St Mary Magdalene's

Year of the Priest

Pope Benedict XVI has called the whole Church to celebrate a Year for Priests beginning on 19th June 2009, the Feast of the Sacred HearHis purpose for this year is to encourage priests in their “striving for spiritual perfection on which, above all, the effectiveness of their ministry depends” and to highlight “the importance of the priest’s role and mission in the Church and in contemporary society”.To do this the Holy Father calls us to a renewed focus on the centrality of Christ in our lives and in the Church and that “brings with it the correct appreciation of the ministerial priesthood, without which there would be neither the Eucharist, nor even the mission nor the Church herself”..