Good Shepherd Sunday, 11 May 2014
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
Every day I pray for priests who may be
reading his letter to you at Mass. I pray that he will be the priest that he
wished to be, and that he promised to be on the day of his ordination.
The priests of this Archdiocese are some of
the hardest-working and most courageous priests I have met in my years of priesthood.
While abroad, I personally knew an archbishop, two priests, a brother and a sister
who were murdered as they lived and worked quietly among their people for the love
of Jesus Christ. They had a certain kind of
courage, and one which I hope may not be needed in our country. But
our own priests, here today, also need a certain kind of courage, to proclaim the
beauty of the Gospel with a pure heart, in a world that is inclined to consider
most of 'what we do in a negative and even hostile light.
That is why I am writing to you today, on Good
Shepherd Sunday, to ask you to join me in praying for the priest you see before
you, for the priests you don't see working in the other parishes around you, and for the priests who have
yet to come.
Our Lord says that the "fields are white"
with the harvest of those who could believe and be saved. There is so much to be
done, here and now, to proclaim the Good News of salvation to each other and to
those around us. But it can only be achieved if the Lord sends us priests. They
don't need to be very many, but they need to be good.
And so I ask you today to 'join me and my priests
in praying tor priests. Every day I set aside a short time to pray to Our Lady for
them, and I invite you to do the same, even the simplest prayer said once a clay,
every day. Pray for them and pray that the Lord will send us good priests to help
them.
1 also invite you to pray that the Lord will
send us good and holy religious men and women from our families, not from elsewhere;
and that he will foster in the hearts of more mature men the calling to become permanent
deacons in our diocese.
Thirdly, I ask for your ongoing financial
support for those training for the priesthood in our seminaries. The training
of seminarians incurs a significant cost to the diocese, which is why we have the
second collection today, but it is a cost that is worth it. Your generosity today
is essential to the quality of the preparation they receive.
Above all, the Church is nothing without
the Eucharist, and we have far too few priests for our present needs. Very
shortly it will become necessary to amalgamate parishes throughout Saint Andrews
and Edinburgh, partly for lack of priests, and we all know it will not be easy.
However, if we keep our gaze fixed upon the Eucharist, and upon the necessity of
gathering around it to celebrate the risen Lord in our midst, then we will pray
more earnestly for our present and future priests, and we will surely encourage
our priests in their important task.
With the heartfelt good wishes to you for Easter,
I willingly impart to you and your loved
ones my Blessing.
+ Leo Cushley
Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh
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