Monday 13 January 2014

O priest you are not a social worker....



.....or a political activist, or, indeed, a committee member.

Your task is to anoint the sick, hear the confessions of the healthy, offer the Sacrifice of the Mass and to save souls as a shepherd saves his flock:-


Prayer of St Norbert

O Priest, who are you?
You are not yourself  because you are God.
You are not of yourself because you are
 the servant and minister of Christ.

You are not your own because you
are the spouse of the Church.
You are not yourself because you are the
mediator between God and man.

You are not from yourself
because you are nothing.

What then are you?
Nothing and everything.

O Priest! Take care lest what was said
to Christ on the cross be said to you:
'He saved others, himself he cannot save'

A tip of a white biretta to GD

17 comments:

  1. YOUR HAND
    I'D KISS

    Your hand I'd kiss
    But not for this
    The mundane games
    Men play.

    Your hand I'd kiss
    For doing this
    Absolve my sins
    Away.

    Your hand I'd kiss
    But not for this
    That any man
    Can do.

    Your hand I'd kiss
    For doing this
    God's strong, His choice
    The few.

    Your hand I'd kiss
    But not for this
    Like any
    Virile male.

    Your hand I'd kiss
    For doing this
    Place Him between
    Lips pale.

    Your hand I'd kiss
    But not for this
    Your strength
    Exudes each pore.

    Your hand I'd kiss
    For doing this
    Your prayers
    I do implore.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've only seen someone kiss a priest's hand once. it was very hard to tell what he thought of it. it was very easy to tell the grace the old man knew from that kiss, however.

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    2. Viterbo, it is a good practice, perhaps best reserved for venerable priests. I have no qualms about doing it.

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  2. Every Christmas my pp opens up the parish hall for the homeless and makes a big song and dance about it. Fair enough.
    Having noted that there are a few very elderly parishioners who are always on their own at Mass, and who creep out at the end without speaking to anyone, I asked the pp one year if some of them might like to come for Christmas dinner at my place. He hadn't a clue who they were and admitted he hadn't even noticed them in his congregation.
    So if any of them became housebound, no-one would know and they wouldn't be visited or given the Sacrament.

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  3. why wait for your pp to ask them? better still, ask your elderly fellow parishioners yourself!
    you can be the link between them and the parish when they become housebound

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think the answer is that a pp should know his parishioners, or at least have clocked them. He could have mentioned the invitation during the notices to show everything was above board. It might seem a bit odd for a stranger to start accosting vulnerable people outside the church.
      However, since I am likely to be moving away to a new parish this year. I can try again there.

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    2. Best wishes Genty in your new parish. I hope the parishioners and their pp get to know you and make you welcome.

      Delete
  4. Anon, I cannot speak for Genty but I have the experience of having an elderly relative who is house bound. No one has been near her in years (except when I found a good and sympathetic priest who took her the sacraments). Now he has gone and she is left bereft. In many modernist parishes, visiting the sick and elderly is seen as the role of the EMHCs and no thought is given to their full sacramental and pastoral care.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. These are parishes where they have turned their backs on the true Faith and worship their own false gods.

      Delete
    2. Your elderly relative is left bereft..how sad. I do hope you find a priest to take her the sacraments. In our parish the EMHCs very kindly bring the sacred host in a pyx from Holy Mass to our house bound on Sunday mornings. The priest also visits and hears confessions of the housebound and anoints those who are seriously ill.

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    3. Anon, thank you but she would not receive the Blessed Sacrament from an EMHC and neither would I. God bless.

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  5. That prayer is beautiful.

    ~Hannah

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  6. Here the few Fraternity of St. Peter are stretched trying to attend the elderly in nearby seniors complex. The elderly Brothers in the home are grateful for the traditional pastoral visits. This is repeated in other places... the confessional is under great demand - even by the N.O. communities! Many gaps to be filled...

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  7. Most 'priests' aren't even priests these days with the invalidity of the 1968 consecration rite for 'bishops'. Doing some social work might therefore be a better use of their time and ours.

    ReplyDelete