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Dear Friends in Christ,
The Year of Faith, begun in October, offers each of us a challenge to rediscover our faith and share it with others. It offers us a unique opportunity to reflect on the gift of faith we have been given and grow in that faith.
In reflecting on those who have influenced our lives in faith, most of us have our parents, grandparents, other family members, and great friends to thank. We certainly have great catechists and Catholic school teachers to thank, as well. Those of us of a certain age owe a great debt to the religious sisters who taught in our schools. But every single one of us has a number of priests to thank for the faith we have been given by God.
I ask you and your families to call to mind the great priests God has placed in your lives, as you consider what you might do to assist the retired and aging priests who have served at our parishes for so many years, through the Diocese of Madison’s Bless Our Priest Retirement Collection.
Christ, through the way He instituted His Church, has chosen priests to serve as His sacramental ministers, pouring God’s grace onto His faithful. Grace, and it is indeed amazing, is that free gift which God wants to give, to aid in the salvation of souls. The priest, in a beautiful, selfless, and mysterious way, allows Christ to change souls forever through the sacraments. Through the priest, Christ heals our faults, as grievous as they can be. He consoles us through His priests in our sorrow and He joyfully witnesses our happiness through His priests. For his part, the priest says yes to God’s call and humbly allows Christ to use him as an instrument of grace, and peace, and love. The good priests in your lives have done just this and have done this with great joy.
The Bless Our Priests Retirement Collection is one substantial way that we in the Diocese of Madison say thank you to our retired and aging priests. In faith, giving to the Bless Our Priests Collection is a prayer of thanksgiving to God, but it also directly assists the men who have served our parishes and sustained our faith, through the sacraments.
We thank God for the priests he has blessed us with in a special way during this Year of Faith. We thank them for being His ministers of grace and for giving us the gift of faith, which sustains and supports us so many ways. Please prayerfully consider how you might make a sacrifice to support them well into the future.
Praised be Jesus Christ!
Most Rev. Robert C. Morlino
Bishop of Madison