I thank You with my whole heart for being there for me

10 Years of Grace

“Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken” (Isaiah 54:10). Today I thank God at this 10th Anniversary of my priestly ordination for that unshakable love. I thank you all for keeping me in your prayers and I know from different parts of the world people are daily praying for me. My priestly life is a life of blessing. I never lacked anything in my life. Anything means literally anything. God provides everything in my life even what I wished for not only which I asked for. I wonder days and days How he knows that I wished for it. That is my God whom I dedicate my whole life. He took me around and gave me strength to do everything. He put the courage and strength in me to do the things I never did before. I knew it is not I but he is in control. And I never failed and I know I will never ever. I never regretted to be a priest. And I pray that God will allow me to die as a priest. When I was so young I use to pray to my Mother Mary. “Mother Mary, if you wish make me a favorite priest of You and your Son Jesus.” Galatians 2:20 says “ I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.”
Eucharist is the fundamental way of being of the priest. For the priest, the Liturgy is not only a rite which symbolically encapsulates the life, death and resurrection of the Lord. The re-enactment, the re-presentation of the mighty deeds of the Savior is not one more administrative act of the priest. It is the very core of who he is; in it he sees objectively and vividly the meaning of his own person, his own heart and soul, his life and ministry.
If people seek out the priest for advice and solace, if they sense something special in his presence, if they look to him for inspiration and leadership, it is ultimately because they believe that the power of Christ the Priest, the power of Christ the Eucharist dwells within and shapes the contours of his being.
They intuit that twin-identity in him of priesthood and Eucharist, and they long to receive from him that same love, that same forgiveness and that same self-surrender which brought Jesus to give birth to both on the night before he died.
In the last 10years, the Lord has given me many things to do in many different places of this beautiful world.
Like a psychotic version of the beloved in the Song of Songs, I run searching for the one my soul loves when, all the time, he is within me, “peering in through the lattice” of my soul.
Life can be seen as the process of converting from having what you want to wanting what you have, what you have been given.
All of it, except my sin, has been grace upon grace upon grace. I have no other purpose in life, nor do I want any.
What I do want, is so to be configured to Christ the priest, that in seeing me you will see the Eucharist, you will remember the One who said, “Do this in memory of me”: I will be a living, walking memory of the Last Supper. Priesthood is not about being worthy, but about surrendering to the Lamb who alone is worthy. Many of my friends had been left the priesthood. And I know I am still a priest not because I am good but because of His Mercy and grace. The only reason I have managed is because Christ’s fidelity is stronger than my infidelity.
"Praise the Lord for he is good" (Ps 136/136,1). "I will praise the Lord all my life" (Ps 145/146, 2).
Benedict XVI spoke of the Sacrament of Holy Orders to a large gathering of Priests in Rome. "Let us reflect once again on the signs in which the Sacrament has been given to us. At the centre is the very ancient rite of the imposition of hands, with which he took possession of me, saying to me: "You belong to me". However, in saying this he also said: "You are under the protection of my hands. You are under the protection of my heart. You are kept safely in the palm of my hands, and this is precisely how you find yourself in the immensity of my love. Stay in my hands, and give me yours". (Homily of Pope Benedict XVI - Holy Thursday 2006).
Pope Benedict XVI said; "Being a priest means becoming an ever closer friend of Jesus Christ with the whole of our existence".
We all depend very much on your prayers. And do, please, pray for vocations to the Priesthood so that the Lord may choose from among your families young men who will be prepared to give their lives, their hands and their hearts in the service of His People and the on-going Redemption of mankind.
I whole heartedly thank you all for being there for me as one of my family. May God bless you all!