The Notebook Before I was ordained, pastoral priests gave us retreats. They helped alert us to future pastoral dilemmas, or potential ones. One retreat giver asked that on ordination day, each of us should decide whether we wanted to be a priest or a bishop. (Who in their right mind would want to be…
The Notebook June is Jubilee month for many priests. In communities all over Ireland, people in sacred ministry are being honoured this month, especially for Silver, Ruby, Golden and Diamond jubilees (25, 40, 50 and 60 years of priesthood). I went to one such celebration earlier in June. A special once-off Mass had been…
Disappointment is a fact of life for nearly everyone who lives on this planet. It’s simply part of the human condition. We are occasionally disappointed in friends and family, and by people in the other circles in which we move — including our parish. Priests can be disappointed when the parish they are moved to…
The Notebook It’s the million-dollar question: what do priests do all day? It’s a hard question to answer, because firstly priests vary, but also ministry situations differ. To give a definitive answer, you’d have to survey every priest in Ireland and feed the results into some massive computer to get an average for the…
The Notebook I am ordained almost 34 years and for over 30 years of that time, I have been doing baptisms all wrong. For that first 30 years, nearly every baptism I did was private. Parents would ring me with the news of a birth and I would make arrangements with them alone. When…
I once carried out a survey of priests in a deanery conference regarding weddings and funerals. People generally would see a wedding as a happy occasion, something to enjoy, while funerals might be seen as events to be avoided. The priests in my circle were asked which they preferred to be involved in leading –…
It’s the question priests most hate to hear: “How much is a Mass, Father?” Most priests have a standard explanation for reply, about Mass being a pearl of great price, an event of inestimable value, that the Mass can’t be bought or sold (and that attempts to trade in religious things have gotten the Church…
Fr Ciaran Dougherty OP At the beginning of the Metaphysics, Aristotle said “all men desire to know.” And he was right. But he wasn’t just talking about the acquisition of random knowledge, he had a very specific thing in mind. He wanted to know what was what. This day after your ordination, it may seem that…
Over the last 20 years or so, I’ve noticed that many with a vocation to priesthood have headed for religious communities like the Dominicans or Franciscans rather than diocesan life. Mothers have expressed their relief that this was their sons’ choice, rather than what they perceived as the loneliness of diocesan life. I’ve often wondered…