Praying for the Priests of Glasgow

www.prayingforpriests.com

It recently occurred to me that I take priests for granted. I think a lot of us do.

Priests work so hard for us. They've dedicated their entire lives to serving God at the altar and to ministering to our spiritual needs. I'm not sure they get enough enough recognition for what they do.

I became especially aware of my own tendency to nitpick the way a priest says the Mass. I have some traditionalist leanings and I like a reverent Mass. I can get impatient with things that aren't to my liking. But, it's too easy to slip into a habit of criticizing and complaining about how Father elevates the host or genuflects. This is obviously not what we are meant to do. I do think we need a renewal of the liturgy in the Church. But, not at the expense of charity. Didn't Paul make it very clear that all the gifts of the Holy Spirit are meaningless if we don't have charity?

Somehow, the Holy Spirit spoke to me and made it clear that what I need to do is pray for priests and encourage others to do the same. I somewhere came across an American web site that encourages prayer for the Archdiocese of Raleigh, North Carolina:

http://www.cureprayergroup.org/

I immediately knew I needed to do this for Glasgow! The administrators of that site were very gracious, giving me advice on how to get started, and letting me copy their idea.

We have only just launched the web site. I am still trying to spread the word. I think I've told maybe four people about it, but it would seem that they're telling others, already. I've heard from someone at the Catholic Times that they read about prayingforpriests.com on Fr. Finigan's blog, The Hermeneutic of Continuity. How he found out about it, I have no idea!

At the moment, I'm sending emails, using the Catholic Directory for Scotland and the Archdiocesan web site to find addresses for parishes. Here's what my email says:

Hello!

My husband and I have built a website to
encourage prayer for the preists of the Archdiocese of Glasgow. We are
committed to praying daily for our Archbishop, our priests, and for
more vocations. And, we want to let priests know that they are being
prayed for!

Launched just last week, prayingforpriests.com asks people to sign up
to pray for specific individual priests.

Could you please spread the word about this ministry? If you could
find the space in your Sunday bulletin to print a little notice and
our URL, that would be wonderful. The more people praying for our
priests, the better!

Here is our url:

http://www.prayingforpriests.com

The list of priests and their parishes is based on information
published in the Catholic Directory and on the Archdiocesan web site.
If you see any errors or have any suggestions, please let us know!