Eight days ago, three men from our diocese Joliet named Nathan Gohlke, Grzegorz Podwysocki, and Matthew Pratscher was ordained priests for the diocese by Bishop Peter Sartain. Whether you realize it or not, their ordination is a direct result of what you have done for them. We have a vocation cross which we ask you to hold each week to pray for vocations; your prayers made their ordination possible. We have a ministries' appeal which gathers funds to educate each seminarian to the tune of some $40,000 year; your financial assistance makes their ordination possible.

Last week Thursday, I celebrated a Mass at the Poor Clares' Motherhouse in Minooka to find out that Matthew Pratscher had just been there the day before in order to celebrate his first Mass for them and to offer special blessings that the Church gives a newly ordained priest and the sisters there were glowing from receiving such a gift. I am celebrating the 7:00 p.m. Mass at St. Raymond's tonight, a parish which will very much be celebrating over Fr. Nathan Gohlke being assigned to them as their new associate pastor. With everything Fr. Brad Baker has had to endure this year with his new responsibilities as rector up north, he could use all the help he can get and we are all grateful that Fr. Brad will be able to breathe easier.

I guess this week I was thinking a lot about priests getting ordained, since many of us celebrate our anniversaries around the first week or two of June. Fr. Lennon just celebrated his 50th; so has Fr. John Doyle in Crest Hill and Fr. Mike Valente over at St. Anthony's. I think that we ordain anywhere from one to five guys a year as priests while over the next five years about 30 priests will leave through retirement, while another 10 or 15 will die prematurely or leave the diocese through illness or other reasons.

I myself am celebrating twelve years in the priesthood this year. I looked up what kind of gift is appropriate for this "special" occasion. I found out on the internet that a twelfth anniversary is correlated to silk or linen - anyone who buys me anything in silk this year will get a free Anointing of the Sick the hard way (if you know what I mean�)!!! I will be just as satisfied to celebrate this year, as I would every year, if all I got is an extra pork chop on my breakfast platter on my anniversary day, if that is all right with you�

With everything that has been thrust upon priests in today's age, I think to myself that it must not look very good being a priest in America within our society. I started to think this week about why people would not want to be priests. Some people may not get past the fact that priests cannot get married. Some might complain about the few bad apples that have done extremely sinful things that has corrupted the whole barrel, those bad priests who have broken a Christian code of ethics where if they do not practice what they preach they will get chastised and ridiculed, most often justifiably. Many times, priests and religious have to speak up and tell people things about the faith that they may not want to hear, things that will not be popular but will be required of them to do nevertheless. Some people might complain about not liking one priest over another or give one priest more of a hard time over another. For me, all these things are bad excuses, since you can apply the same rationale to any vocation in life that requires some type of sacrifice, whether it be a parent, a laborer, or a Christian devoted to living out the gospel message.

I guess in the final analysis, some people see the priesthood as a lifestyle much too difficult to attain, since our society elevates priests with a type of lofty ideal as a standard of hope which they want to reach, a lofty ideal which Jesus Christ lived some two thousand years ago, an ideal which caused some people to elevate our Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross. The fact is that our Church needs to see the priest as this ideal because he becomes the hope-bearer for the people that he serves, the presence of Christ in a society desperately in need of that presence. This was Fr. Lennon's gift, his ability to provide that hope. It was a gift passed on to Fr. Memenas, Fr. Doyle, Fr. Valente, our newly ordained and, in a very limited way, to the celebrant preaching this homily. But this ideal is a hard goal to attain; I suspect this might be the reason that some people turn away from this particular vocation. In our gospel reading today, we read about twelve men called to this life of ministry. We learn how these twelve men were called to achieve this lofty ideal and, for the most part, ended up suffering a tragic death because of their defense of the faith. We read about how one of the twelve broke this code of ethics in the most egregious of ways (which also happens in today's priesthood as well, unfortunately) and suffered a fate worse than death as a result. The gospel message today challenges the faithful of today's age to follow the example of the faithful men who were chosen by Christ to spread the gospel message. With all the challenges thrust upon the life of priests for the last two thousand years, I certainly can understand why people would not want to be priests in today's society.

