What are the best things about being a priest?
The best thing I enjoy is when couples come and say, “Father we want to get married.” Firstly, they're sharing with you telling you about their love for each other and secondly they want to make a commitment of that love. I really enjoy it when couples come and tell me this. It doesn't matter if they haven't been part of the church or anything like that. They're sharing with me their love and it's the nearest thing I get to a sense of what love is about. Intimate love between two people and they are willing to make a commitment of it for the rest of their lives. They would be the high points of my life and even in terms of family weddings. I had four weddings this year, hopefully no funerals but had four weddings and they're just wonderful occasions for me. It's just preparing the couple working with them. They share their story of their life and their love. So those are the high points. There's not too many of them, if you can imagine that. You do four weddings a year. And the other stuff are just the ordinary things, when someone comes and talks to you about their life and they share something that's been difficult. As they talk about it, they're sharing something about hope. You're listening to something of hope in their life. That makes me feel good and as missionary Oblates; we call to bring good news to the poor and at the end of it our motto ends by saying, “And the poor hear the good news.” So every night when I go to bed, I ask myself where have I heard good news today. Where have I been good news to someone else? And where has someone else brought good news to me. When I think about it, it's whenever I glimpse hope, in people's life. That even through the midst of all that's going on like recently, there's the tragedy taking place in people's lives who are very faithful people and yet there's a huge hope in them while they're going through this. It will be well and there's a trust. Children, at school when you see all the children around just enjoying themselves, that's great fun. This great life and this great enthusiasm going on. And when teachers are committed to it, like in our School in St. Anne in Birmingham, who are very committed to their teaching. There's a great feeling of being part of a great team and that makes you feel good, and being part of a team is probably important to me. That's why the whole thing of religious life being part of the community is good. Yes, I can get up every morning and feel there is something valuable and worthwhile in what I do.
