priest experiences cannot be fully shared with anyone but God himself, God who through him opens the doors of heaven for the sinner and closes the doors of hell.

I am so proud to be part of the ministers of the Church that Jesus Christ founded 2009 years ago when he told Peter, “You are rock and upon this rock I will built my church.” Human beings can think and worry about many things, but there is only one that is eternally important: our salvation and the salvation of all souls. As Christians by our baptism, we are part of this missionary program of Christ. God wanted it that way. As priests, we recognize that God wanted to use some men to be his shepherds after his own heart, and we have the privilege to be those men.

The world in which we are living is becoming less Christian. God has become last on many people’s list of priorities. We have kicked him out of our public offices, public schools, and even our conversations. People say that it is politically incorrect even to say the name of Jesus because it “offends” others. This is one of the reasons why it is very encouraging not only to be a Catholic Christian today, but also a priest, since we need to swim against a big current of confusion, against a culture of death as Pope John Paul II would call it, against a culture without real families values and against a world without God. This is a time, therefore, not just of great challenges but of great graces from God to rise up to meet those challenges.

It is impossible to separate the priesthood from the Eucharist. This is the fundamental reason why, I believe, I was called to be a priest: to celebrate the Eucharist. I still remember as yesterday my first Mass of Thanksgiving, which I celebrated in my home town. I was very nervous. My superior in the Institute of the Incarnate Word was next to me telling me what to do. After Mass, people came to kiss the hands of the new priest. That reminded me of the sacredness of the sacrament of holy orders that I had just received, that the priest’s hands and life have been separated or consecrated for God alone.

Just to think that after I say the words of consecration during Mass the bread and wine I hold in my hands become the Body, Blood, soul and divinity of our Lord goes beyond my or anyone’s capacity to understand. We can understand it only through faith. I am totally overwhelmed by the fact that, as a priest, doing what Christ commanded me to do, I can do things that no one else in the universe but priests can do. What a great gift.

Every day I give thanks to God for the great gift of the priesthood that he has given to me and to the whole Church, and I ask the Mother of God and our Blessed Virgin Mary to grant me the grace to persevere joyfully and faithfully to the end.

Father Cardenas, ordained in 2004 as a priest of the Institute of the Incarnate Word, is pastor of St. Killian Parish in New Bedford.

Father Gregory A. Mathias: Under Jesus’ watchful gaze

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 10:56:52 -0500

The first words that come to mind as I reflect back on my call to the priesthood are “subtle” and “ordinary.”

Maybe when people think of a man’s being “called” by God to become a priest, they conceive of some sort of spectacular event, such as when Moses beheld the burning bush or when St. Peter walked on water. While this may be true for some men, it was not so for me.

The “call” was very much woven into the fabric of my ordinary life. The family in which I grew up and was formed was a family of active faith: we were regular attendees at Sunday Mass, as well as holy days and during Lent and Holy Week.

I can distinctly recall the role of the latter in serving as a conveyance for God’s call. My mother would insist on our attendance at most or all of the Triduum celebrations that constitute Holy Week. My sister and I would, of course, vigorously protest the “above and beyond” nature of this church attendance: from our point of view, at that stage in life, it was sacrifice enough to endure the boredom of Sunday Mass. Nevertheless, we accompanied our parents to these liturgies and, despite my protests, I can remember distinctly a “call” in and through the liturgy. Looking back on it, I would say that it was as if my consciousness of God’s call was being stimulated by the elements of the liturgy — something that I had considered “boring” at that point in time. The dramatic gesture of the foot washing on Thursday, the veneration of the cross, the many candles shining in the darkness of Saturday night, and the mystical chanting of the Easter Proclamation — it was all very evocative for me. Moreover, within the space we used as a church back in those days — a rudimentary parish center with metal folding chairs — there was an image of Jesus hanging near the sanctuary that, like the Mona Lisa, felt like it was staring at me no matter where I sat at any given liturgy. Like the other elements of the liturgy I’ve mentioned, this image too served to stimulate my consciousness of a call from God.

Going to Mass was something I did as a pure duty back then, and not something I would have done of my own accord. The experiences of Holy Week are a very specific instance to which I can point in what was an otherwise diffuse experience. Quite honestly, I would have liked the “call” to be clearer: I would say that it had more the character of a “vague nagging.” When specific thoughts of becoming a priest entered my mind, I tried to shake them and get on with an “ordinary” life, but they persisted and grew throughout my teen-age years. Those years were awkward and uncomfortable for me. I distanced myself, as much as possible, from high school culture, restricting myself to a small group of buddies with whom I played soccer, worked on bikes, and hung out. Because it was a small group, there was ample time for me to be alone with my thoughts, and I often grabbed the dog and hit a trail in the woods just to get away from the perplexing aspects of my life.

As it turns out, these moments became very reflective times for me and provided me with the space and silence necessary to hear God’s voice. It was not an audible voice, but one that seemed to be mediated through the natural beauty of the woods and, simultaneously, within my mind and body. I never heard it say, clearly, “Be a priest.” Rather, it was a more subtle call to be attentive to the reality of God in my life and in the world. I began to contemplate life and the meaning of my life in the world. These thoughts included a strong sense of the transitory nature of life, the mystery of the world and all that fills it, and the mystery of my own unique place in the world. Of course, today I articulate this in much more sophisticated language than that to which I had access when I was 16 or 17 years old, but what I am expressing is basically how the call uniquely came to me.

When high school came to an end, I made the most vigorous effort to dismiss any sense of a call to the priesthood, real or perceived, because I had concluded that it would just simply be too much trouble to pursue, and I would certainly be seen as a freak by family and friends. Hence, I signed up for four years at a quasi-military college in pursuit of a career that I thought was for “real men.” It is not that I did not respect the priests who were examples to me during my life; quite the contrary, I believe I admired and appreciated them, if and when I thought of them. On some level, however, I had convinced myself that they were of a different order of human being, to which I did not belong.

