God's Gift

On the feast of the Epiphany, we got a homily on the importance of vocations. Vocations as in the priesthood, brotherhood and sisterhood. The deacon explained how on this weekend, the Archdiocese of Chicago is sending out the deacons to talk about the importance of religious vocations. This deacon seems like a truly nice guy. He talked about how the Archdiocese has given him the gifts of education, spiritual guidance, room/board, etc. He talked about how being a priest (in his case becoming a priest) was a gift.

Now, while he is talking, I'm thinking about how my mother would refer to someone who thought way too highly of themselves as people who thought they were "God's gift to the human race." My thought patterns tend to take odd little sideroads, so I'm sitting in the pew thinking, "There's the problem, priests think they are God's gift to the human race." It explains a lot. With men thinking so highly of themselves, it is easy to see how their is a problem with the abuse of power in the church. I'm not just thinking of scandals on the international and national level like sexual abuse, but things that happen every day. I see and hear priests order volunteers to do things rather then ask them to do things. I rarely hear priests say the magic words of "please" and "thank you". I know priests who expect you to celebrate the anniversary of the ordination and their birthdays, but these same priests don't respect their active parishioners enough to remember their names and who is in their family. But now, I know why, they are God's gifts to the human race. We seemed to have forgotten that God's greatest gift was a humble person, who served others, treated those who society frowned upon with respect, and who died so we may live.