PRIESTS WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR SUPERNATURAL FAITH?

One of the things I noticed on social media during the lockdown and unjust suspension of the Sacrament of Extreme Unction were reports of priests who refused to give the last rites of the Church to the dying out of fear of the virus and out of fear of repercussions from their bishops.  I won’t tell you how disgusted I was by such cowardice, but I’ll give you an example of true love in the face of one of the worst, most terrible diseases known to man.  What follows is a story Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen told in a speech he delivered in 1970:
“I went to a leper colony about four or five years ago in Africa. And I brought with me about five hundred silver crucifixes for the five hundred lepers, and I was going to give one to each leper. The first leper that came up to me had his left arm off at the elbow. He held up his stump and there was a rosary around the stump. He held out his right hand. It was the most foul noisome mass of corruption I ever saw! And I held the crucifix above it and dropped it. It was swallowed up by the disease. All of a sudden there were five hundred and one lepers in that camp, and I was the five hundred and first, for I'd taken this symbol of divine love and refused to be identified with a man who was a thousand times better on the inside than I was. And then there came over me the awful thought of what I had done; and then I dug my finger into his hand and pulled out the cross and then pressed it to his hand and so on to the other five hundred lepers. From that time on, one loves them because one has touched them and shared their sorrow. This is agape. This is love.”

Pray for our priests to have the strength to love as Christ loved His Church.