Year for Priests
Pope Benedict XVI has called the whole Church to celebrate a Year for Priests beginning on 19th June 2009, the Feast of the Sacred Heart.
His purpose for this year is to encourage priests in their “striving for spiritual perfection on which, above all, the effectiveness of their ministry depends” and to highlight “the importance of the priest’s role and mission in the Church and in contemporary society”.
To do this the Holy Father calls us to a renewed focus on the centrality of Christ in our lives and in the Church and that “brings with it the correct appreciation of the ministerial priesthood, without which there would be neither the Eucharist, nor even the mission nor the Church herself”.
Click for Pope Benedict's message.
This same year's also the 150th anniversary of the death of St John Vianney, the patron saint of priests, not to mention the occasion of the visit to England of the relics of St Therese of Lisieux – who from her Carmelite convent showed her life-long devotion to priests by praying for them, supporting them and corresponding with them.
During the year there will be many initiatives that will enrich the Year of Priesthood in every Diocese and each parish and local community establishing an effective programme for this special year.
Pope Benedict's message
On the eve of the Year for Priests, Pope Benedict wrote to his brother priests:
"'The priesthood is the love of the heart of Jesus', the saintly Curé of Ars would often say. This touching expression makes us reflect, first of all, with heartfelt gratitude on the immense gift which priests represent, not only for the Church, but also for humanity itself. I think of all those priests who quietly present Christ’s words and actions each day to the faithful and to the whole world, striving to be one with the Lord in their thoughts and their will, their sentiments and their style of life. How can I not pay tribute to their apostolic labours, their tireless and hidden service, their universal charity? And how can I not praise the courageous fidelity of so many priests who, even amid difficulties and incomprehension, remain faithful to their vocation as 'friends of Christ', whom he has called by name, chosen and sent?"
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Pope Benedict XVI’s letter proclaiming a year for priests (pdf)
Cardinal Hummes, Congregation for the Clergy
In a recent letter from Cardinal Hummes, Prefect to the Congregation for the Clergy he asks that “this year be an occasion for a period of intense appreciation of the priestly identity, of the theology of the Catholic priesthood, and of the extraordinary meaning of the vocation and mission of priests within the Church and in society.
"May it be a year as well of religious and of public celebration which will bring the people – the local Catholic community – to pray, to reflect, to celebrate, and justly to give honour to their priests. In the ecclesial community a celebration is a very cordial event which expresses and nourishes Christian joy, a joy which springs from the certainty that God loves us and celebrates with us. May it therefore be an opportunity to develop the communion and friendship between priests and the communities entrusted to their care”.
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Cláudio Cardinal Hummes letter to priests ahead of the Year for Priests (pdf)
Cláudio Cardinal Hummes
Archbishop Emeritus of São Paulo
Prefect, Congregation for the Clergy.
Archbishop Vincent Nichols
New Archbishop of Westminster, the Most Rev Vincent Nichols, marks the Year for Priests with Mass at Westminster Cathedral on 19 June 2009.
Report from St Peter's as Year for Priests gets underway
Southwark priest Fr James Clark (pictured right above) was in St Peter's Square as Pope Benedict launched the Year for Priests. This is his report from the Vatican.
At the close of World Youth Day in Sydney 2008 the Holy Father encouraged all the young people gathered in their thousands to “strive for holiness”. It would appear to me that the Year for Priests is a similar message to us priests - why else would it begin on the Feast of the Sacred Heart the day of sanctification of priests?
Archbishop Mauro Piacenza
Archbishop Mauro Piacenza, Secretary of the Vatican's Congregation for the Clergy, has written to his brother priests to reflect on the Year for Priests:
"Our will has accepted to exercise 'the priestly ministry', not other 'professions'! Above all else we are called to be priests always and, as the Saints remind us, in every circumstance, exercising with our very being that ministry to which we have been called. One does not merely act as a priest: one is a priest!
"Let us renew, my dear brothers, in this Year for Priests, the deep feeling by which we awake each morning conscious of who we are, who the Lord has willed that we be in the Church: for Him; for His people; for our own eternal salvation!"
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150th anniversary of the death of St John Vianney
Archbishop Piacenza wrote to priests to mark the 150th anniversary of the death of St John Vianney, Patron of all Priests:
"May his love for Christ, which was the bearer of his humanity and sincere affection, be for us an encouragement to love every more deeply 'our Jesus': may His be the sight we seek in the morning, the consolation which accompanies us in the evening, the memory and the companionship of every breath we take by day. To live according to the example of St. John Mary Vianney, as lovers of the Lord, means to always maintain at a high level of missionary tension, becoming progressively but concretely living images of the Good Shepherd and of him who proclaims to the world, 'behold the Lamb of God'."
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Fr John Flynn is a priest in south Manchester in the Diocese of Salford. Fr John was ordained priest at Salford Cathedral on 22 July 2006 - the feast of St Mary Magdalene. In this interview to mark the World Day of Prayer for Vocations, Fr John talks about his journey to the priesthood.
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Fr John Flynn interview - part one (mp3)
Fr John Flynn interview - part two (mp3)
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