WHO AM I? RIDDLE
I work 365 days a year.
I work 24 hours a day.
However, once in the job, I’ll never lose it.
There are about 400,000 people doing the same job world wide.
Who am I?
P R I E S T
If anyone has went “behind-the-scenes” in the life of a priest, you can see that being a priest is a very busy “job”.
Working 365 (or 366) days a year, 24 hours a day – a priest should be celebrating a mass/liturgies everyday even on long weekends. Our holiday is often a busy day for a priest. Take Christmas and Easter for instance. Priests are busy preparing the faithful for the most important celebrations in the Liturgical Year through Masses and Sacraments. No time to sit on the couch and watch TV on these days. A life of a priest is built on prayer. Everyday, a priest must say the Liturgy of the Hours. It is an obligation that ordained ministers must fulfill from the rising of the sun to its setting. Besides the “church stuff”, the priest also needs to attend to the pastoral needs of the faithful such as visiting the sick, counselling, visiting schools…
Once in the Priesthood, never losing it – Like the Sacrament of Baptism, the Sacrament of Holy Orders either to the Diaconate (for deacons), to Presbyter (for priests) or to Episcopal (for Bishops), is permanent. They are a deacon/priest/bishop forever like Melchizedek (cf.Hebrews 7:17). Therefore, a priest is a priest until he is “called to the house of the Father”. The priest may be released from his duties as a priest if he is excommunicated or under certain circumstances. However, even so he is still a priest. He just cannot perform the sacred duties when excommunicated.
There are about 400,000 Catholic Priests in the world (http://cara.georgetown.edu/carase…/requestedchurchstats.html) Vocations to the priesthood are doing just fine as of now. However, compared to 1970, numbers has decreased. Also, as the baby boom generation moves on ahead, there may be a shortage of priests in the future.
Catholics today need to appreciate the gift of priests and the hard work that they do. Please pray for vocations so that we may have many more priests for the future generations to keep the Catholic Church strong.
Vincent Pham 