My dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Today’s liturgy identifies our Risen Lord as the Good Shepherd who, having laid down his life for his sheep, wants to lead his flock into safe pastures and towards the fullness of life. It has always seemed completely natural to the Catholic Church to want to model her priests on Jesus, the Good Shepherd. So we expect our priests, like the Good Shepherd, to dedicate their lives to God and to his Church, and to lead and guide them in the ways of holiness and goodness. They do this by preaching the Gospel and by the example of their lives, by the celebration of the Eucharist and the Sacraments, and by caring for the pastoral and spiritual needs of their parishioners.

So we understand that it’s not just good for the Church to have priests, but the Church must have priests in order to be herself, and to grow and to flourish as the Lord intended. For that reason, the Church always prays for vocations to the priesthood. Since I have become Bishop of Paisley, I have asked you to make vocations a principal intention of your prayers. I have asked parishes to dedicate an hour’s prayer each week during Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament to the intention of vocations to the priesthood for the Diocese of Paisley. Please continue with that fervent prayer for vocations.

Also I invite young men to look into their hearts to see if God is calling you to the priesthood. And God does call! It is admirable to to see young men who have a good education, a job and sometimes even a home of their own nonetheless recognise a stirring deep within their hearts that God is calling them to serve him in the priesthood. And, as I and many of your priests know from our own experience, younger boys and teenagers can also begin to sense God’s call. I ask priests and parents and teachers to be aware of the signs of a vocation and gently to nurture it without putting any pressure on a young heart.

I must also say a word about vocations to the religious life. Religious institutes in the main carry out their own vocations’ promotion. But I wish to say clearly that the presence of religious is so enriching for a diocese and I would dearly love to have more religious men and women working in our parishes and in our communities. So please pray too for vocations to the religious life.

Priests after the image of Christ the Good Shepherd, have never been more necessary in modern Scotland than they are today. The priesthood has never been more challenging than it is today. Priests today know that they need to be evangelising and missionary. When I was Rector a few years ago in the Scots College Rome, I was pleased to see that our seminarians are highly motivated and eager for priestly service, and this is a positive sign for the future. Pope Benedict XVI at the last World Youth Day, speaking to a vast number of young people about vocations, caught their imagination with the question, “If not you, then who?” I say to you today, “Let it be you!”

With my warmest wishes,

Yours devotedly in Jesus Christ the Good Shepherd,

+Philip Tartaglia

Bishop of Paisley.