This is great. A lot of the blessings that used to be common died out after Vatican 2 in the US and only survived in traditional or ethnic circles. Sounds like an effective way to start bringing that back.
I love the idea of several families getting together and priests visiting them in one evening. In my experience, I have so few free evenings as a pastor that as much as I enjoy being with one household at a time for an extended evening, it would take decades to visit every household in the parish.
In a world where formality and manners have broken down, sometimes it’s hard to know the proper way to interact with others. The idea of having a ‘script’ to get to know your priest is a good one.
I think this is a reasonable idea where the parish is small enough that the priest or priests could reasonably meet with everyone. As discussed in the other comments, it becomes unwieldy where one priest is trying to meaningfully visit a thousand households.
I also think there needs to be some alternative for people who for whatever reason are not comfortable having a priest in their home, or the priest might have some reason not to go. Examples might be people who have a family routine or issue that makes it hard to welcome visitors, or priests who have allergies that make it hard for them to be around family pets. I'd be much more comfortable going to some small-group "meet the priest" event where maybe a few households get together in some agreeable location (could be someone's home or the local pizza parlor) and all spend a couple hours with the priest, who in turn would make his best effort to interact equally with all of them including the more reserved folks.
This is a great idea. It's hard for anyone to say, "Hey, invite me over," so this competition as an excuse is a great way to lower the threshold for people to invite a priest into their homes.
Love this story! Stories like this are why I subscribe to The Pillar. I see enough doom and gloom from other news outlets, and I’m grateful The Pillar is out there on the ground reporting on the signs of renewal going on in the Catholic world.
This is great. A lot of the blessings that used to be common died out after Vatican 2 in the US and only survived in traditional or ethnic circles. Sounds like an effective way to start bringing that back.
I love this!!
I love the idea of several families getting together and priests visiting them in one evening. In my experience, I have so few free evenings as a pastor that as much as I enjoy being with one household at a time for an extended evening, it would take decades to visit every household in the parish.
In a world where formality and manners have broken down, sometimes it’s hard to know the proper way to interact with others. The idea of having a ‘script’ to get to know your priest is a good one.
I love this! I hope this idea spreads.
I think this is a reasonable idea where the parish is small enough that the priest or priests could reasonably meet with everyone. As discussed in the other comments, it becomes unwieldy where one priest is trying to meaningfully visit a thousand households.
I also think there needs to be some alternative for people who for whatever reason are not comfortable having a priest in their home, or the priest might have some reason not to go. Examples might be people who have a family routine or issue that makes it hard to welcome visitors, or priests who have allergies that make it hard for them to be around family pets. I'd be much more comfortable going to some small-group "meet the priest" event where maybe a few households get together in some agreeable location (could be someone's home or the local pizza parlor) and all spend a couple hours with the priest, who in turn would make his best effort to interact equally with all of them including the more reserved folks.
This is a great idea. It's hard for anyone to say, "Hey, invite me over," so this competition as an excuse is a great way to lower the threshold for people to invite a priest into their homes.
Great idea!
Love this story! Stories like this are why I subscribe to The Pillar. I see enough doom and gloom from other news outlets, and I’m grateful The Pillar is out there on the ground reporting on the signs of renewal going on in the Catholic world.
I hope we can count on an update at Pentecost with which class won!
We know these guys! So wonderful! Thanks for this story.
I live in the archdiocese and I'd love to see a young priest...alas, they don't seem to exist in my neck of the woods.
This is AWESOME! I hope many more clergy will bring this to their own dioceses as well.