Although this Sacrament is geared towards men who want to become ordained priests, we invite all women and men who feel they have a calling or vocation to serve the church as priests, religious women, religious priests or religious brothers to participate. Please call the Parish Office so that we can direct you to the proper sources, where you can be guided in your decision towards a vocation of service in the church.

For many centuries, priests were the only recognized ministers in the Church. They performed not only the sacramental functions that only priests are allowed to do, but they performed most of the other ministries in the Church as well: teaching, caring for the ill and the needy, and administrating the various church organizations. Sisters and Brothers in religious orders also performed ministries in the Church, but their work was not usually called a ministry.

Today this is changing, and the Catholic Church is returning to a broader and more biblical understanding of ministry such as was found in the early centuries of Christianity. If they are truly priestly people of God, Catholics from all walks of life will respond to the invitation to participate in the Church's ministry of service.

The role of the priest in the Church is being slowly redefined - from being the sole minister in the Church with many different functions to being a singular minister with specific, well-defined functions. While it is true that priests still do many more things than preside at the liturgy and administer the sacraments, when they do these other things, they do them not as priests but as members of God's priestly people. Only when they perform the functions for which they are specifically ordained do they act as priests in the special sense of being mediators between God and people and between people and God.

We can see this priestly role most clearly when priests perform their sacramental duties. But in those sacramental moments, they act as more than just representatives of God and of the universal Church. They also act as representatives of the local Christian community, whether it be a parish, a school, or some other organization or group. The priest acts in our name, so to speak, whenever he presides at the Eucharist or some other sacramental liturgy, whenever he pronounces God's forgiveness in confession, and whenever he visits the sick. He is doing with us and for us what all of us are called to do in virtue of our being a sacrificing, forgiving, caring - and priestly - people.

In most parishes today, the priest does not do all of the ministering, but his special ministry is to lead by example all the ministries of service in the Christian community. Although all of us are called to serve, the priest is ordained to serve, and this is why his ministry is indispensable. He is needed to symbolize the priestly ministry of Christ within the Church. For this reason, he represents both the heavenly Christ and the Body of Christ on earth when he leads the Christian community in those special symbolic moments that we call the sacraments.

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