Upon entering college, I was sure that I would put to rest the whole idea, and get on with something “serious.” The pressures of college work and military discipline, however, led me to take refuge in the campus Newman Club. Over time, my rapport with the chaplain grew and I was finally able to talk with someone about the stirrings I had been experiencing. In a sense, this chaplain gave me “permission” to open the door to the call without fear. He reassured me that such openness did not mean that I would be sacrificing my freedom to choose the path of my life ahead. After all, it was suggested, shouldn’t I want for my life what God wants of me?

The rest is history. It’s been 18 years, and I do, indeed, feel like I responded to the right call.

Father Mathias was ordained in 1991 and is pastor of St. Julie Billiart Parish in North Dartmouth and director of the Family Life Office of the diocese.

Father Thomas McElroy, SSCC: God’s vocational recipe

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 11:57:58 -0500

I am writing this article about my call to be a priest on June 7, the very day that I was ordained some 42 years ago.

There are many ingredients that lead to my call to the priesthood. It is almost like God’s great recipe to follow him.

I was blessed to have a mom and dad who encouraged me and all my siblings to follow the path that would lead us to serving others. The best example was their example. They believed in their faith and the nourishing of it. We had family prayer every night and my dad was a daily communicant. I often went with him to early morning Mass and I began to have such a love of that mystery that I wanted somehow to be a part of it.

Our folks used to leave books out for us to read and one book caught my eye. I grew up in a Dominican parish and got to meet many missionaries. Their lives intrigued me.

One day I picked up a book on Father Damien, the leprosy priest, who this year, on October 11, was canonized a saint. When I read his fantastic story, I wanted to experience the Congregation to which he belonged. Little did I know that the East Coast Province of the Congregation was in Fairhaven, Mass.

The rest is a beautiful adventure that has made me a religious of the Sacred Hearts by serving as a missionary priest.

I became a priest to serve the poor, to preach and to teach the love of God as experienced in the hearts of Jesus and Mary. The priesthood that I enjoy has made me a person who works to draw the people I serve into being a community. Priestly life has taught me the need for inclusiveness of the people in presenting the Lord’s message to the world. The involvement of the laity has taught me that all of us are responsible to bring Jesus to the world through our giftedness.

I have been a retreat master for the past 30 years. I have traveled extensively and, I have to say, this is one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. I marvel at the way the Gospel changes people of every color, creed, and nationality. This year alone I had two people attend retreats I gave in parishes; one had been away from the Church for 50 years and the other for 55 years.

It is often during the sacraments of Eucharist, healing and reconciliation when I feel closest to Christ. I can remember many moments when I have experienced the presence of the Lord. This entire adventure with Christ has taught me the need to be faithful to the Gospel of Jesus and to give hope to those whom Christ puts in my way.

People have always shown me the way to Christ. They have done it by forgiving my brokenness, encouraging my gifts used for the Lord, and by supporting me in the times I needed strength to go on. People have also helped me by encouraging the good things that help me grow and also by letting me know the negative things I do that disturb. All of this makes me feel appreciated and a part of the community.

Trying to give a reflection about the priesthood in a few words has really made me think of thousands of ways I have been blessed, but all my experiences of growing, learning, sadness, joy and disappointment wouldn’t fit on this page. I can say for sure that I would not trade my life as a religious priest of the Sacred Hearts for anything. It has been a joy to have been given this gift by Almighty God.

I am the richest man in the world because I belong to Jesus Christ. Thanks for letting me share. Think about joining us. I’ll be praying for you.

Sacred Hearts Father McElroy is pastor of St. Joseph Parish in Fairhaven.

Father Thomas C. Lopes: Back to the seminary on Tashmoo Avenue

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 16:43:17 -0500

I am writing my personal thoughts on the priesthood from my desk that overlooks the home and property where I grew up, in the town of Vineyard Haven on Martha’s Vineyard. The roots of my vocation to the priesthood will be found here, on Tashmoo Avenue, as a member of St. Augustine’s Parish.

I attended Tisbury High School and graduated in 1956. It was during my Junior year that I informed my parents that I wanted to enter the seminary and study for the priesthood. This decision had been discussed with the priests who had served the parish here on the Island during the course of my years as an altar server. They were all very supportive, but more importantly, their example, availability and the spirit with which they ministered to the people here on the Island, impressed me.

It was the faith of my parents and their involvement in the parish — along with the various priests who came to serve among us — that nurtured the desire within me to think about being like them. It was during these years that my parents were members of a couples’ club that met in the homes, so we often had priests at our home. Mom always had some sweet bread on hand.

After graduation, I was informed that I would attend St. Thomas Seminary in Bloomfield, Conn. Not having sufficient knowledge of Latin, I would be there for three years, even though the program was normally two years. In 1959, I moved to St. John’s Seminary in Brighton. Here the focus was on philosophy for two years. When I began the four years of theology, conducted in Latin, Rome gave permission for the classes to be taught in English. So much for my extra year at St. Thomas.

My seminary days and years are filled with many fond memories of teachers and classmates. I believe that we were blessed with a number of great professors who joined the faculty at a time when new and exciting developments were occurring as the Second Vatican Council was in session. My fondest memories were the developments in Scriptural and moral theology.

The other focus was on the spirituality of the diocesan priest. Our ministry in the parish would demand not only the knowledge of theology but also the skills for developing a spiritual life that would enable us to serve the people entrusted to our care.

Another plus during my years of study was the opportunity to have a spiritual director who provided the support and encouragement to set up a plan once we completed our course of study. Shortly after ordination, I had the opportunity to make a directed retreat at one of the area’s retreat centers and I have been able to stay with this program all my years of ministry.

It was during my years of service in Portuguese parishes that I was brought into contact with the devotions honoring the Holy Spirit, which is a particular custom of the Azorean Islands, the heritage of my father.

After completing 25 years of ministry, I went on sabbatical for three months. While there, one of the spiritual directors suggested a plan for spiritual growth: an hour a day, a day each month and a week each year of time set aside for personal prayer and reflection. I have found this schedule most rewarding.

I have been blessed with three brothers and three sisters. They are all married and have given me 27 nieces and nephews. My sacramental ministry to my family over the years has been a wonderful gift. It has now been extended to grand nephews and nieces. My extended family members continue to call upon me for their sacramental needs, providing me with much support, encouragement and joy.

