By Fr Arockia Dhas Rayappan –
Oh, Jesus, Son of God, the Eternal Priest, our Good Shepherd, and the source of our eternal salvation! In your presence, we experience your divine consolation, peace, and mercy flowing abundantly from your holy wounds. Constantly recalling your risen presence, ever alive and so tangible, we deeply desire a life that reflects the gift of priesthood that you bestowed on us –to be your priests, your humble servants: offered as self-gift to the Father and His people.
You are the Bread of Life. Thanks to your presence in our pastoral ministry, we have come to our senses. We acknowledge our life is in misery[1] and in tatters. We have become victims of our own brokenness. Yes, Lord, we have been wandering far away from Your presence and Your people.
We have missed many opportunities to serve your people by consciously serving our own self-interests through self-indulgence, disobedience, wrong decisions, misjudgement, and imprudence! Often, we failed in our ministry because we were not leaning on and firmly attached to the strong pillar of prayer.[2] Not so infrequently, we also accord to our family interests at the place of our pastoral priorities.
With you by our side, and enlightened by the Holy Spirit, we acknowledge our past with a repentant heart. We bid goodbye to our past errors. Prompted by divine revelation and the Holy Spirit, we ardently desire mercy from our Loving Father, from our families, from God’s people and from our brother priests, and we are ready to make amendments.
With the grace of God and strength of Your Body and Blood in the Eucharist, we firmly resolve, by your Grace, to do all that will please our merciful Father, all that will make us belong only to Him, and all that will please you, Jesus, our first and last love.
Through the discernment of the Holy Spirit in the light of the Holy Bible, we consciously say NO to all that is contrary to the will of the Father and say YES to serving the entire human family. With the strength of the Holy Spirit, we resolve to avoid occasions that will lead us away from the life-giving presence of the Father. We only desire the joys of eternal life and lasting happiness through the suffering of the Cross.
We pray, fill us with your mercy so that we realise who we are before you! Teach us what we are! Fill us with your presence, your grace, and the concerns of your people, so that God and His people may be our priority through the daily celebration of the Sacraments of the Church.
Help us, your faithful servants, to find pastoral joy in the life, ministry, and service of your people through initiating, establishing, and sustaining the Basic Ecclesial Communities (BECs), the pastoral priority for the Church in India. Gift us the grace to say A WHOLE-HEARTED, “YES,” to the BECs and invest our available resources for the vision of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India in establishing the BECs as the Pastoral Priority of the Church in India.
Through the intercession of Mary, Mother of the priests, Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Saint Pope John XXIII, Saint Pope Paul VI, Saint Augustine, Saint John Marie Vianney, Saint Mother Teresa, Saint Martyr Devasahayam Pillai – First Married Layman Martyr, and Venerable Pastor Augustine Tolton, and Saint Pope John Paul II, strengthen us during our spiritual pilgrimage of renewal and newness on earth so that we may grow in love for you, and so dedicate all of our lives to our pastoral ministry and service among Your people.
May the Spirituality of the Synodal Church inspire us to walk hand in hand, to accompany our brother priests, and tread the path of the Holy Cross allowing the Simons – the carriers of the Cross even if they belong to other faiths and denominations—to join us in the Synodal Path making our hearts larger and more magnanimous—to be ever more receptive to listening to the whispers of your Holy Spirit, who calls us for conversion of hearts and renewal of our lives to be at the service of the Church and the World.
May we grow in the spirit of self-emptiness and servant leadership. May we keep you as our priority and say, ‘Yes’ to decisions that favour the fruition of communitarian discernment where the people of the periphery, migrants, Adivasis, women, the differently abled, the displaced, and the children and women torn by war, are able to have their say. Amen.
Father Arockia D. Rayappan ([email protected]) is a priest of Delhi Archdiocese and a Ph.D. student at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. His ministry in the states of Delhi and Haryana has been in missions of Rohtak and Dharuhera, parishes, the Formation Commission, seminary, and school. He served as the deputy secretary general and PRO of the Regional Bishops’ Council of the North from 2012-2014. His contributions have been published in The Voice of Delhi, The Vidyajyoti Journal of Theological Reflection, The Indian Currents, The New Leader, The Examiner, The Tablet-Brooklyn, USA, Golden Key Academy-Atlanta, USA, and JDV Times.
[1] ‘Life in misery’ is an expression dear to Saint Francis of Assisi.
[2] Adopted from the quote of Saint Teresa of Avila: “How often I failed in my duty to God, because I was not leaning on the strong pillar of prayer.”
I am just a lay person.
Rev. Father’s prayer is greatly inspiring.
I appreciate Rev. Father’s humility
My sincere prayers that Jesus Christ will declare that this holy priest is close to His heart as God declared King David.