I want to share how prayer for priests, and especially adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, transforms my view of the priesthood, shows me its beauty and moves me to pray for priests. I belong to the Congregation of the Sisters of the Bethany Family, whose particular charism is prayer for priests. More than 25 years ago, while I served as a sacristan, I had the chance to meet priests directly. I came to know their apostolate and the difficulties and misunderstandings that go with it.
I decided then to offer an hour of adoration of the Blessed Sacrament for them every day. Coming to my daily meetings with the Eucharistic Jesus, I would pass priests hearing confessions. I tried to carry their ministry in prayer, sending my prayer into the confessionals and everywhere else that priests go each day, so that they might be led and protected by God's power. During that adoration the Lord unveiled before me the beauty of the priesthood, who a priest truly is. I think he let me look at priests as if with his own eyes — weak and sinful people like us, and yet endowed by him with great power from on high. I understood how much our prayer for priests is needed, for their perseverance and their holiness, but also for their protection from evil. I longed to share this experience with others, to widen our Bethany charism of prayer to a broader circle of people.
And that is how, in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, the Bethany Mission for the Support of Priests came into being; today it surrounds more than 8,000 priests with the protection of prayer — for that is how many people have pledged to pray for a particular priest for the whole of their lives.
Every day Jesus lets me discover the treasure of the priesthood more strongly and more deeply. Today I thank God that I can experience the power of a priest's blessing, that I can touch in a priest the living Jesus, who through his hands feeds me with his Word and his Body, forgives sins, strengthens and blesses me in daily life. I thank God that he places in my life priests who, proclaiming his Word with faith and with the power of the Holy Spirit, touch my heart and open it to the working of God's grace. Today I know that my vocation as a sister is also to love the priesthood and to share this with others.
Sister Gabriela