I was ordained with two other classmates by Bishop Connolly on Feb. 13, 1965. Over the past 43 years, I have served in every deanery of the diocese. I served for eight years as a hospital chaplain, during which I was involved in two diocesan retreat programs: the Cursillo Movement for adult men and women, and the ECHO program for high school students. These provided a community of supportive friends throughout the diocese.

Another area of involvement over the years has been through the National Federation of Priests Councils. It is a nation-wide organization, now celebrating its 40th anniversary, whose membership comes from diocesan priest councils and works to be of service to priests and presbyteral councils. It functions in conjunction with the American bishops to provide programs, resources and support to member councils. Attending these national meetings has provided me a broad view of the Church across the country, especially of the wonderful work being done by priests in every state.

All through these years of ministry, I have managed to take time for myself, and I have enjoyed photography, travel, sailing, kayaking, gardening and spending time with my siblings and their families.

I retired last year and now I live and minister on the Island where I grew up. It is a joy to assist the local pastor and to give back to the community that fostered my vocation and enabled me to hear his call.

Father Lopes is a retired priest of the diocese living on Martha’s Vineyard.

Father Kevin A. Cook: The crosses and joys of priestly life

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:47:50 -0500

When a happily married couple is asked about their relationship, they can often recall the little details of the moments when they met, their time of dating and engagement, and their wedding day. Sometimes, however, they are not as quick to recall the countless moments of their married life for which those previous years prepared them. When they reflect on their marriage itself it takes more effort, because there are so many great memories that it is hard for them to describe it in a way that one can grasp the immensity and beauty of it.

This is a similar experience for me as a priest. Sometimes when giving vocation talks I can call to mind the detailed moments of when the awareness of God’s call began, intensified, or came to profound clarity. But when speaking about my life as a priest, it is harder to convey in words the experiences God has drawn me into and how Christ used them to bring others to him.

Like joyful married couples, a priest has countless joys along with many crosses. Though the crosses are real, they never come close to outweighing the joys one experiences when doing God’s will. In fact, when the crosses are responded to with faith and offered to Our Lord, they purify the soul and intensify the capacity to love.

Some of the daily crosses for a priest are: meeting people who are indifferent about the faith or angry with the Church; hearing people blame priests for every problem in the Church, when many times their anger comes more from a troubled conscious than some comment their priest made to them; or hearing the jokes about going to confession that people feel they have to make whenever they see a priest.

Then there are the unique crosses that stand out in my mind: burying a baby and knowing that only the message of faith will bring the baby’s parents comfort in the future; or the time a group of men drove up to a priest friend of mine and I as we were walking in Boston and spat at us; or the young ladies in New Bedford (who I never laid eyes on before) who decided to make some very vulgar comments at me as I was waiting at in intersection (on Easter of all days); or the cross of being rejected by a brother priest.

Even with those crosses, however, the joys are infinitely greater. Most of the supernatural joys of being a priest are humbling as well, because they come from just celebrating the sacraments as the Church asks the priests to offer them — and it is knowing it is not me who gives the profound experience but Christ through the sacrament.

Offering the Mass is my greatest joy in life; being God’s instrument of mercy in the sacrament of reconciliation is a close second. Some of the blessed moments I have experienced have occurred when, after offering the Mass, someone leaves telling me they had an experience of truly knowing Christ was present in the Eucharist; the countless times after hearing people’s confessions and giving absolution that I could sense an incredible peace overwhelm them, especially those who had been away from Our Lord for so many years; the memories of anointing people while tears were streaming down their faces because they knew Christ was with them helping them not to be afraid to face their grave illness; those moments of being present to people when they were taking their last breath, and though there was sadness for the family, they were at peace because you were there to help send the soul onward to God; the memories of witnessing the marriage of a couple that truly grasps that marriage is a vocation and they desire to let God lead them in their love; the many joys of baptizing someone and knowing God’s life is poured into them, especially when having the opportunity to baptize several nephews and nieces; the joyful occasions of preparing people to receive the sacrament of confirmation and seeing how they really grasp what it means to ask for the Gifts of the Holy Spirit; and lastly, the great opportunities to assist at priestly ordinations and be able to be the one who calls the newly-ordained priest for the first time in his life “Father.”

There are also the joys of learning more deeply how to be a spiritual father to others; of preaching, teaching, and forming people in their faith; of doing spiritual direction; of becoming a part of the lives of families; of helping someone to hear God’s call; of working with youth in the parish or school; of being able to serve the poor; of visiting the sick; of ministering to the men and women in jail; of chatting with a stranger in unexpected places and helping them with their problems, knowing they came up to me simply because I was a priest.

I do not know why God called me to be a priest of Jesus Christ, but he did, and I am forever grateful to God for such an extraordinary gift.

Father Cook was ordained in 2001 and is the assistant director of Vocations for the Diocese of Fall River as well as chaplain at Coyle and Cassidy High School and part-time chaplain at Morton Hospital, both in Taunton.

Msgr. Ronald A. Tosti: The reason why priests have a job

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:18:57 -0500

I am happy to be writing this article on May 11, the 47th anniversary of my ordination. It doesn’t seem possible that nearly five decades have passed since Bishop Connolly placed his hands on the head of this faith-filled, 25-year-old brown-haired, 150-pound man who began this journey. And what a journey it has been.

John F. Kennedy had just been elected — I attended his inauguration. The Second Vatican Council was becoming a reality and hope filled the air as well as my mind and heart. They were wonderful times for the Church and for priests.

I began as “curate” at Our Lady of the Assumption Parish in Osterville where I had the opportunity to bring about the changes of the Council. It wasn’t easy. The pastor wanted no part of change.

My first weekend, I went to the front of the church before and after each Mass to greet the people. The pastor was furious and said, “We don’t do that.” I was in turmoil but convinced that what I was doing was essential to ministry.

The next weekend, I repeated my action. The silence was deafening at the rectory.

The third week, I went out and discovered I was not alone. The pastor was by my side and did the same for the rest of his active ministry.

