Seymour Deanery Catholics honor priests and deacons

Father Eric Johnson, right, the archdiocesan director of vocations, and Msgr. Frederick Easton, vicar judicial of the archdiocesan Metropolitan Tribunal, enjoy a joke shared by retired Father Joseph Sheets during the Seymour Deanery’s Clergy Appreciation Dinner on June 8 at St. Mary Parish in North Vernon. Father Johnson was the keynote speaker for the dinner sponsored by the Knights of Columbus to honor priests and deacons. (Photo by Mary Ann Wyand)

By Mary Ann Wyand

NORTH VERNON—The international Year for Priests observance designated by Pope Benedict XVI has been a wonderful opportunity for the universal Church to express thanks for God’s gift of the priesthood, Father Eric Johnson told Seymour Deanery Catholics during a Clergy Appreciation Dinner on June 8 at St. Mary Parish in Jennings County.

“Pope Benedict invited us to celebrate this Year for Priests to give priests throughout the world an opportunity for renewal—renewal spiritually and renewal of their ministry,” Father Johnson said. “I think it also is an invitation for all of us as a community of faith to reflect with gratitude on what a precious gift the priesthood has been to us as a Church.”

The archdiocesan director of vocations said Catholics benefit in countless ways from the generosity of the men that serve God and God’s people as priests.

“Gratitude sits at the very heart of who we are and what we are called to as a community of faith,” he said. “I think it is good for us to step back periodically and remember with gratitude that great gift which is given to us by those [priests] that offer their lives generously, that have shown us a little bit more of God, that have helped us to grow a little bit more deeply in what it is that God is calling each and every one of us to do.”

Every person is called to know, love and serve God, Father Johnson said, “with everything that we have, with all that we are, with all that we’re invited to be.”

People are also “called to know and love and serve that presence of God in our neighbors,” he said. “Every one of us is called to that same fundamental vocation of love and service.”

Father Johnson, who also serves as the sacramental minister of St. Agnes Parish in Nashville, was the keynote speaker for the Seymour Deanery’s second Clergy Appreciation Dinner sponsored by the Knights of Columbus in recent years.

“An important part of living out the Christian life is striving to understand God’s will in our day-to-day life,” he said. “And upon discovering that, we are called to live that out with everything that we have—with joy, with thanksgiving, with excitement, with passion and with compassion.”

Vocations are ways of living out our fundamental call to love and service, Father Johnson said, whether we are called by God to the priesthood, religious life, marriage or consecrated single life.

“The priest, through his life and his ministry, shows us a little bit of what God looks like,” he said, “and helps us to understand and to believe a little bit more strongly in the presence of God among us. The priest, in very many ways, makes Christ’s presence tangible—something we can see, something that is personal and something that has meaning.”

It’s not surprising that many Catholic children ask their parents if the priest is Jesus or God, Father Johnson said, because the priest is a visible sign and sacramental symbol of God in the world.

Priests make Christ’s presence visible to people, he said, in very unique and special ways in daily life.

“That is certainly true in the sacraments,” Father Johnson said. “We see that particularly in the Eucharist as the priest calls the Church together to become one body and one spirit, as the priest prays Christ’s own words over bread and wine, as the priest calls the community of faith to bring all of their lives and their sacrifices and offer them up with the sacrifice of Christ. We see that in the sacrament of reconciliation as the priest says to us, ‘I absolve you of your sins.’ We see that in the anointing of the sick, and we see that in baptism.”

Priests are called to be God’s presence to people during very joyful times as well as very painful times, he said. “The priest is called to be there to remind us that Christ continues to pour out his love upon us.” †