Louisiana Priests’ Convention attracts 350 priests

RECORD ATTENDANCE
The 2013 Louisiana Priests’ Convention, held every four years in New Orleans since 1993, attracted 353 priests from throughout the state for three days of prayer, study and fellowship.
Major addresses were given by Archbishop Gregory Aymond, Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley and Atlanta Archbishop Wilton Gregory. Excerpts of their addresses follow.

In his own words: Archbishop Gregory M. Aymond

We live in an age of sound, but more importantly, we live in an age of the noisy world. Isn’t it interesting that when most people wake up, they put on the television or the radio or make a call on their cell phone? There is no quiet time.
Yet, in the midst of this, God calls us to be quiet, reflective and prayerful. Will we lose a sense of being available and open to the sacred? Can we as leaders, as priests, move people in our congregations to a quietness of heart?
People should not feel that we are too busy for them. I often hear, ‘Oh, I wanted to ask you something but I didn’t want to bother you. I didn’t want to intrude on your busy life.’ That’s why we are there. That’s why we are available. Priests must be men of presence.
On a given Sunday, about 30 percent show up and worship. … How do you and I find the busy and the scattered? Perhaps it’s time to revive something we did years ago – knocking on doors in neighborhoods and finding the people who are busy and overburdened, telling them there is a place at the table with their name on it. … And when they come back, we have to make sure we are a welcoming community.
We live in an age of relativism, where morality is voted on. We must be true evangelizers and true teachers in what we do. We cannot just say, ‘Do this or you’re going to hell.’ If that worked in the past, it ain’t working today. … We need to be strong teachers and evangelizers and do it with passion but also with compassion. We also live in an age of addiction. … The greatest of all addictions in the world is pornography. … We must be there as priests and healers who want to help people get out of prison.

In his own words: Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley

     So many people in today’s world are spiritually deaf. … It is our task to transmit that Word so that people will discover the reason for their existence, their own origin and destiny in God’s love.
    I was truly amazed by how many priests and people quoted the Holy Father’s Chrism Mass homily. I was particularly struck that the words that seem to be on everyone’s lips were our Holy Father’s challenge that ‘the shepherds would have the smell of their sheep.’
    Why is preaching so important today? Why is it so difficult? … To me, one of the best metaphors to describe the reality of the church in the United States is the biblical notion of exile. Exile is a spiritual condition of God’s people when they find themselves in a hostile, alien environment where the overriding temptation is to assimilation. … For today’s world, the central claims of the faith are increasingly unwelcomed and they are received, if not with hostility, at best with a yawn of indifference.
    The Good News needs to be preached with clarity. ‘No one will follow an uncertain trumpet blast.’ The Good News must be preached with a compelling sense of urgency and a profound trust in God and hope in his words.
In the movie ‘Contact,’ U.S. scientists somewhere in the desert in the Southwest are sending out radio signals to outer space to see if there is intelligent life out there. Sometimes preaching is like that. We wonder: Is anybody listening? The lights are on, but is anybody home? Once visiting a church in Palm Beach, I said to the pastor, ‘How big is your church?’ He said, ‘Bishop, my church sleeps 700.’
    We need to teach our people to listen to the Word of God, to listen to the homily. The more importance we give to the Liturgy of the Word, the more importance our parishioners will give to it.   

In his own words: Atlanta Archbishop Wilton Gregory

One of my very favorite liturgical prayers is the one that we now offer in English during the blessing of the Easter candle at the Vigil Mass where we pray: ‘Christ yesterday and today, the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega, to him belong all times and the seasons.’ … There are no moments when Jesus Christ is not in control of creation and over which he does not have ultimate authority.
My dear brothers, the 12-minute Sunday homily is usually not the moment for necessary catechesis. The homily is our weekly opportunity for spiritual inspiration. … Our Catholic people come together each Sunday to plan their lives for the next week. … We homilists are commissioned to become their spiritual coaches to whom they regularly turn with reasonable expectations and high hopes that we can indeed prepare them to perform better in the game of life.
Even our cynics – of which there are no shortage – seem to take heart in the witness of this gentle and approachable man (Pope Francis). Francis dares to challenge those of us who are priests and bishops to raise our eyes and see the promise of tomorrow.