Change didn’t come easily but it came. What a joy at last to celebrate Mass in English, to encourage participation in the Liturgy and to empower the laity to ministry of all sorts. The Church was alive and exciting, with churches filled and the faithful being served by priests and by each other.

I had the good fortune to be sent to Fordham University for graduate studies, which brought my theological training up to date. My renewed education brought me to diocesan leadership in Religious Education and, although short-lived because of administrative changes, carried me to this day with a hopeful attitude of the priesthood as a life of service to others and with a multi-dimensional definition of the Church.

Beyond Religious Education, our bishops afforded me opportunities for leadership as the director of the diocese’s 75th jubilee, of the Office of Family Ministry and the Office of Pastoral Planning — a job that garnered me the title of “Msgr. Kevorkian.”

Throughout all of this, I had a pastoral assignment as well. Obviously, the work that was given to me in the founding of a new parish in Mashpee and overseeing the building of a considerable plant was a special part of my life as a pastor, which has always been my true love.

All of this was done in a climate of faith, not secularism as today. I pray that those who are following me will have the courage to bring about change by using the wonderful teachings of the Second Vatican Council to accept people where they are at and not where they might want them to be; to leap forth from clerical rigidity to acceptance and joy; to step forward from elitist partitions into the mainstream of the “little people of God,” who look to us for kindness, understanding, and, yes, love.

When I was a youngster working in my father’s store, he taught me that the customer was not an interruption but the reason why I had a job. I have tried to use that same purposeful philosophy in my 47 years of active ministry, welcoming the people of God with a positive attitude and a smile. I have loved every minute of it — well, almost every minute.

Now that I am retired from the responsibilities of administration, I have the freedom to continue to minister through celebrating Masses at two different parishes and helping out wherever there is a need. I also have the freedom, and, thank God, the health to continue enjoying community involvement and my avocations in addition to priestly ministry.

My life is full and very happy as it has been throughout this journey. I can only hope that Christ will continue to use this unworthy instrument to make a difference in peoples’ lives. I look forward to a different Church than that which I entered into in 1962, one that I face now as a white-haired, much heavier septuagenarian, but, please God, with that same hope that is still founded in faith in his never-ending love.

Msgr. Tosti retired as pastor of Christ the King Parish in Mashpee in 2006 and now lives in Cotuit.

Father Daniel W. Lacroix: From transitional deacon to priesthood to permanent diaconate

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:12:44 -0500

“Lord, Teach Us” is the motto of our parish preparatory school; it should be the motto of all priests ordained to ministry in the Diocese of Fall River.

On June 4, 1988 Bishop Daniel A. Cronin ordained George Scales and me to the priesthood for service to the people of the Fall River Diocese. I knew that the charism of a diocesan priest is different from that of a religious order priest, such as a Franciscan, Jesuit, or Dominican.

I knew I was at the service of the bishop to be assigned anywhere in the diocese and could be re-assigned at anytime because of need, but I imagined my ministry would be limited to the parish to which I was assigned, and that it would be parochial ministry. I anticipated I would be doing solely parish work, Masses, baptisms, weddings, funerals, Religious Education, parish meetings and appointments for one particular parish. I would spend five days a week ministering to a particular parish family.

My narrow view of ministry widened in the mid-1990s when then-Father John F. Moore, the director of the Permanent Diaconate Office, invited me to teach a course on sacraments for the permanent deacon candidates. Father Moore had been the pastor of my home parish of St. Mary’s, New Bedford and had known of my background in teaching prior to entering St. John’s Seminary in 1983. He asked if I would teach a course in sacraments. That moment of grace has permitted me to journey now with three deacon ordination classes. The last two I taught a course on “Prayer and Spirituality” and with one class, “Prayer and Spirituality” and an “Introduction to Liturgy.”

I can truly say having the opportunity to come to know these dedicated and hard-working men has been a great grace in my life. A major part of priestly ministry is teaching the faith, from Scripture to tradition, and while it can be accomplished on the parish level at Mass during the homily, it always becomes limited by time and, sometimes, interest. Having the opportunity to teach men who want to know about our sacramental Church, its history, its tradition of prayer and its worship style is uplifting.

It is humbling to see men, most of whom are married and with families, who get up at 5 a.m. to put in a full day’s work in the secular world, and then come and gather two evenings a week, from September to December and from January to May, from 7-9 p.m. to pray and study all that they need to minister as permanent deacons. It’s energizing to my priesthood to witness their openness and desire to learn and then go out into the world to work alongside others and bring Christ and his message to those who may or may not be active Catholics.

I have had the privilege to work with permanent deacons: Deacon Bill Martin at St. Patrick’s in Wareham; Deacon Thomas Palanza and Deacon Walter Thomas at St. Mary’s, Mansfield; Deacon Michael Guy and then (a former student) Deacon David Pepin at St. Francis Xavier in Acushnet; and finally now Deacon Richard Dresser and Deacon Richard Murphy here at St. Francis Xavier, Hyannis. I have seen their desire to assist the parish priests build up their parish families and minister in the wider local community, extensions of love to the mystical Body of Christ.

As I look back 21 years since being called to orders, it amazes me to think of the number of baptisms, funerals, weddings, liturgies, meetings and appointments I have participated in, but the most personally memorable events in my journey so far have been the opportunities to share not only what I have learned, but who I am to these young and sometimes, not so young men, that they may have the same desire and love I have for the Church. They form the core of the community that will act as a leaven for the others to see and follow through their ability to baptize, preside at wakes, funerals and weddings outside Mass, preach and teach, conduct parish meetings and continue the work of ministry germane to their order of deacon.

The new class of deacons is currently being discerned as I write this. I anticipate, and hopefully not with arrogance, a phone call to ask if I wish to teach a course or two for this new class. It not only helps the diaconate program and its current director, Msgr. John J. Oliveira, but it helps me re-learn and become re-energized about my ministry.

Father Lacroix is Pastor of St. Francis Xavier Parish in Hyannis.

Father David A. Pignato: The priest in the plan of God

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:28:20 -0500

Eight years after my ordination, I’m happy to say that I love being a priest even more than I thought I would, and each day I love it even more than the day before. This is true, in spite of the challenges, frustrations and disappointments, the personal pastoral failures and even the shocking revelation of scandal within the priesthood, all of which can threaten to rob every priest of his happiness.

