My dear friends,   

This is an important year for East Anglia. Our Cathedral, the Mother Church of our diocese, celebrates its hundred years, and I hope many of you will come to the various events. St. John’s is your Cathedral, your diocesan home, no matter how far away from Norwich you may live. The new Narthex building gives a wonderful sense of warm welcome and hospitality. I am most grateful to everyone who has given time, talents and money so generously to this project.

And in the Cathedral itself, in just eleven weeks’ time, two young men will be ordained priests for our diocese, the first for nine years. When I told the Holy Father during my visit to Rome in February, his immediate response was to say: ‘What a joy!’

Six years ago, we had no seminary students for East Anglia. We now have six. Luke Goymour from Peterborough and Michael Collis from Ipswich will be ordained priest on 10^th July, and Padraig Hawkins from Cambridge will be ordained deacon at Oscott College on 26^th June. Please keep them, and our other three seminarians – Henry, Ben and Simon – in your prayers.

As Pope Benedict said, such ordinations are moments of joy for us all, and real signs of hope for our future together. But we need many more to offer their lives to God in this way, in joyful and humble love for God’s people. 

This 4^th Sunday of Easter is often called both ‘Good Shepherd Sunday’ and ‘Vocations Sunday’. In this Year of the Priest, I will focus today on God’s call to serve him as priests. It is something vital for our future as the Catholic Church in East Anglia.

Firstly, I renew my thanks to the priests we already have. Please keep them in your prayers, and take good care of them. 

A few priests for our future may come from other places, but most of them must come from our own diocese, including from your parish, perhaps from your family. I have no doubt that God is still calling people to be priests in his Church, as he always has. Perhaps he is calling one or more of you who are listening here today.

In my letter in January, I reminded us that we are God’s priestly people, sharing together the priesthood of Christ. He is our great High Priest, who gives his life for us in sacrificial love. God our Father calls each of us to offer our life to him, united with Christ himself. Becoming a priest is one special of answering that call.

Today you will receive another diocesan card. On the front, it has an ancient 3^rd century painting, from the Roman catacombs, of the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep. Jesus is the Shepherd who became the Lamb that was sacrificed, the Lamb of God who brings us mercy and peace. As we heard in today’s second reading, that Lamb is the Shepherd who leads us to springs of living water. We are called to be his followers and friends, to listen to his voice, and to receive from him eternal life. 

In his ministry, a priest makes Jesus the Good Shepherd visibly present for us all, gathering us around the Lord to worship him and sending us out to witness to him.

Like Paul and Barnabas, the priest’s first role is the proclaim the word of God, to announce the good news of great joy, the news that God loves the world so much that he gave his only Son, and that Jesus died for us and is risen from the dead. As the Holy Father wrote many years ago before he became Pope, priests are to be ‘ministers of God’s joy’, servants of his joyful love.

Why do we need priests so much? There is an excellent summary on the back of your card. It is the Preface for the Chrism Mass, and the one I will use when I ordain Luke and Michael in the Cathedral. Notice how often the word ‘love’ appears in these few lines!

It reminds us that Christ himself is our High Priest. With wisdom and love, God planned Christ’s priesthood should continue in the Church. And so he ‘gives the dignity of a royal priesthood to the people he has made his own’, to all of us who have been baptised.

The next lines of this prayer to God our Father sum up beautifully the ordination and ministry of every priest:

            From these, with a brother’s love,
            Christ chooses men to share his sacred ministry by the laying on of hands.
            He appoints them to renew in his name the sacrifice of our redemption
            as they set before your family his paschal meal.

            He calls them to lead your holy people in love,
            nourish them by your word,
            and strengthen them through the sacraments. 

            Father, they are to give their lives in your service,
            and for the salvation of your people,
            as they strive to grow in the likeness of Christ
            and honour you by their courageous witness of faith and love. 

This is the ‘ministry of joy’ to which Luke and Michael are called. It requires sacrificial love, united with Jesus our Good Shepherd as he lays down his life for his sheep. I very much look forward to ordaining them both this July. My hope and prayer is that many others will follow them, and offer themselves for priestly service if that is God’s will for them.

I ask on your card: ‘Will you offer your life to God in love for his people?’ That call is to every one of us, as God’s priestly people. But also, for some, ‘Could the Good Shepherd be calling you to serve as one of his priests in East Anglia?’ I have no doubt the answer is ‘Yes’. If you think this might be God’s call to you, talk to your priest, or our Diocesan Vocations Director, Fr David Bagstaff. It will take much time and prayer, to be sure what God is asking of you, but it is well worth the effort. God is certainly calling you to do something special for him with your life. 

Please keep Luke and Michael in your prayers, and all others preparing for priestly ordination this year. And may God keep you all in his love.

+Michael
Bishop of East Anglia