"Only Saints Will End Abortion"

What a great sermon Father. He had just travelled about 70 miles to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in the Good Counsel Network's Chapel. He told us that maybe we could be tempted to sit back and congratulate ourselves, after all we work/volunteer for the Pro-Life movement, we go and pray at the abortuaries, we provide on going help to Mothers and their children, etc. But that is not enough, we need to do more, we need to give ourselves totally to God. Hold nothing back, because then we will be Saints and "Only Saints will end abortion".

Stuart McCullough

The Difficulties of Being A Priest

I realised last weekend the difficulties of being a priest one weekend when visiting a parish for a collection for Good Counsel's work.

The Parish Priest is very supportive and is involved with our work. The appeal was mostly very well received.

At the end of the Second Mass of the day I was standing at the back of the church thanking people for contributions which they put in the collecting plates and handing out leaflets when I and the volunteers with me were approached by a man who told us he thought the Church needed to change many of its teachings even though he went Mass every Sunday. It was very difficult to speak to him, but I feel, and I hope, that by the end of the conversation we had explained our side of the story and he might one day come to reconsider his views. We must pray for him.

While I was getting ready for the next Mass I noticed a couple sitting outside the Church in the sunshine. I thought that they were just taking a break from wherever they were walking to. It turned out that they were not. After a short while they approached me to ask when the priest would be finished his sermon. After realising they wanted to speak to him, I informed them that the Mass would probably be about another half an hour. The man informed me that he needed to get married to the lady with him, he then went on to say that he already lived with her and that he was not practicing, although she was a Catholic.

I don’t know which is harder, to speak to someone who has a deep wound and is very hostile towards you and all you stand for or someone who is very blasé about things but living a life which is against the teachings of the church. Whichever it is, both of them are examples of the many people that your priest has to deal with along with helping all the God-fearing Catholics who are living out their lives as the Church teaches to come closer to God.

The year for priests has now come to an end, but we must remember to continue praying for them. Now, more than ever, they need it!

Conor Carroll

Pray for Priests for Europe, a "Continent of Devastation"

‘In the 20th Century, great efforts were made to stop people believing, to make them reject Christ. Towards the end of the century, the end of the millennium, those destructive forces were weakened, yet they left a trail of devastation behind them. I am speaking of the devastation of consciences, with ruinous consequences in the moral sphere - affecting personal and social morality and the mores of family life. Pastors of souls, who engage every day with the spiritual lives of their flocks, know this better than anyone… Sadly one could describe Europe at the dawn of the new millennium as a continent of devastation. Political programmes, aimed principally at economic development, are not enough to heal wounds of this nature. On the contrary, they could even make them worse. Here an enormous task opens up for the Church. The evangelical harvest in today’s world is great indeed. We have only to ask the Lord, and to ask insistently, that he send labourers for this harvest, ready and waiting to be reaped.’ From Pope John Paul II’s Memory and Identity

In these final days of the Year of the Priest, please remember to pray for these ‘labourers for the harvest’. If you could spare some time to pray in the Good Counsel Network Chapel, you would be very welcome.

Gabrielle