Catholics for a Changing Church

 “Often, we hear people say: the Church doesn’t do this …the Church doesn’t do that!’ ‘Tell me who is the Church? – ‘Well the Church is the priests, the bishops, the Pope …’ We are all the Church! All of us all of us Baptized! We are the Church, the Church of Jesus’”.

This was the message at the heart of Pope Francis’ general audience Wednesday, which he dedicated to the relationship between the visible and spiritual reality of the Church.

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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Tuesday exhorted Christians to feel they are an integral part of the Church. Speaking during his homily at Mass in Casa Santa Marta, the Pope said that Jesus does not seek out man’s sins, but looks to his heart, and he invited all believers not to hover on the threshold of the Church, but to come right in.

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Martin has asked us to give a last minute reminder of this

We are grateful to Fr Richard S Vosco for allowing us to reproduce his homily here.

30 Ordinary Time A – 26 October 2014 – The Priesthood We Share

Exodus 22:20-26; Psalm 18:2-3.3-4.47.51; 1 Thessalonians 1:5-10; Matthew 22:34-40

Today in the United States we are encouraged to speak about the priesthood and the calling that priests have. Some would say the shortage of priests in our Diocese and elsewhere is bad news and it is. There are many reasons for the lack of vocations and why the ministerial priesthood is not open to more members of the church. The good news, however, is that there are about 330,000 Catholics in our Diocese who are also members of the priesthood of Christ.

I would like to focus our attention on the priesthood of the faithful, how the ministerial priest, usually referred to as the ordained priest, fits into the larger family of God and how our renovated place of worship is designed to be a celebration of the priesthood we all share.

There is only one priest, Jesus Christ. This priesthood is to be transmitted to the entire church, the people of the new covenant, you and me. All who are baptized and anointed in the spirit are members of this priesthood. Although there are diverse ministries and talents in the priesthood we share there “exists a true equality among all the faithful in building up the Body of Christ.”  [1]