Thursday, December 13, 2007

Vatican Seeking Spiritual Moms for Priests

The Vatican Congregation for the Clergy is looking for people willing to offer Eucharistic adoration for the priesthood and "consecrated feminine souls" ready to become spiritual mothers of priests.

A new Web site from that Vatican dicastery offers explanations and resources both for the campaign to begin Eucharistic adoration and for those who would like to be spiritual mothers of priests, following the example of the Virgin Mary.

The initiative was convoked with a letter Saturday, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, signed by Cardinal Cláudio Hummes and by Archbishop Mauro Piacenza, respectively the prefect and secretary of the congregation.

The letter said the campaign is focused on a spiritual endeavor: "In order to continually maintain a greater awareness of the ontological link between the Eucharist and the priesthood, and in order to recognize the special maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary for each priest, it is our intention to bring about a connection between perpetual Eucharistic adoration for the reparation of faults and sanctification of priests."

In particular, the initiative proposes that, following the example of Mary, people might wish to "spiritually adopt priests in order to help them with their self-offering, prayer and penance." Resources at the Web site offer several examples of spiritual mothers of priests, including the story of Eliza Vaughan, an English mother of 13. Six of her children became priests, and another four became nuns.

The initiative from the Congregation for the Clergy intends "to entrust all priests to Mary, the mother of the high and eternal Priest, bringing about in the Church a movement of prayer, placing 24-hour continuous Eucharistic adoration at the center," the letter explained.

The campaign asks that "a prayer of adoration, thanksgiving, praise, petition, and reparation, will be raised to God, incessantly and from every corner of the earth, with the primary intention of awakening a sufficient number of holy vocations to the priestly state."
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