Hope, Life, and Affirmation
Written for the March 24, 2019 bulletin at Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish.
Parish family,
The first weekend ofMarch was the junior high schoolers’ retreat, led by the high school youth groupleadership (“Freedom”) Team. Verygraciously, the parish enabled me to fly in and spend the time of retreat withthem. What an incredible privilege! I amhonored to have had some presence in the grace-filled weekend the Freedom Team led. Personally, I received so many blessings overthe course of the 36 short hours we were together. Principal among them…
Hope: Given the current state of things in the Church, it was a such a hopeful thing to see fifty 12- to 14-year olds take a weekend to spend time with the Lord under her care. I know it must not be easy to trust what she has to say these days, and the fact that people are still willing to trust their eternal salvation to a Body that is currently trying to figure out her own problems gives me tremendous hope for her/our future.
Life: I know that, when I was in seventh and eighth grade, my faith was not something I took very seriously, so seeing that so many of the kids of our parish are doing so inspires me to seek it with even greater zeal now! Priestly formation, however, is not the easiest process. That said, I think that every one of my brother seminarians would agree with me on this: no matter what challenges we face, whenever the going gets rough, it is reflecting on the faith of those who will one day, God-willing, be our parishioners that gives us life, restores our energy, and motivates us to invest in our formation ever-more totally.
Affirmation: The retreat’s focus was on the Psalms –which, actually, are the “official prayer” of the Church: every priest, at his diaconal ordination, promises to his bishop to pray them daily, and so they are an inherent part of the Program of Priestly Formation (the guidelines which govern seminaries, influenced in large part by St. John Paul II and his teachings on the priesthood). Being able to “minister”, in whatever small ways the Lord provided for me, in such a context brought me an incredible amount of affirmation that He is calling me toHis Priesthood; I truly heard His “small, faint whisper” echoing there.
All this said, in humility I would ask for continued prayers for my discernment and formation. It is a trying time for the Church, but the witness of our young people’s faith (and of the parents who allowed them to attend!), the holiness of the priests who ministered to us there and form us here, and the sanctity and piety of my brother seminarians here at St. John Vianney offer to me God’s promise for brighter days to come.
In Christ, the suffering servant,
Max Farrell
"Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses.”
Pope Saint Paul VI
