We Don't Have Enough Priests!

We are really saying "We Don't Have Enough Faith"

We have heard it said many times.

We Don't Have Enough Priests ...

We need to think about ordaining woman

We Don't Have Enough Priests ... 

We need more lay lectors, extra ordinary ministers

We Don't Have Enough Priests ...

We need married priests

If you rewind the clock back by 70 or more years here in the US there are stories about having too many priests. Back then, a newborn baby breathed in Catholic air in a Catholic Hospital. Catholic people were everwhere. Catholic Mothers and Fathers,  Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, Neighbors, Bosses, Employees. Catholic churches, schools, movies, radio and businesses. 

However, sometime during this Catholic heydey, withering wasps of atheism morphed into massive headwinds and became entrenched in the global climate spanning several generations. Faith diminshed.

Of course, Our Lord Himself did not have enough priests. Although there were enough Levitical priests at the time, He was about to redefine the Priesthood working with a ragtag band of commoners who staked their entire lives on believing they were chosen by the long awaited Messiah. They literally dropped everything they were doing and followed Him. But this motley crew was only a tiny minority compared to the hoardes of people flocking to Our Lord. As He once lamented "The laborers are few, so PRAY..."

There are tales of many immigrant Irish, Italian or Polish grandmothers who outlived their good husbands, wore the black widow's dresses, woke up before dawn to pray the Rosary and Holy Mass, cooked and cleaned for their children and grandchildren in a Grand Silence. That is, they never really talked that much. They had FAITH. Perhaps they were why we were blessed with many priests in the Catholic heydey.

So the next time we hear "We Don't Have Enough Priests,"

we need to hear "We Don't Have Enough Faith."

Then we need to begin to pray God for both.