Pray for laborers for the harvest

by Fr. John Granato  |  01/21/2024  |  Words from Fr. John

My Dear Friends,

Today’s gospel is the call of the fishermen Peter and Andrew, and James and John. Jesus calls to them and says, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” We are told that immediately the four men left their fishing nets and their livelihood and began to follow Jesus. Everyone, of course, is called to follow Jesus.

You are called by the Lord to follow him. Some follow him in the sacrament of marriage as husband and wife. Some follow him as a religious brother (e.g. a Franciscan Brother or Christian Brother of De La Salle) or a religious sister (e.g. A Sister of Life or a Franciscan Sister of the Eucharist), living in community with other members of their religious order. Some men are called to be monks, like Father Iain Haight (now called Father Columba) and some women are called to be nuns (e.g. Benedictine Nuns of the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, CT). Some men are called to follow Jesus as a deacon of the Church, like Deacon David Reynolds and Deacon Bob Blair. And some men are called to follow Jesus as an ordained priest.

In our Catholic Church, there are a variety of Rites; the Roman Rite, the Alexandrian Rite, the Byzantine Rite, the Armenian Rite, and the Ambrosian Rite are just a few. The majority of Catholics belong to the Roman Rite. In the Roman Rite, priests are called to celibacy, which means that they give up the good of marriage in order to follow the poor, chaste and obedient Christ in a more perfect manner.

Every so often, there are calls from the laity and priests and bishops (both those who left active ministry presumably to marry and those who are currently active as priests and bishops). Yet, throughout the centuries, especially during the time of Martin Luther and with King Henry VIII and his successors, popes have strongly defended obligatory celibacy. During the Second Vatican Council of the 1960’s and immediately afterwards, Pope St. Paul VI reiterated the discipline of obligatory celibacy. Early on in Pope St. John Paul II’s pontificate, Pope John Paul also reiterated obligatory celibacy. Pope Benedict XVI, with Cardinal Robert Sarah, wrote a book defending the discipline of priestly celibacy. Pope Francis has said some things that seem like he is ready to relax the discipline, but he has also defended priestly celibacy and has said that he does not want to relax the discipline.

I do not shy away from defending priestly obligatory celibacy, which I think is a great gift to the Catholic Church, but it requires a heroic effort from the men who accept it to live it well. It is not easy, by any means, to be celibate, but as many married couples can attest, it also is not easy being faithful to your wife or your husband in a lifelong marriage, as we see by the numbers of divorces and the number of cohabitating couples who do not choose marriage, religious or civil. We have the number of priests we need, even in our own archdiocese. But we do still need to pray for laborers for the harvest, and we need to pray for good, holy and faithful priests. God bless.