Life’s Short. Pray Hard.

There was a priest who was serving a parish. He was not well liked by the people in this village. He smoked, drank, did drugs, and was constantly with women. The people complained so much about his behavior to the Bishop that the Bishop decided to do something about it. He went to the village, and talked with the people. They were sure they wanted this priest out of their village.

That night the Bishop decided that he would, in fact, remove this priest the very next morning. The Bishop went to sleep, and had a strange dream. The dream goes like this:

The Bishop was on his way to carry out the priests removal, and as he was walking hundreds of people were grabbing him trying to stop him. He didn’t understand it, so he asked these people “why are you trying to stop me?” They answered “Because he is the only person that prays for us.” The Bishop woke up and remembered his dream but didn’t understand it. So he decided he would go talk to the priest first, and find out a little something about him.

He met the priest, and asked if it was true about his smoking, etc. The priest said “Yes, it is all true what the people say about me.” Then the Bishop asked “Well, there must be something good about you.” The priest couldn’t think of anything. So the Bishop insisted that there must be something about him that is positive. The only thing that the priest could think of was that he said his prayer rule every morning, and he prayed for every soul that died in the community.

When the Bishop heard this he understood his dream, and shared it with the priest. The priest changed his way of living from that day forward, and he became a righteous priest.

Our Wednesday night Adult Ed class has been studying PRAYER. The above story was sent to me by a participant.