April 20 | 
0 COMMENTS 
print
Finding inspiration from the priesthood and lay Catholics
Partings are difficult, even when we know they are coming and have taken steps to prepare for them. That is because even when we know they are not the end of everything, they are often the end of something we held dear. This is when our Faith can give us strength
St Andrews and Edinburgh Archdiocese is saying farewell to three of its priests who died at the weekend. While regular SCO readers will have known just how ill Scotland’s newest priest Fr Graham Turner, 48, was, his death on Monday—just one week after his poignant ordination in the chapel of the hospital where he was being treated for leukaemia—is sad news. However, he died as a priest, his vocation realised—and strengthened in that knowledge—and he will be buried in the priest circle in Edinburgh as a priest for St Andrews and Edinburgh Archdiocese.
Fr Turner is not the only member of the archdiocesan clergy who is being mourned this week. Fr David Barr, 69, the parish priest at St Margaret’s, Dunfermline, passed away on Friday April 13 after 23 years serving his parish community—and a total of 40 years as a priest—and Fr Patrick Kelly, 77, died on Sunday April 15 in the Little Sisters of the Poor house, Edinburgh.
The archdiocese’s, and Scotland’s, loss of a priest from three generations—newly ordained, parish and retired—is a reminder of the life of sacrifice and devotion that the priesthood entails, and the continuing brotherhood that we rely on. Ahead of World Day of prayer for Vocations on April 29, it is a timely reminder indeed.
Therefore we pray not only for these late priests, their families, friends and parishioners, we also pray for the men who will follow them into the priesthood, that their sacrifice will, by example, inspire others in the future as well as us today.
RSS Feeds