Keeping priests up to date

We live in a time of change. And the rate at which change is taking place is accelerating. To keep up to date in one's profession it is important to read widely and sometimes even to attend a seminar. At such meetings you encounter others in the same profession, people who have known the same problems, carried the same cross, come through full of hope for the future. With them you can strike sparks off each other, share one's burdens, pray together, and laugh together.

Recently eighteen of us priests and one brother - all Jesuits - came together to pray and to grow in our apostolate. Some shared how they began, full of enthusiasm, how they met difficulties and disillusionment, how they overcame them to find joy and fulfilment. We hoped to gain a greater awareness of God in our life, a greater closeness to one another, to understand better our apostolate. We hoped to return refreshed to walk along the way with our brothers and sisters on our earthly pilgrimage. We laughed over some caricatures of priests we had known: young priests, middle aged priests and the old ones too.

When we are ordained we are given the power, or the ability or the authority, to administer the sacraments and celebrate Mass. But before we are let loose, the local bishop gives us the faculty to exercise that power. Until recently you had to receive 'faculties' every time you joined another diocese. So you might have no 'faculties' to hear confession if you were just passing through. It was in this context that one of the descriptions was: "Old priests never die, they simply lose their faculties."

Dear Lord, only few are actually called to serve your people a priests, but what a blessing it is that everyone can laugh. Amen.