No, this is not a desperate plea for help, and no I am not in serious trouble. Your prayers for me, however, as your priest have an impact on you; I hope you already knew that, but let me expand on this fact. When you pray for me it impacts my counsel to you, it helps me to work harder to attend to your needs, it gives me greater devotion in my prayers for you, but most especially does it help in my celebration of the Mass. That importance of that last detail should obvious if you realize that the way a priest celebrates Mass impacts his people. With many of the faithful suffering under lazy priests who refuse to follow the rules of the Mass, and cannot preach a good homily if their life depended on it, this is all the more important. Sadly, however, we can understand how few people are aware of the problem if they have not seen what faithful priesthood actually looks like because they have only seen a stream of bad clergy go through their parishes. St. Bonaventure once said, All Masses are equally good, as far as Christ is concerned; but as far as the priest is concerned, one may be better than another. Therefore it is more profitable to hear the Mass of a good priest than of an indifferent one. And, another saintly Cardinal from centuries ago also said, The more holy and pleasing to God a priest is, the more acceptable are his prayers and oblations; and the greater his devotion, the greater the benefit derived from his Mass. For just as other good works performed by a pious man gain merit in proportion to the zeal and devotion with which they are performed, so Holy Mass is more or less profitable both to the priest who said it and to the persons for whom it is said, according as it is celebrated with more or less fervor. So, once again, pray for me. Pray I will be a good priest. Pray that I will be holy and pleasing to God. Pray that I will always say Mass with true zeal and devotion to Christ alone. Pray that I will do so for my sake, for your sake, and for the sake of everyone who comes to St. George parish.