IF a horse should bolt from its yard one would go to get it back.
If it continues to bolt this man would tether the horse to hold it. If it should continue to escape a better answer might be to make life in the yard so good that the horse would not try to bolt but be content with the master’s care.
In the case of priestly vocations we have a situation the candidates have bolted and not responded to God’s call, the world has been too fierce a temptation.
Is the real reason that the vision of the priesthood, the preparation of heart and spirit, the strengthening to follow a master has faded in our families?
Our priests, called by God, are here to bring us to the feet of Him whom the world rejected, to be hand in hand with a master who could read our hearts and heal the broken hearted, to be the voice and hands of a master who came to save us from the pit of hell and guide us into the Kingdom of Heaven.
Priests do not appear from the heavens, they are born into families, grow up like the rest of us, look like everyone else, children of families who love their Lord.
They are children of parents who will open their minds to all that is good, revealing in their home a love that God alone can give, planting that love in their children where, with the anointing of the Holy Spirit, it will flower into a call God will give.
My beloved Church, are you sowing that kind of love in your families?
There is a time in sight when we will need great courage to keep and hold to our belief and trust in this Jesus of Nazareth.
Beloved fellow Catholics, we need urgently to turn the page, walk with Jesus at our side, do and be only what would please Him, for there is a tide that only our life and prayer will stem.
R. PARKER
Oxley, Qld
