We want to tell the faithful priests who have served at our parish…

Thank you for sacrificing the fulfillment of ‘making it in the world’ in order to give us a chance to make it in the next world. You don’t take on jobs — they are appointed to you. You put your own will at the disposal of the church, for us. We are grateful.

Thank you for bringing our children into the church, and sustaining their souls with the sacraments.  And thank you for welcoming them into the church informally, as well.  We see them look at you like celebrities, and we’re glad the first “celebrity” they got to meet was a man of God. Thank you for patiently listening to them, for taking such joy in teasing them, and for showing them the true face of Christ: the gentle one who said, ‘Let the children come to me.’

Thank you for presiding at our marriages, even while you yourselves live such that you can be ready to serve your people at a moment’s notice. Sometimes, married people sigh and think envious thoughts about living alone. But in the end, it’s hard for us to imagine how you do it. Thank you for risking loneliness to serve us and our families.

Thank you for putting yourself in the unenviable position of dealing with us at our worst moments — when we’re anxious, upset, depressed, even a little out of our minds, focused on our own problems to the exclusion of all else. When we see the care you have to take in listening to the problems of so many kinds of people, we can’t imagine how you do it. How do you listen to angry people, whining people, weeping people, nervous people, suspicious people and clueless people? How do you listen to us?

Thank you for sitting in the empty confessional on Saturday afternoons. You wait there, not even knowing if we’ll come, like the prodigal son’s father on the road.  Thank you for all the times we hear, ‘I absolve you from your sins,’ and feel a great burden lifted from our hearts.  This gift of God’s forgiveness brings the greatest joy back into our lives. We can give you nothing in return that even comes close to that.

And thank you most of all for bringing Christ himself into our lives. Where would we be without your astonishing ability to make the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ present on our altar and in our tabernacle? You are there for us every Sunday, every morning, giving us this infinite gift. Thank you.

In the end, that’s what is so great about you: not you, in yourself, but who you bring us — Christ.

Thank you, Father, for being Christ for us!