Fr. Jonathan Blake

Most of us who have ever had a personal relationship with a Catholic priest know that they're weighed down with administrative burdens and meetings and councils and endless minutiae most of them never thought would be the main part of the job when they were in seminary. But when you start to realize how much really heavy stuff they also carry -- visits to gruesome accident and crime scenes for possible last rites, dealing with suicides, informing family members of deaths, being with countless folks as they take their final breaths, talking down veterans going through a PTSD episode, dealing with substance and domestic abuse among parishioners, trying to keep folks out of the jaws of despair -- it's a LOT. The kind of stuff that can really get to a man. Every time his phone rings, every time he gets a text or an email, it's almost always because someone wants something from him -- often something hard. And after all that, he has to be really careful about who he allows to offer the simple kindness of giving him a reassuring hug, unless he wants to risk a possible allegation of impropriety. A priest friend who eventually left the priesthood once told me that it's not just the loneliness, but the isolation that's so crushing. They are left alone with almost every burden. There is so much duty and so little help - especially from the chancery. And then, they have to come home to a quiet, empty rectory to sit alone with all of it. Anything you can do to make your priest feel loved, supported, appreciated, and cared for -- not in a clericalist way with excessive deference and doting, but just as a man and a human being -- would probably be appreciated more than you know. The simple act of checking on him once in a while to see how he's doing without asking for anything in return might just mean the world to him.

Prayer is not freaking enough. Prayers does not end school shootings. prayers do not make parents feel safe sending their kids to school. Prayer does not bring these kids back. Enough with the thoughts and prayers.