It's interesting how our Lord arranged his church, arranged his divine plan.
He could have done it all himself, but he chose to use all of us, to use us as instruments to carry out his work and specific instruments, specific people to be his ministers, his priests, his bishops, to carry out his work.
And we all need to recognize that.
Those who are in seminary, those who study for the priesthood.
Should always recognize that they are instruments of Jesus to carry out his work and to always focus on sanctification of oneself and then of the neighbor.
This is the beautiful thing about the priesthood is you're so close to holiness.
You're so close to the sacraments, to everything that can make you holy and everyone else holy.
It's nothing but you're just surrounded with holiness in the priesthood.
And it's something to be, you know, valued and sought after.
Those two things, the only two things, rather than the things of the world, you know, there's respect and privileges and benefits, worldly benefits and things we can do in the world.
And that's always the thing to drag away priests from their calling and what they're supposed to be doing.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
What happened today and in this day, the priests were living for themselves, living for themselves and fell into scandal and such a corruption in the church.
And it's up to the priests now.
It's up to priests to rectify the situation and to improve it and to bring value and reverence back into the dignity of the priesthood, representing Jesus, being instruments of our Lord Jesus Christ to save souls.
And we have to pray for, pray for priests.
This is what he said.
Ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.
This is the cure for the vocation crisis in the church.
We have to pray.
That's why we have adoration time to pray for priests.
And not just to.
Criticize them and blame them, but to pray for them and to be examples ourselves.
The lay people, too, have to have a responsibility for the holiness of the priests.
They say, you know, those corrupt lay people deserve corrupt priests and vice versa.
Corrupt priests deserve corrupt lay people.
And we work together.
We're both together.
It's not only one.
It's not just the priests who are corrupting the church.
It's the lay people, too, who have put a lot of corruption into the world and don't do their part.
So we both have to do our parts in bringing about the kingdom of God in the world.
We need to pray for each other and be true shepherds following the example of Jesus, our true shepherd.
Parents need to shepherd their children.
Bring them up as good children of the church and foster vocations in the family.
And priests certainly need to be good shepherds, guiding and leading and speaking the truth
and feeding the flock with the truth, not with their own agenda, their own opinions,
but the teachings of the church and the saints and being saints themselves and making saints of the world.
This is our holy vocation, our holy calling.
And so let us pray for holy priests and holy sheep.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen.