Fr. Philip Marie, CMRI, serves a parish in Minnesota nowadays. We love him to the moon, as you can imagine, and are proud -- as we are of all our children -- that he recognized God's will for his vocation and works (and prays) hard to fulfill it to the best of his ability. Fr. Philip was clearly born for what he's doing.
Bing, now: he was a good actor who played a pretty good Fr. Philip, portraying the challenges of a parish priest in his Academy Award winning role as Fr. Chuck O'Malley, but the script covered just the tiniest portion of the daily and all-encompassing duties of a priest -- and the stress, especially of a cleric in the twenty-first century, when the world, the flesh, and the devil weigh against the priesthood in ways unimagined in the history of the Church.
In the 1950s Hollywood studios were still making popular movies that praised a priest's role in the community; today, though the priest's role is more vital than ever, the priesthood is reviled and religion in general, especially Catholicism, is worse than unfashionable -- it's hated. In less than a century, the devil has succeeded in turning the world's perceptions upside-down: good is evil; evil is good. And our Catholic priests stand at the tipping point, on the edge of eternity, holding Equilibrium in their consecrated hands.
Pray for them. Their load is so heavy and carried by so few. Make their intentions your first consideration in prayer and you are joining forces with God's elite warriors. Never forget our priests. All of them.
(But I'd be especially obliged if you'd take a few seconds right now and offer an Ave and maybe a Gloria for our Fr. Philip. Because, ya know, I'm his Mom.)
No comments:
Post a Comment