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“Tremendously beautiful’
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September 22, 2023
Fr. Raymond Pendleton was a priest in residence at the Corpus Christi Cathedral over the summer. Now, he’s heading back to Rome to continue his studies.
How were his first 100 days? “It's very exciting and also different from what I had imagined,” he shares. “I always knew I would celebrate Mass and hear confessions, and I looked forward to those things. But when you're actually hearing confessions and celebrating Mass, it is something different. You can’t practice being in the person of Christ!”
Only the grace of orders gives this experience, “and that's something tremendously beautiful for me. Celebrating Mass and speaking the words of consecration in the first person: “This is my body…” That's incredible! That's been the center of my spirituality for the last few months as a priest, and I am very grateful for that gift.”
Besides this, he loved being at a parish, speaking with parishioners after morning Mass and hearing their stories. A bit more difficult for him was visiting the sick in the hospitals. “That takes a little more courage,” he says. To grow in compassion and to be with them, “not necessarily to fix their problems or make them go away but to be with them during a difficult time.” This is a field where he thinks the Church should do more.
Preaching was not an issue for him: “I love preaching because I love teaching,” he says. A certain component of teaching is involved when delivering a homily: “Explaining the Gospel, so that people understand how to apply it in their lives… I really love it.” Fr. Raymond will be back next year for the summer break.
