Prayers Make Better Presents For Priests Than Most Items
From Catholic News Service:
COLUMBUS, Ohio (CNS) - How many rosaries, crucifixes and Bibles does a priest receive for Christmas? Answer: enough to open a Catholic book and gift shop.My Comments:
Parish secretaries, administrators and family members of priests all agree -- priests do not need any more sacramentals as gifts.
Indeed, Catholic priests top many shoppers' "hard-to-buy-for" lists.
For many priests, prayers from the faithful are the only gifts they need.
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I've found that icons make pretty nice gifts for priests. In addition to being sacramentals, they are wonderful artwork to put around the rectory. Furthermore, I doubt most Roman rite priests have a lot of icons. But even so, can you really have too many?
posted by Pro Ecclesia 12:40 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Sorry, Jay, but I wouldn't recommend icons as gifts for priests either. We're given a zillion of these. Plus artistic sensibilities differ (I'm not into Eastern-style art; as a ROMAN Catholic priest, I prefer Western-style art -- See Chesterton's great critique on 3-D Western art vs. 1-D Eastern art). Finally, chances are that any priest to whom you (as a traditional Catholic) give a present will also be traditional -- so he won't need to be educated that traditional art is good. Just a friendly tip.
The best gifts are probably gift certificates (Amazon.com is a favorite for the computer literate because you can get virtually anything at discount prices). Also, book gift certificates to make sure that priests are reading so that their brains are still moving -- and that helps you out on Sunday (and weekday) mornings when the homilies hopefully will have a bit more substance and be delivered with a bit more conviction and fire.
- Anonymous OP
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