My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, my ad limina to the city of the 7 hills is as good as upon me and now is a good as any time for me to take a break and reflect upon the last few years of my ordained life.
It is almost difficult to understand where those 9 years have passed, and yet how much I have learned in that time has somewhat made me feel older than my current age actually is...others who know me can see that I look older!!!
When I first entered the seminary, never in my wildest would i have ever dreamt that I would be the author of a blogspot such as this; that I would feel such pain and happiness in most unbalanced proportions; life would be so quickly snatched from so many and new life would replenish and renew my faith in God and that my views on my church would be so strongly challenged and questioned...by one of its faithful servants.
Like all new jobs, we have our honeymoon but once we get our first appointment, we work tirelessly until our final appointment with God at which point we can rest. But many people tend to forget that we are not only priests, as we actually do become otherwise qualified as we interact with people.
We become social workers, peacemakers (UN could learn a few things), counsellors, therapists, harbingers of bad news, consolers to those in pain, accountants (parish finances for a start), architects (churches need refurbishment and maintenance) - and all these roles are part of the everyday job...
It is as priests we also undertake these duties but we must never lose sight of what we truly are but realise how difficult it can be to balance all of this yet it must be done.
On a personal level, over the past while, I have somewhat shared with you all my loneliness and aloneness being a priest, and this still stands to be resolved.
The situation with the young man who attempted to commit suicide has had a good ending and hopefully please God will be a new beginning for him...and indeed for myself...
There have been many many challenging times for me but I can never allow myself to forget that I am indeed a human as well as a priest and that indeed I deserve my time of reflection...and Rome shall offer me that time.
I implore you to pray for me as I take this time to decide my future whether I remain a priest or leave...a decision which will be painful either way...stay with me, pray for me.
Sotto Voce