Happy memorial of St. Barnabas, the patron of our online prayer community to pray for priests! As the “son of encouragement,” he inspires us to encourage our priests, who offer their lives as shepherds after the Lord’s own Heart.

Priesthood is “a vocation higher than that of the angels,” as Blessed Columba Marmion phrases it in Christ: The Ideal of the Priest (p. 65).

Yet reverence for the extraordinary dignity of the priesthood does not blind us to earthly realities: the call and the gift go out to men who themselves deal with the weaknesses, frailties, and woundedness of our fallen human nature.

Priests can feel this contrast between the sublimity of their vocation and their own personal inadequacy, which can cause discouragement, especially for those who are most conscientious.

That’s just one reason why it’s so important to pray for our priests, who are waging battles that we as laity cannot fully grasp. The Lord will provide His grace in abundance, but He also desires us to help in this work of sanctification.

Blessed Columba reassures priests who are trying their best, but still feel disappointed with themselves:

“Sometimes the priest, although he is putting his whole heart into his mission, feels that he is not living up to his ideal. This feeling must not discourage him. Indeed, this sentiment of humility is admirably calculated to draw down the blessing of God on him and on his ministry.

“But this conviction of his own littleness, if it is to be pleasing to the Lord, must always be accompanied by unlimited confidence in the merits of Jesus” (p. 71).

“If you show even a little fidelity to Him, Christ, by His grace, will raise you up.

“Even if your life as a priest appears mediocre in the eyes of some – the world often judges thus – you may be sure that, in the eyes of God, it is great and agreeable because the Father sees in it the image of the life of His Son” (pp. 52-53).

May our priests be fortified by the graces of their ordination, encouraged by our prayers, and ever know the consolation of God’s love!