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What an amazing change within such a short amount of time. He was looking right at us with a twinkle in his eye! He was standing there straight and tall to distribute the Eucharist, the Body of Christ, to those of us who came forward to receive during the Heavenly banquet. He became so animated that he was asking if anyone was celebrating a birthday near the end of Mass, and one time gave us the final blessing twice because he just felt like it! I wanted to giggle. There was definitely a conversion in his attitude and demeanor. Miraclesĭuring the second week of my praying for him, this sweet soul had noticeably changed. I began praying that for him at every daily Mass I attended when he was there, and that was most of them.
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Lord, fill this priest with Resurrection joy and with ordination day enthusiasm and energy! Amen. So he is deserving of my good will and concern. But he is God’s emissary and he is in persona Christi. I have a prayer that I’ve been praying for priests in general for a long time now, and I decided to pray very specifically for him. Things that used to fill us with joy and gave us a bounce in our step and a smile on our face for seemingly no reason can dissipate. We can start to go through the motions in a marriage, a friendship, a career. That can happen in any vocation, role, or relationship. And I started to wonder if things for him hadn’t become “old hat,” taken for granted, stale. I was concerned for this elderly gentleman who has been a priest for probably almost as long as I’d been alive (a long time!). That’s what eucharisteo means: thanksgiving! Beyond Aggravation + Into Action His actions and speech, seemingly done by rote, especially during the Eucharistic Prayer and Consecration, were just not conveying any sense of joy, awe, or thanksgiving. He sat down during Communion and rarely looked up. I was concerned about the other believers in the pews, and there are more than you might expect at an early morning weekday Mass. So we’d look for the nearest civilian church to attend while in those areas.Īt one place we lived, the elderly priest who was presiding at daily Mass seemed to be just going through the motions. As an Army family, we’ve lived all over and sometimes have not been near a Military base.