And when I consider how much I still love being a priest, despite all the real risks of becoming discouraged or sour, I marvel at what God has done to sustain his joy in me.

There are many reasons why I love being a priest, not the least of which is trusting that my life and work are part of God’s plan for the world. We know that God places priests in the world to be his coworkers in his plan of salvation, and so every priest knows that if he truly commits himself to the work of Christ, he will be playing an important part in the accomplishment of God’s salvific plan.

My own personal confirmation of this truth has come most clearly in my work with students as a high school chaplain, with inmates at a local jail, and also with homeless immigrants in Rome, during the time of my graduate studies. In so many different encounters with other individuals, I have sensed with certainty that “this is one of the souls for whom God planned my life as a priest.”

So many times, usually in private conversations or while hearing confessions, but also in public moments — such as voicing an unpopular truth or offering a word of challenge or encouragement while preaching — I have been struck with the conviction, “This is why I am a priest. This moment, this person, is part of the reason why God asked me to be a priest.” It’s always the individual soul before me who reminds me why I am ultimately a priest.

If a priest sets aside his own will, purifies his motives and surrenders to being an instrument in God’s hands, he can dare to believe that he is playing an important part in the mystery of divine providence, which daily unfolds before him in his encounters with the souls whom God has placed in his path. By intercepting these souls, as an “ambassador for Christ” (2Cor 5:20), and encouraging them or redirecting them toward Christ, a priest realizes more and more why God has called him and asked him to make the sacrifices necessary to live this one life as a priest.

My own awareness of playing a part in God’s plan has been strongest when I’ve met and worked with souls who have related to me as someone whom God has put in the world for them. So often people approach and respond to a priest as someone who belongs to them, someone who exists for the particular purpose of helping them. And we priests know this is true. We know that we are placed in the world by God to serve and assist others, especially those for whom this life is difficult or burdensome, including the poor and those who suffer from affliction, sorrow or despair. We know that we are asked by God to be a friend to the friendless and an advocate for the lowly, the disadvantaged and the forgotten, with whom we should have a certain solidarity and compassion.

For us priests, the ultimate goal, and the greatest reward, is always helping others to become convinced that Christ is “the way, and the truth, and the life” (Jn 14:6). But sometimes our role in God’s plan is merely to remind a person that he or she is not forgotten by God, or to encourage him or her to persevere with hope through the trials and difficulties of life. This is often when we sense with clarity that we are being used by God for a preordained purpose. In my own work, when I have consoled a student coping with a tragedy, or encouraged an inmate recovering from an addiction, or assured an immigrant that God is still present in his life, I have watched the mystery of my own vocation unfolding before me.

Just as every Christian knows that his life is not his own, as St. Paul reminds us (1Cor 6:19), because “if we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord” (Rom 14: 8), so does every priest know that his life and his work is not his own. It belongs to the mysterious plan of God, who chose him to be one of his coworkers; and it also belongs to those for whom God has called him, and to whom God has sent him. And this is one of the reasons why I love being a priest.

Father Pignato is completing doctoral studies in sacred theology at the Pontifical Institute of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.

Father George E. Harrison: The source and summit of priestly life

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:08:11 -0500

“Amazing grace, that saved and set me free.”

My entire life and call to the priesthood is a story of “amazing grace.” In the unfolding of God’s plan for my life, I did not always have clarity of vision and full understanding of what God was doing at a particular moment in time, but as I look back on the road I have travelled, I see clearly that the Covenant God has entered into with all of his children — “I love you. I am committed to you. I promise that I will never forsake you. You are mine and I am yours. I am your Father and you are my child” — has been realized in my life.

I was born into an Irish Catholic home that was a genuine school of faith and prayer. In addition to my family, the dedicated and holy priests of my parish had a profound influence on my spiritual life and vocation to the priesthood. I began my Catholic education at Msgr. James Coyle High School in Taunton, which surely was an act of Providence and a significant step in the direction of my priestly vocation.

Providentially, my experience with horses opened the door to a summer job at Cathedral Camp, a diocesan camp staffed by seminarians. I remember clearly that one day, while I was teaching the campers how to ride horses, one of the seminarians asked me, “Have you ever thought about becoming a priest?” At the time, my plan was to become a veterinarian. From that time on, with the encouragement of my high school chaplain, I began a period of discernment that would lead to my entering the seminary after graduating from high school.

The summer before entering the seminary, I received the gift of a rosary and a prayer card with a quotation from St. Jean Marie Vianney, which read, “Only in heaven will you know what a priest is; if you were to know this on earth, you would die, not of grief, but of love.” At the time, I did not fully comprehend the meaning of these words, but now they make me tremble.

I was ordained a priest on May 18, 1968 by Bishop James L. Connolly. My ordination invitation read: “It is the Lord who sends me to you, my brothers” (I Cor. 2:1-5). At the beginning of my priestly life and ministry, it was very clear to me that I was a priest because the Lord had chosen me. I am not worthy, I am not the best possible choice, but nonetheless, I am chosen. Like St. Jean Vianney, I realized that the mission given to me was completely beyond my ability.

During the initial years of my priestly life and ministry, there was much excitement in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. With the changing times there were endless meetings and programs. Soon the structured prayer life, established during my seminary formation and essential for a healthy spiritual life, gave way to endless activity. I did not realize at the time that I had begun to put the work of the Lord before the Lord of the work. In retrospect, it was not a spiritually fruitful time in my life, at least not the kind of fruit that would remain. Obviously, this is the reason that the spirit of this world continually attempts to lead us away from prayer and contemplation.

I was at a crossroads in my young priestly life. I grew to realize more fully that if my priestly ministry were to bear abundant fruit, it would come from Jesus working through me.

I made a decision to spend one hour every day with our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. I continue this practice to the present day and I am grateful that the primacy of prayer in my life has been the source of innumerable graces and blessings. I now realize why St. Jean Vianney, the patron of parish priests, taught that prayer was the most, not the least, a priest could do for his people. He knew that the fruitfulness of his priestly ministry lay not in clever preaching, creative ideas and programs, but first of all in offering himself daily in love as an oblation for his people. The transformation of his parish in Ars, France, teaches us that effective renewal in our parishes is built upon the priest’s inner life with Christ.

