Fr. Downey's Goodbye

In today’s Gospel, Christ commands the disciples that if you enter a town and the people ‘do not receive you, go out into the streets and say, ‘The dust of your town that clings to our feet, even that we shake off against you.’” I assure you that I have no need to be shaking my sandals at St. Luke’s as I complete my assignment and depart for another. During my two years here, I have been received with great patience and hospitality. St. Luke’s Church and School have been an unrivaled opportunity to grow and be formed as a priest and I have said many times in the past two years how I wish that all of the other new priests of the diocese could be blessed with an assignment like this one (like this one, but not this one, because I was fully intent on holding on to this one as long as I could).

Christ also says in today’s Gospel, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.” As I am assigned to go work in a different field, please continue to pray for me and my ministry as a teacher at Dowling Catholic High School, but also give thanks to God for the gift given to St. Luke’s: a second full-time priest, Fr. Ryan Andrew. Having been able to only justly give half of myself to the St. Luke’s community, I do have some envy of his opportunity to invest himself whole-heartedly, alongside Fr. Halbur, with you. My prayer for you is that the people and the priests of St. Luke’s continue to call each other higher in Christian generosity and living out their vocations so that both harvest and laborers can increase.

Pax et Bonum,
Fr. James Downey