Last night I took the children to the opening prayer service for the year of the priest at the Cathedral in our diocese.  It was not what we expected and we were overjoyed when we arrived there late, to realize that the prayer service included the Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament.

We witnessed the exposition.  The children saw and smelled the incense.  They had a fantastic cantor.  We sang.  We chanted in English and Latin.  How beautiful.

The Bishop also prayed in a special way for the priests in his diocese.

The only down side is there were not many people there and we were the only family with children.  I said an extra prayer for the other families because I know a lot are on vacation.  But, we were the only ones, with children that is.

On a funny note NOW, I had given Lil T a brownie not too long before we left.  BIG mistake and I guess I was having one of those “WHAT WAS I THINKING” moments.  He could not sit still or settle himself.  Even afterwards at the grocery store, he literally bounced up and down the aisles.  No joke.  Hopping and bouncing.  So when we got home, I let the others eat and I took him out for a long bicycle ride and to play.  I will not make that mistake again!

Also, in the VIS news today was this:

“Even our shortcomings, our limitations and weaknesses must lead us back to the heart of Jesus”, said Pope Benedict. “If it is true that sinners, by contemplating His Heart, must learn the necessary ’suffering of sins’ that leads them back to the Father, this holds even truer for ministers in holy orders. In this context, how can we forget that nothing makes the Church, Body of Christ, suffer so much as this sins of her pastors, above all of those who become ’stealers of sheep’, either by misleading them into a private doctrine or binding them with bonds of sin and death? Dear priests, the call to conversion and the recourse to Divine Mercy apply to us too. We too, with heartfelt humility, must ask the Heart of Jesus to preserve us from the terrible risk of harming the very people whom we are required to save”.

The Holy Father invited his audience to cultivate the same feelings for “the dignity of priests” as those felt by the “Cure of Ars”, in order to “accomplish our mission with generosity and dedication, and to maintain an authentic ‘fear of God’ in our hearts: the fear that, by our negligence or sin, we deprive the souls entrusted to us from such goodness, or that we may – God forbid! – do damage to them.

“The Church”, the Pope added, concluding his homily, “needs holy priests, ministers who help the faithful experience the merciful love of the Lord and who are themselves convinced witnesses of that love”.