Fifteen years after my ordination, the bishop called to tell me he was sending me back to Cathedral Camp as director and to explore the possibility of establishing a new parish community in East Freetown. Five years later, after the Lord had built a beautiful, faith-filled parish community under the patronage of St. John Neumann, I was standing next to the bishop as he consecrated the altar of a beautiful new church and eucharistic chapel in the middle of the horse field where I had been asked by a seminarian 25 years earlier, “Have you ever thought of becoming a priest?” Surely, divine Providence was at work.

Today, I count it to be one of my greatest blessings to have established eucharistic adoration chapels in each of my three pastorates. I continue to be inspired as I witness the young and the old, some troubled and afflicted, others anxious and worried, entering into the real presence of the Lord to adore and to seek solace and comfort from the one who spoke to the raging wind and sea, “Be still! And there was great calm” (Mt. 4:39).

Upon reflection, the greatest lesson I have learned during the past 41 years of priestly life and ministry, is that when the eucharistic presence of Jesus is placed at the center of parish life and devotion to Our Lady is fostered, everything else falls into place. This is my true experience.

“Through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come. ’Twas grace that brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.”

Father Harrison is pastor of Holy Name Parish in Fall River.

Father William P. Blottman: An ordinary man called to the extraordinary

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:07:05 -0500

Maybe the seed of my vocation was planted piling in dad’s Buick — mom and dad and the six of us kids, with Joan and me in the rumble seat heading off to church. I was certainly well-loved. I had four older sisters who doted on me and a great big brother and I were nurtured in a faith-filled family.

The seed of my priestly vocation certainly remained dormant for a while, however. I suppose every priest has been asked at some time or other why he became a priest or how God called him to become a priest. The answer is not that one individual is better than the next. I’ve always considered myself a regular guy, kind of average. Some mysterious elements were at work in me, however, that moved me to this vocation. It’s not that I was knocked off a horse and told to follow Christ. It was rather a gentle invitation from the recesses of my heart, a counsel rather than a command from God. My response to this invitation is my story.

I remember worshiping with mom and dad and the family at Mass on Sunday mornings. My parents’ faithful attendance at Mass and the sacraments was a strong influence on their children. Their faith was not just a notional faith, but a deep one that was put into action in their daily lives.

It was the summer of my senior year at Holy Cross College when I began seriously to consider the priesthood. The consecrated life was a part of my family. My sister is a Religious of the Cenacle Sisters, a community whose main apostolate is to conduct retreats for women. My mom’s sister, Sister Peg Williams, is a Precious Blood Sister whose main apostolate is education. My dad’s sister, Sister Mary Amelia, was a Notre Dame de Namur Sister whose main apostolate also was education. My great uncle, Father Lawrence Blottman, was a parish priest in the Cincinnati Diocese.

It was during the summer of my senior year that I spoke with our pastor, Msgr. John Shea, a fine gentleman and a great priest about the priesthood. He was influential in “fine tuning” my vocation by advising me that a two-year stretch in the U.S. Army would be a maturation process. Evidently the Selective Service was of the same mind because after graduating in June from Holy Cross High College, I was ordered to report on July 11 to Boston to be sworn in.

After boot camp I certainly didn’t see how the Army was going to help me in my discernment process, but God knows what he’s doing. Stationed in Germany during the Cold War, I became good friends with a fellow soldier named Don, who was a former seminarian, good Catholic and great traveling companion. During rest and relaxation, we traveled together in Europe and even went on retreat in Berchtesgaden in Bavaria.

One of the most enlightening experiences was our pilgrimage to Lourdes in 1958 during the year celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Blessed Mother’s apparition to St. Bernadette at the Grotto. Without realizing it, we had arrived on the feast of the Holy Rosary, October 7. With candles in hand we joined the others in procession, singing Marian hymns. I felt Mary’s love permeating my being. I knew that whatever difficulties I would face in pursuing a vocation in the priesthood, I could turn to Mary in prayer.

We met there an English priest who had lost his faith, but his faith was restored when he had an aesthetic experience praying at this wonderful shrine. He had stayed on as an English confessor to manifest his gratitude for his conversion. This was also a “firming up” experience in my vocation to the priesthood. Not only was my two-year stint in the Army a time of maturation, but it solidified my desire to pursue the priesthood. I was convinced that there was a real need to fight evil with the power of the priesthood.

Two months before my discharge from the Army, I applied to St. Philip Neri School for delayed vocations and was accepted for the fall class of 1959. This was an intensified curriculum with a concentration on Latin and Greek. The phrase, “It’s all Greek to me,” took on a whole new meaning. It was a grueling course of study, but the following June I graduated, with our commencement exercises held at St. Ignatius Church on the Boston College campus. Cardinal Cushing, always a very moving orator, was our commencement speaker. He did not disappoint.

That summer I received my letter from Bishop James L. Connolly assigning me to St. John’s Seminary in Brighton. When I entered in September of 1960, I was greeted with a week-long silent retreat. This was a different experience from the very open classroom of St. Philip Neri School, but it was a good way to start one’s seminary training. Uniting both the discipline of study with spiritual exercises, our days consisted of morning Mass, the particular examen, and spiritual reading, which blended well with the theology and philosophy courses we were taking.

During my first year in the seminary, which was second philosophy, I remember asking God in prayer if I were on the right track. I was blessed with the Gift of Tears and an awesome peace came over me. I’ve never again questioned my vocation.

Our Church has been blessed with some very gifted men, brilliant men and very pious men as priests. I hope that in relating my story, some very ordinary young man who deeply loves God and feels the gentle invitation in the recesses of his heart will respond and follow Christ.

The response to this invitation, this counsel, depends on the individual’s acceptance through grace. And this invitation must be sustained right through the training in the seminary, at ordination and all through the life of a priest by divine grace. It is indeed a gift that we must respond to. Freely given, it must be freely received.

