44 Reasons I love being Catholic.....# 9 Our Shepherds

Well I was supposed to list 44 reasons I love being Catholic by my birthday which is quickly approaching.....I have only done 8 this year. What a slacker....but I have had a request from a follower of my blog to keep on talking the Catholic stuff.....and she is NOT Catholic, go figure.

I was raised as the daughter of the church receptionist. My mother worked in the church office from the time I was very small until she died when I was 20. Because of her working with the priests, our family came to know many wonderful men serving our church. We had them over for dinner, went to hockey games with them, played cards, doing "normal" things. I am blessed to have gotten to know these holy men in the everyday life as the vocation of a priest is a very hard life, they sacrifice so much. I know they can be intimidating in their vestments up on the altar and they stand out in their Church attire and collars, but really these are just men who have answered a call to serve Christ and the church.

I thank God for these men. I found an article by Vicki Thorn which stated "A priest is a man, clothed in tenderness, who speaks of God's mercy, who prophetically pronounces the truth, unpleasant though it might be and who reflects God's love to a hurting world. Sometimes he is shoring up souls and sometimes he is breaking up concrete. He is comforting the grieving and challenging the young. He is soothing the dying and blessing the newborn".

SO this year, Pope Benedict has declared the year of the Priests in an effort to encourage "spiritual perfection" in our priests. Priest are men, humans with faults and temptations just like the rest of us. They have a very stressful job which can be lonely. They need our prayers now more than ever. We need to pray for those who have a calling to serve Christ. We are called this year to pray for our priests.

I am so grateful for those who are called and answer that calling to serve us in bringing us closer to God.