Blessed Pastorship

From the Author

Very little is generally said in the church media regarding the priesthood and priests themselves. What is written typically has to do with the participation of priests in clerical or diocesan conferences, which begs the question: Is it even useful to publish anything about the priesthood in publications intended for the laity? We believe that it is not only useful, but also necessary to bring to light the mutually beneficial relationships between the pastor and his flock (with all good intentions, of course), and thus to promote a much desired harmony and mutual support—all the more, if the positions put forth with regard to the priesthood are frank and upright. Here the Apostle Paul serves as an example of one who was not afraid to show his weaknesses: “For I am the least of the Apostles, that am not meet to be called an Apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God” (1 Cor. 15: 9).

The Church of Christ is currently living in the most distressing time of its historical existence— a time of militant apostasy. And on whose shoulders does the duty of standing for the Truth principally fall, if not on the shoulders of priests? Priests take upon themselves all the evil, all the vilification of the secularized, apostatizing, and morally fallen modern world. It is for this reason alone that one should write more frequently in support of these zealots for the Faith and for Christ’s Church, raising awareness of a modern-day priest’s spiritual make-up, so that the laity might understand all the difficulties of the pastor’s challenge and join with him in a working partnership, as the Apostle Paul calls us to do: “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2).

These are the honest thoughts and blessed intentions that we set forth as the basis for our narrative on the priesthood and on priests, those stalwart spiritual warriors marching forth along the difficult paths of our apostatizing time.