A photo of my friend Lois and Fr. Grace upon arrival at our home.
Father Grace almost always wears his clericals in public. The only exceptions are when playing tennis or surfing. At these recreation times he wears a T-shirt with our Lady of Guadalupe boldly printed on the front. When he goes surfing, he continues to wear his Brown Scapular (tucked of course beneath his swim shirt). He says he can evangelize that way. More on that later.
Father told us two stories that I would like to share with you. I believe I told him I would be sharing these on my blog.
One was when was going to or from the World Youth Day in Toronto. A man dressed in casual wear approached and greeted him. "G'day Father, I'm Archbishop ________". Father responded, "Oh, Your Lord, I didn't recognize you". A little while later, an airport security personnel approached Father Grace and said "Father, you don't have to wait on line, just follow me". The archbishop got the message.
Second incident was when two young surfer dudes approached Father and asked him where they could get vested up. Father retorted "You're priests?" "How did you know I was a priest"? Again, they got the message.
Interestingly, my friend in the photo is on a one woman campaign to tell our priests just how important it is for children to see our priests dressed as priests. What she is doing is talking to them privately and what we should do everyday, , is to pray for our priests.
I remember when my sister was a sister. She belonged to a conservative order of sisters who dressed in full habit. People everywhere would treat her with such respect! They would greet her with such joy. They wouldn't let her pay for anything in stores. They would ask her to pray for them.
It seems an easy way for our religious to evangelize, yet so important! So, how can we help? Again, pray for our priests and religious, and don't criticize.
9 comments:
Very good.
Also, when the World Trade Center fell people were running around looking for priests...one priest dressed in his clerics was called to constantly by people wanting confession...
:-D Some years back I was helping put together the bulletin for the week and Msgr. M. came back from his day in LA. He'd flown up for some conference thingie which he was not overjoyed at having to attend in the first place. He finally made his way back to the airport and was dressed in his collar and reading his breviary waiting for a flight to be called. Some evangelical from "the church of the what's happening now" came up to him and said "I'd like to talk to you about Jesus Christ, my personal Lord and Savior." Msgr. M. said: "What would you like to know about Him?" Game. Set. Match.
I once heard a story about a priest sent to a small town to preach.
He walked around the place in his cassock and went back to his hotel.
People asked him "aren't you going to preach?" and he replied "I already did" :)
Diana, I can just picture that happening! Wow!
Karen! What a great response!!
F & P: Thank you for sharing that story. I love it!
The priests and brothers from the Community of St. John always wear their gray habits with attached hoods (cowls) wherever they go and even though they are monks, they travel a lot. I was on an airplane and witnessed a non-Catholic young woman in her 20's approach the prior of one of the monasteries in the U.S. and initiate a discussion ("I noticed that you are a monk and I have some questions...") of Pope B16's Deus Caritas Est. They must have talked for at least an hour on the subject. This is quite common for the Brothers.
Our pastor always dresses in his priestly attire and part of that attire includes his cowboy boots. My dh was the one to point this out. He is so special to us. We pray daily for our priests.
Yesterday, I wore my cassock to the soccer games at which I was the assistant coach. One of our players reported this brief conversation held on the field:
Other guy: "Who's that weirdo over there in the black?"
Our guy: "He's a priest."
Other guy: "Oh, that explains it."
Jean, thank you for sharing that!
Fr. D, are you sure you're not making that one up ;-)
I'll never forget the day I ran into our priest at the post office. Who knew he got mail? Grin.
I agree, it is rare for me to see our priest without his cassock on, and I appreciate that.
Mimi :-)
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