Letter to the Parish

On 14th October it was two years since I was licenced as the priest in Benenden. The two years have been full of incident for our family; they have been filled with enjoyable things, and testing things; and they have flown by! Today we went to the retirement service of a priest who was one of those responsible for me becoming a priest. He spoke of the privilege of being a parish priest; it is such a privilege to share in the emotional times of people's lives - the highs and the lows - to try and help in some small way, and to serve as best one can. Thank you for letting me do this here.

Another priest, ordained over fifty years ago, spoke about a Curate being expected to make 25 home visits every week and report back to the Vicar on them. Two priests in one parish...those days are long gone I'm afraid! We are fortunate to have one priest serving just two parishes - other communities are not so fortunate. It clearly shows why things have changed in what the parish priest can do though.

Having said that, there is also a constant in what a priest is called to do: one is service - as mentioned last month - the other is prayer. Prayer is calling out to something outside of ourselves with our feelings, our emotions, our confusions, our fears, our joys - the list goes on. Prayer, even in a secular society, is still held to be important by a vast majority of people. We call out to this something outside of ourselves: for many that is to God; for Christians it is to God through Jesus Christ; for others it is praying out our thoughts and feelings to...something. And we feel the better for doing so.

As a priest I believe in the power of prayer for friends, family, even those not known to us personally, and for ourselves. But we do need to practice at our prayers, we need to be persistent in prayer, and we do need to be careful what we pray for. A Trappist monk wrote about prayer: "There are two main pitfalls on the road to mastery of the art of prayer. If a person gets what he asks for, his humility is in danger. If he fails to get what he asks for, he is apt to lose confidence." Prayer should also be with humility; but prayer should also be with confidence - faith that it will be heard. Give it a try - God is waiting to hear from you.

Here is a prayer God always answers: "Yes, Lord."

In my case it was "Yes, Lord... what do you want me to do with my life?" Here I am - a parish priest; and what a privilege it is. Be careful what you pray for - God just might give it to you!

Revd. David Commander
Rector

Benefice of Benenden and Sandhurst

T: 01580 240658 E: david@dc-uk.co.uk