Father Blottman, ordained in 1965, is a retired priest of the Diocese and lives at the Cardinal Medeiros Residence in Fall River.

Father Timothy J. Goldrick: Exclusive - Pope Benedict XVI interviews Father Yewdew

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:06:21 -0500

B 16 — “Welcome, Father. As you know, I’ve declared a Year of the Priesthood. I want to learn more about what it means to be a simple parish priest these days. I’m meeting privately with individual priests from around the world.”

Me — “I’m very nervous, Your Graciousness.”

B 16 — “That’s Your Holiness.”

Me — “Excuse me, Your Holiness. I’m overwhelmed by all this.”

B 16 — “I understand. ‘Yewdew’ is an unusual surname.”

Me — “It’s a misnomer. Whenever I asked a parishioner who did what in the parish, they would say, ‘Father Yewdew.’ At first, I suspected I had an unseen assistant with tremendous talent and energy, but then I realized parishioners were saying, ‘Who does this? Father, you do.’”

B 16 — “Tell me, Father, how you discerned a priestly vocation?”

Me — “I was a junior in high school, trying to figure out what to do with my life. My Scholastic Aptitude Test suggested I be either a clergyman or an automobile mechanic. One day, praying alone in the church, God spoke to me. God said I should consider priesthood.

B 16 — “You heard voices?”

Me — “Not actual voices. It was a message I heard with my heart, not my ears.”

B 16 — “What did you do?”

Me — “I went and knocked at the door of the rectory to see my pastor.”

B 16 — “What did your pastor say?”

Me — “He scolded me for using the back door and sent around to the office entrance.”

B 16 — “Then what?”

Me — “I was sent to meet with a diocesan official. He welcomed me warmly and asked me questions. I was so nervous I could hardly remember my name. When he asked me why I wanted to be a priest, I was tongue-tied. I really didn’t know why I felt called. My answer was less than inspiring. I mumbled, ‘To help people?’ I thought for sure I had failed the interview, but I hadn’t. He was very understanding.”

B 16 — “Then what?”

Me — “I lacked credits in Latin, so I was sent to a college offering four years of intensive Latin study as well as my major in philosophy.”

B 16 — “Did the Latin course prove helpful to you?”

Me — “I learned Latin inside out. Shortly after I graduated, though, the Mass changed from Latin to English. I never used the Latin.”

B 16 — “Now you can, Father. How did you find your study of theology?”

Me — “Quite frankly, Your Beatitude, I found it boring. It seemed so intellectual. It did not speak to my heart. To me, faith begins in the heart, not in the mind. Things in the seminary have now changed, I understand.”

B 16 — “That’s Your Holiness. What do you remember most about your ordination to the priesthood?”

Me — “What touched me most during the ceremony was lying on the floor of the cathedral while the People of God invoked the Litany of the Saints. ‘Pray for us,’ they beseeched. This struck me as apropos. With me as a priest, they needed all the help they could get.”

B 16 — “Do you like being a priest?”

Me — “Very much so. I know without a doubt that God intends me to be a priest. The highlight of my days is presiding at Eucharist. I’m invited to be present at the most intimate times in people’s lives — at their wedding, at the birth of their children, in times of sickness, and at the moment of death. I am exactly who and where I am supposed to be. This fills me with gratitude and joy, as well as humility. I am not worthy.”

B 16 — “Have you changed since your early days in the seminary?”

Me — “People tell me this all the time. It’s due to the grace of God. I’m now able, for the most part, to do what I feared most: I’m able to preach, to write and to teach. God accomplishes these works in me. I’m in awe at the power of the Holy Spirit bestowed in the sacrament of ordination.”

B 16 — “I read The Anchor. The Vatican Library subscribes. If you don’t mind my saying so, your life seems very ordinary. How many parish assignments have you had?”

Me — “Sometimes God uses the ordinary to accomplish the extraordinary. I’ve been assigned to 15 parishes in 37 years. This past year, I’ve served as pastor of three different parishes — without even leaving my house. I once asked diocesan officials why I was getting all these assignments. I don’t remember ever taking a vow of instability. Was I a bad priest? I was told the opposite was the case.”

B 16 — “Thank you. There’s a priest from Mongolia waiting to see me now.”

Me — “My pleasure, Your Serenity.”

B 16 — “NEXT!”

In my dreams.

Father Goldrick was ordained in 1972 and is pastor of St. Nicholas of Myra Parish in North Dighton.

Father Karl C. Bissinger: The desires through which God calls

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:05:20 -0500

Reflecting on my childhood, I remember always being attracted to Mass, to the Bible, to the beauty of the church building, to the rosary, and to the solace of personal prayer. Although I went to public school, I became an altar server in fourth or fifth grade and then a lector after confirmation. Around the time of preparing and receiving that sacrament, when I was beginning high school, I definitely felt called to the priesthood.

What eventually made me step forward much later in life, however, was not one particular moment of vocation — no booming voice from heaven or single event of epiphany — but the persistence of feeling called. That feeling would surface from time to time over the years during both my late teens and my 20s.

The possibility of having a vocation probably began with a desire to know the meaning of my life. It was like an obsession. A great big, beautiful world surrounded me and I longed to know my place in it. I had a hunger and thirst for this. Through this feeling, God was drawing me to himself.

I also wanted to do something great with my life, something noble, something extraordinary, something exciting, urgent, and adventurous. I saw the priesthood as all of this. The vocation to be a missionary especially seemed to contain all of this: to leave home, to go to a foreign land, maybe even to face danger, in order to spread the faith.

I wanted to learn more about the Catholic faith and I wanted to share it with others. I wanted to teach others about Christ and the Church. I wanted to help others find God as I had found him.

I know I have been using the word “want” a lot. I “wanted” this and I “desired” that. Someone might object and ask, “Was this God calling you or something you took upon yourself?”

As the Letter to the Hebrews states, “No one takes this honor upon himself but only when called by God” (Heb 5:4). I believe in that. A vocation is a gift from God. I have a conviction, however, that through these very desires God was speaking to me and calling me. I have also realized that not everyone has these desires. These desires, moreover, led me toward God, not away from him. I was willing to consider a vocation to the priesthood as a solution to these desires. Other young men do not; or they object when someone proposes the priesthood to them. So in this I see how God was really calling me, even though I describe it in terms of my desires and of what I wanted.

