LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Priests need our prayers as their words bring faith to the world

Posted

TO THE EDITOR:

Recently I had the privilege and honor to attend a funeral of a wonderful woman from my parish, St. Paul’s in Edgewood. I was impressed with all in attendance and the wonderful outpouring of love and the number of priests who were assisting our pastor, Father Adam Young. Afterwards, I had the pleasure of speaking with one of our former pastors, Father Francis Santilli. Upon seeing him, I began feeling quite guilty for not doing what he recommended that I do just before he left to become pastor at St. Philip’s in 2010: that is, to write a letter to the Rhode Island Catholic and ask everyone to do what my Mother, a dear friend of Father Santilli’s, taught us to do: to always pray for the priests who are saying the Masses we attend. She would always say: “After all, they are bringing us the precious body, blood, soul and divinity of our Blessed Lord and we should all pray for them.” Since this is a New Year, perhaps one of our resolutions could be what my dear Mother always taught us to do: To pray for the priests who are saying the Masses we attend.

And I have one more resolution for all of us too: At every Mass I attend I always pray that the words of our homilists not only reach me and everyone in attendance, but the whole world. I recently shared that with one of our outstanding homilists at St. Paul’s, Father Christopher Mahar, and Father looked at me and said: “Bobby, with the power of the Holy Spirit, this can certainly happen!” Father said this to me with such conviction that I realized his words and the words of our great priests can affect the world.

So perhaps two resolutions in 2018 can affect our diocese and the whole church: to pray at every Mass for the priest(s) celebrating it and to pray for the homilist, that his words will affect us and the world.

Robert E. Burns, St. Paul Parish, Edgewood