Perpetual Adoration, etc.
Here are some questions from anonymous bloggers:
1) I have been trying to build a prayer life. I have gone to Adoration a few times and have concluded that I need to be alone there in order to enter a state of prayer. St. A's does not do perpetual adoration that I know of. Do any of the parishes in our area do that?
I know of a few: St John the Evangelist (Silver Spring), St. John Neumann (Gaithersburg), and Ascension (Bowie). If bloggers know of other parishes in the Archdiocese that have perpetual adoration, please let us know.
2) But a priest was someone's son, brother, cousin, uncle, student and/or friend before he became a priest. I understand about the comment on being able to freely give time, but to love all "equally?" That can't truly be possible, so if a priest loves his family in a "different" way, then wouldn't he be able to love a child in a "different" way and still love all the others he serves equally?
I don’t know where the word “different” came from in regards to a priest’s love for his family vs. others; I don’t remember using it myself. For me, St A’s is my new family and I love her members as I have loved my personal family. I try to give myself as much as possible to the people of St A’s as well as to my own family. Like any priest, I don’t love “equally” in a perfect way (as God does), but that is my approach. I think it’s just as possible for a priest to love all equally as it is for a parent to love all of his / her children equally.
3) Two questions:
Are there any sins that can't be forgiven by a priest in confession?
a) the ones that are intentionally not confessed
b) the ones for which the penitent is not sorry
Can a priest refuse sacraments to someone who could otherwise receive them?
Kind of a loaded question, but if someone is properly disposed to receive a sacrament, the priest should never refuse them the sacrament.
posted by Fr Greg @ 10:29 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Here is what I don't understand-
If you (a priest) is not a parent, how do you learn to love that way? It baffles me. It's not that I cannot see a priest as loving (for I've known several I would define that way), but without benefit of a family for whom they must love intesely, I don't understand how they could look to their flock as a father would.
I honestly do not believe I could understand Christ's love without having had the experience of that kind of intense, unwavering, unbending and all-bending love that I have for my children. I can now look as others' children as "mine" but only after having the experience of mothering my own.
Anon, I ask you to consider this:
Jesus Christ had no biological children of his own, yet he loved all of us so intensely, that he gave up His very life for us. Perhaps it is with that type of intensity, that the parish priest loves his children, young and old.
I am not saying that I do not believe it possible, I just don't understand how one learns to love like that without the benefit of life experience. I've always thought children to be the greatest gift from God for they teach us, as parents, to love in an amazing and selfless way. Then, I can look at the lives of others (Mother Teresa, for example), and can only think that the capacity to love like that must also be a gift from God. So, maybe I just answered my own question.
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