Furthermore, I wanted to do something counter-cultural. I thought of this in terms of rejecting materialism and the values of our secular society. I wanted to criticize the dominant mentality. I didn’t realize how counter-cultural my decision would, in fact, be. Dressing like a priest and going around as a priest are really eye-opening experiences. I get a mix of reactions that run the whole gamut: deep, sincere respect (most of the time); feigned respect and sanctimoniousness; curiosity; but also indifference and dismissive attitudes; discomfort; and lastly — but, thankfully, very rarely — outright hostility.

Finally, I perceived the need — the need for priests — and the fact that I could help fill it. My attitude was, “Here I am, Lord! Send me!” (Is 6:8b). I understood that the Church would have to ratify my vocation. But as long as no one in authority was saying no, I was saying yes. Throughout seminary formation, my private policy always was, “If one day the rector, my spiritual director, or the bishop tells me I don’t have a vocation, I will pack up my things and go home.” I promised myself I would try to accept their judgment with humility and docility. I never had to test that policy.

Above all, however, I felt called to the priesthood in order to follow Christ more closely. I felt that this was the way God wanted me to be a Christian man. I felt this was the way God wanted me to work out my salvation — as a priest.

These feelings led me to enter the seminary and answer God’s call to become a priest. While I was in the seminary, I had much time to pray and to reflect on my life. I thought of all the blessings God had given me: my parents, my grandparents, my family, my education, my talents, my friends, and all the things I had experienced. I came up with a big list of what I felt grateful for. I felt I wanted to make a return to God for the wonderful life he had given me — that he continues to give me.

I asked myself, “What else can I give God, except my life?” I made my own the words of the Psalmist, “How can I repay the Lord for all the good done for me? I will raise the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord” (Ps 116:12-13).

Father Bissinger was ordained in 2005 and is diocesan Vocations director and secretary to Bishop George W. Coleman.

Father John P. Kelleher, OSB: Riches beyond measure

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:04:09 -0500

I can hardly believe it’s been 20 years since I was ordained a priest. Where does the time go? I still feel like I’m the 30-year-old man who was ordained at St. Camillus Church in Silver Spring, Md., in 1989. On the other hand, my body sometimes gently reminds me that I am not 30 years old anymore.

Having lived the last 20 years of my life as a priest, I realize that I am a very rich man. I’m not talking about a Warren Buffet, $37 billion kind of rich. I’m talking about a kind of wealth that even millions or billions of dollars could never buy.

Recently, I responded to an emergency call that was made to Our Lady of Victory in Centerville. The woman on the phone explained that her husband was dying, and she requested that a priest come to the home to anoint him with the sacrament of the sick.

I must admit that often my first reaction when I’m asked to anoint someone is usually not, “Great. I can’t wait to get over there.” Usually, I feel a sense of apprehension and anxiety about entering the situation. No one really “enjoys” being around serious illness and heart-wrenching sadness. Yet, these experiences are often very beautiful and powerful.

I arrived at the house about 15 minutes after receiving the message, and I was greeted by the woman who had called. Her husband was lying in bed, conscious, but obviously weak. Their daughter also joined us, and our conversation was relaxed and natural. I felt at home with the family, and they seemed at home with me. But even “feeling at home” doesn’t explain how I ended up telling the story that spontaneously came out of me within a matter of minutes.

Suddenly, I found myself telling the dying man a story about the time I was stopped by the police on the Massachusetts Turnpike as I went through Chicopee. I had been caught speeding. The speed limit had changed from 65 to 55 on that part of the turnpike, and I had neglected to make the necessary adjustment and slow my car down. So I was issued a speeding ticket.

When I finished telling the story, I remarked to the man, “This is my confession to you. Will you absolve me?” The irony and the humor of a priest confessing something to someone who was dying was not lost on any of us. We all chuckled, including the dying man. Then we all prayed together. I had brought holy Communion with me so that the man and his family could be comforted and strengthened by receiving the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. They were grateful to receive this precious gift.

We also celebrated the sacrament of the anointing of the sick. I anointed the man on his forehead and on the palms of his hands with the oil that had been blessed by Bishop George W. Coleman at the Chrism Mass. In the midst of our shared prayer, I felt a sense of peace and calm among us. It seems that the love of God, in all of its beauty and splendor, was very powerfully present with us in Word (Scripture), in sacrament, and in our attention to one another during this encounter.

Before I left the house, the family expressed their sincere and heartfelt gratitude for my visit. It had obviously meant a great deal to them. But it had also meant a lot to me. From my perspective, I had shared the presence of Christ with a faith-filled family. But I had also experienced the Lord’s loving presence through them. We had shared stories, we had prayed together, and by being a little playful, I had made a dying man laugh one more time. I am not kidding when I tell you: That made my day.

A few days later, much to my surprise, I actually received a thank-you card from the man who was dying. He told me he was deeply grateful for my visit, and that he missed worshiping with us in the parish community. His wife told me that he really wanted to get that card out to me. It was so important to him. It made my day again. The man who chuckled at my highway confession and at my playful request for absolution died about a week after my visit.

I was able to visit him one more time before he died, but by the time of my second visit, he was no longer able to communicate verbally. I have since shed a few tears for this man and his family, and said a lot of prayers for them, too. I am grateful that my life was enriched because our paths intersected, if only for a short time.

This is what I mean when I say that in my life as a priest I am very rich. Money can’t buy an experience like the one I just described. Money can’t buy experiences with others that are beautiful, powerful, meaningful, touching, sacred or truly life-giving. Yet, in my life as a priest, these kinds of experiences are possible on any given day. You just have to give yourself to them.

I am happy to say that I am a very rich man. Filthy rich, in fact. But my wealth has little to do with money, and lots to do with the only three things that really last: faith, hope and love.

Father Kelleher was ordained a Benedictine priest in 1989 and is parochial vicar at Our Lady of Victory Parish in Centerville.