Thank You for Seminary Appeal Donations

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the Seminary Appeal. We have received approximately $3,000 so far. Donors will be edified to know that the ordained ministry is an essential and constitutive part of the life of the Church and has been so from the beginning. In the Catechism of the Catholic Church #830 we read: "First, the Church is catholic because Christ is present in her. "Where there is Christ Jesus, there is the Catholic Church." In her subsists the fullness of Christ's body united with its head; this implies that she receives from him "the fullness of the means of salvation" which he has willed: correct and complete confession of faith, full sacramental life, and ordained ministry in apostolic succession. the Church was, in this fundamental sense, catholic on the day of Pentecost and will always be so until the day of the Parousia." The ordained priesthood is essential to the life of the Church: "The ministerial priesthood is therefore necessary for a community to exist as "Church": "The ordained priesthood ought not to be thought of as existing (...) posterior to the ecclesial community, as if the Church could be imagined as already established without this priesthood". Indeed, were a community to lack a priest, it would be deprived of the exercise and sacramental action of Christ, the Head and Pastor, which are essential for the very life of every ecclesial community." (Ecclesiae de mysterio, 3) Please continue to pray for priestly vocations and encourage those who are considering a call to the priesthood to do so with courage and generosity.