SALT LAKE CITY — Pope Benedict XVI announced the Church will Celebrate the Year of the Priest beginning June 19, 2009 through June 19, 2010. The Church will honor Saint John Vianney, the Cure of Ars, Patron of Parish Priests. St. John Vianney, priest and Patron of priests, feast day is August 4. St. John Mary Vianney was ordained a priest in 1815. Three years later he was made parish priest of Ars, a remote French hamlet, where his reputation as a confessor and director of souls made him known throughout the Christian world. His life was one of extreme mortification. Accustomed to the most severe austerities, beleaguered by swarms of penitents, and besieged by the devil, this great mystic manifested an imperturbable patience. He was a wonderworker loved by the crowds, but he retained a childlike simplicity, and he remains to this day the living image of the priest after the heart of Christ. He heard confessions of people from all over the world for sixteen hours each day. His life was filled with works of charity and love. It is recorded that even the staunchest of sinners were converted at his mere word. He died August 4, 1859, and was canonized May 31, 1925. In the Diocese of Salt Lake City, Veola Burchett of the Family Life Office has invited parishioners throughout the diocese to "Adopt a Priest," and pray for their priest or for other priests within the diocese. She has asked one family to pray each day for a priest, which would total seven families or seven individuals praying for one priest each week. "What I am discovering as people find out about the "Adopt a Priest" campaign, is that more and more of them want to pray for the same priest," said Burchett. "So I have limited it to three families per day per priest so that 21 families are praying for one priest each week. People have been very generous and as they find out their priest is being prayed for extensively, they are willing to pray for another priest whose prayer card, so to speak, is not full. Some priests are not as well known as other priests in our diocese. "Then I send them priest prayer cards, which have on the back the prayer is in English or Spanish," said Burchett. "The cards have been provided by the United States Council of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). "I also have been asking people to pray for families and have been sending out the prayer of the family," said Burchett. "My thought is that if you have healthy priests, you have healthy families. And if you have healthy families, you have healthy priests. I do not define a family as a mom, dad, and 2.2 children. A family can be made up of many different combinations. I define families as whatever makes up a household related by marriage or a single person. This also includes a single parent with children, a blended family, grandparents raising children, a couple without children, or a couple or single parent with adopted children, or any combination. "I do not want people to feel they cannot pray because they are not part of a what people call a fashionable family," said Burchett. "We are all important to the church. My favorite thing is little baby priests come from families, and that is where they are raised. If you talk to any of our priests, when they start talking about their families, they come from very diverse backgrounds. Some have come from divorced or single-parent families, or not ideal familial situations. "But priests are more than willing to help people and families in their struggles, and we should help them as well," said Burchett. "We need to offer priests our support, and not leave a parish if we get angry. We need to ask for an explanation, and work out any misunderstandings we may have with our priests." For more information or to obtain prayer cards, contact Veola Burchett in the Family Life Office at (801) 328-89641, ext. 324.
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