Prayer Need: Father J

You'll see his name added to the prayer list in the sidebar.

I received, just a few minutes ago, an email from a friend in his parish, asking for prayers. Fr J has ended each of the Masses he has celebrated today with the announcement that he is leaving the parish, and the confession that he is an alcoholic and leaving to enter a treatment facility.

I've lived with alcoholism and addiction - grandfather, uncles and cousins on both sides of the family, my mom, my second husband...

It's a nasty business, chemicals dominating a person's body and soul, demanding more and more for itself and leaving so little a shell in its wake. I've been enjoying Adrienne's posts on the 12 Steps for Catholics in large part because - even though I seem to have escaped the addiction gene - alcoholism still shapes a lot of the person I am, and am constantly trying to make and keep peace with.

One of the worst facets of addiction is the denial that there's a problem. That's why the First Step toward recovery, admitting that one has a problem, is so monumental an accomplishment.

It seems even more impressive to me that this priest should take this step now. He has had to greatly humble - even humiliate himself - before his parishioners - and this goes completely against the grain of a Church where the authority (even when it unhealthily feeds his ego) of a priest is sacrosanct. He owed his parish nothing in the way of an explanation; he might have saved "face" by not revealing the details behind his exit.

But he has chosen a better way, I suspect, and for that I admire him immensely.

Email from a friend - PRAYER NEED, please!

My da is in the neurosurgery ward in Beaumont Hospital. He has an abnormality on his brain and they'll either do an operation to remove it immediately or a biopsy to see if it's a tumour or not. The biopsy will take 3-4 days to come back and both will be under general anaesthetic. The head surgeon is off for the holiday weekend so we will see him Tuesday and he'll discuss the options with us. My family is thank God, pulling together instead of falling apart. S and M (my sisters) and D (my nephew) are doing shifts with me and my ma. He keeps wandering off and thinks he can get a taxi to go home and then the boat to Birmingham where they used to live. His eyesight is all blurry too. That's just a shortlist of what's happening to him.

We really really need your prayers, and if you remember him after the consecration at Mass and when you get Holy Communion it will be so powerful. I would really appreciate if you could pay a few dollars and have a Mass said for him, his name is Eddie M. Our Lady said they are like candles to light up the way when a person dies and of course it's the most powerful prayer on Earth. I will keep you updated. God keep you always in the palm of His hand.