Following my reflections on the prodigal priest, some have asked me to prayerfully consider laicization so that I can be married in and fully embraced by the Catholic Church and once again actively participate in a ministry of service to that Church. As I write this follow up, I assure you I have indeed prayed in earnest and appreciate those who have joined me in this prayer of discernment.
As I prayerfully reflect back upon my life, as I reconsider both the paths I have chosen to take as well as the unchosen that were set before me and intended for my taking, as I pause to recognize God's presence along the way, one thing is undeniably clear... God knocked on my door before I ever knocked at his. The call that stirred my restless, hungry heart throughout the formative years of my youth and the call to serve that I heard and accepted is as real today as it was twenty-four years ago TODAY when I was ordained to the priesthood!
Despite all the faith and love behind the suggestion, to pursue the path of laicization would require that I look back and accept that impediments prevented all of it from really happening. To do that would be to condemn myself to living out the rest of my days as a lie. And that would make as much sense as Mary recanting her "yes" to God concerning the virgin birth because Christians following in Jesus' footsteps have failed over two millenia to clothe themselves in the gospel's spirit of love and compassion and because the world does not recognize Christians for their openness, inclusion and acceptance - their love for one another!
So, after prayerful consideration, I reaffirm on this 24th anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood that I was called to be a priest, I accepted that call and served in active ministry faithfully, literally pouring myself out to the point of brokenness, that those who come to know me witness that priestly character by my words, actions and demeanor and, finally, that God isn't through with me yet! Today I recommit myself to answering "yes" to that call!
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PLAYING WITH IDEAS
About Me
- Don Neale Jr.
- You could say I've spent my entire 56 years trying to figure out what this riddle called life is all about. It seems the pieces to this puzzle - good and evil, purpose and meaninglessness, contentment and restlessness, opportunity and hardship, joy and suffering, self and humanity, life and death, eternal and mortal, Creator and created - simply do not (or cannot) fit together. At this point in the journey I've come to appreciate that the answers I've sought - at times desparately - were never "out there," but were instead within me all along just waiting to be discovered. The spiritually enlightened commonly tell us they offer nothing we do not already possess. How true. How very true.
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