I've noticed that Mother of Sorrows tends to have a lot of "Eucharistic ministers," even though we have enough priests in residence for them to distribute the Eucharist without a need for extraordinary ministers. Upon mentioning this to someone, this person (I forget who it was) asked why retired priests should give up their time to be at every Mass.
I thought about this for a while and finally came up with an answer today, sitting in Mass. Priests are fulfilling their vocation. As such, it is part of their vocation to distribute the Eucharist. Just because they are retired makes them no less a priest. Similarly, a family is a vocation as well. Because two parents may retired, would that mean that they should neglect one of their children or grandchildren? Not at all. Likewise, retired priests are still priests.
4 comments:
A doctor has a vocation to heal people. Can a doctor ever retire? A teacher has a vocation to teach, can a teacher retire?
I love our retired priests enough that I do not think they need to be at every mass once they've retired. Priests are priests, yes, but they're also human and they need a chance to retire. They're not machines and we shouldn't be expecting this from them. When you're in high school, you have one perspective on the world. When you're in your 40's, you'll have another.
I have been to masses at Our Mother of Sorrows so I know what you are talking about. But I have also gone to Holy Cross once or twice. I noticed at Holy Cross, one of the other priests will come out and help with Communion when there is no deacon that day. But I also noticed that Holy Cross is much smaller! MOS is a huge parish and I would imagine that it would be hard for all of the priests there to help with communion at every mass. Besides that we also have to realize that all of the priests still have things they need to do, maybe visiting members of the church at hospitals.
I think the suggestion for having them help at every mass is a good one, but one that may be difficult to arrange.
There are, at present, a minimum of three priests in residence at MoS and one deacon. I could definitely re-think the Communion lines to figure out how to involve them all in the distribution of the Eucharist. Difficult, perhaps. But certainly doable.
One of the saddening things about MoS is that its weekly attendance is not as huge as its numbers say it should be--as I'm sure you noticed, Anon 7:44. (Can you people just sign a name, please?) So Communion only takes a long time on Easter... even Christmas Eve "Midnight" Mass has had a drop in attendance in the past few years.
Anon 9:46: Think of the job of sacristan. They set up and clean up for every Mass, and it's a volunteer job, rather than a full vocation such as the priesthood.
@ Anon 1:
They're in residence there. That means that they have some agreement with the pastor of the parish in order that they might live there. If the pastor wished for more respect for the Eucharist by having only the consecrated hands of a priest distribute it to the faithful, he would. the fact of the matter is, he DOESN'T care about reverence, or he would make this happen.
Post a Comment