When I ponder about the state of the priesthood and why God called me to be one in 1996, I began to reflect on why I chose to accept this call in the first place. Just this last week alone, I was thinking to myself how much I enjoy being a priest, due to the fact that I celebrated three Masses each of the last six days. I realize that by saying this I stretched the realms of canon law, but I also realized in my life as a priest, the greatest joy I find is the gift of ministering to others. This last week, Fr. Benet Fonck (a Franciscan priest who serves the Our Lady of Angels retirement home in Joliet) had to leave the city for a meeting within his congregation. He could not find another priest to cover for him during the week, since many people were gone on vacation.

Because I pride myself on serving the diocese as a self-proclaimed "liturgical savant," I volunteered to help Fr. Benet out. Because I did, I had the opportunity to get to know some of the wonderful religious that work there. I reacquainted myself with a whole bunch of parishioners from St. Patrick's that live at OLA. For a half an hour each day, I was able to allow God to work through me to put a smile on their faces. For that reason alone, because God has been able to work through me, I am most grateful to be a priest.

I began to reflect on how, a few weeks ago, a Hispanic family which was desperate in finding a priest to help them celebrate a funeral Mass for their father came stumbling to my door and we were able to at least show them the face of God in a time of loss. I think about a 75 year old couple who wanted to get their marriage blessed in the Church so that they could spend the rest of their lives together, filled with the grace of God. I think about how the funeral homes call me a few times a month to offer graces to a family that would otherwise be without the presence of God through a priest. I think about the numerous people who pass through our offices and the confessional, in need of a little spiritual food so that they could get through the difficult days that weigh them down. And I think that for every priest that is ordained in the diocese of Joliet, then hundreds upon hundreds of people receive this gift of hope from a simple ordination.

I learned how to do this through a special priest named Fr. Boniface Vaisnoris, who passed away this week in Plano, Illinois at the age of 89. Fr. Bonnie has been involved in Plano since the 1950s and has been a mainstay at the parish as both associate, pastor, and one of the heads of his Marian congregation. I respect this man and wish to emulate him because of his basic tenets of faith. Fr. Bonnie never wished to aspire to higher goals. Fr. Bonnie taught me to go to bed early, to get up at 4:00 a.m. to get in my prayer and paperwork so that the rest of the day would be free to ministry. And in 1988 when my mother died in a tragic auto accident, Fr. Bonnie made himself available to my father who grieved dearly over the loss of my mother.

It is because of people like Fr. Bonnie that I became a priest. It is because of people like St. John Vianney that I have found my role models in ministry, a saint who were not considered one of the smartest people around but had enough love to sit in a confessional ten hours a day to listen to people's sins and offer them forgiveness. I think of Charles Lwanga and his companions, who sacrificed their lives as priests so that the people of Africa could see the light of the Christian way of life.

I think about people like Fr. John Balluff, a priest you have probably never heard of, who works in some of the smallest parishes in the diocese, parishes of 50 families who live in the country and crave to receive God's love into their lives. I think about Fr. Bill Conway, who works in the most northern parish of the Diocese in West Chicago, offering God's love to the Anglo and Hispanic community who occupy that territory. I think about the difficult ministries that have fallen upon of Fr. Ray Lescher, Ron Nietzke, Roger Kuntzer, and Fr. Brad Baker. I think about priests like Fr. Jerry Simonelli who is taking on this week a new assignment at St. Isidore's Church in Bloomingdale, a Church of 7000 families, which means they have ten times the joys and struggles that we experience here in our little slice of heaven. I think about all the pastors who will be moving parishes this week in our annual "shifting of the pastoral chairs" as they begin their new assignments and challenges throughout the diocese.

As we celebrate this Father's Day weekend, I am very cognizant that these men represent our Spiritual Father in heaven. They are the ones who bring hope to a world that often searches for that hope. They wish to love you; I certainly wish to love you. You have all been more than wonderful in your support of my priesthood and those with whom I serve in this diocese. There is a great love that comes from all of you and there is a need for priests and religious to take care of people like you. This is the grace that makes the ministries of the ordained very much worthwhile - grace and an extra pork chop on the day of our ordination.

Today is the challenge to find those people who can hear the call. If you know of someone who would make a great priest, now is the time to challenge him to come forward. If you know of other men and women who would make great religious, this is the time to live out the gospel message. When we call these men and women forward, the Church moves forth into the next millennium and beyond. Let us open our eyes to answer the call. Let us bring these gifts around our altar, share them with each other, and offer them to the people that we meet.

And this is our prayer.