Father George

Appropriately enough on this St George's Day, we have a mass intention today in our parish for Mgr George Hay, a much-loved priest who died aged 93 on Easter Monday. I thought about him as I listened to a sermon on Sunday last on the theme of vocations. His commitment to the pursuit of his priestly ministry into his nineties was an inspiration. He was saying public mass until a short while before he died. He reminded me of a priest I met some years ago in Menevia Diocese (now deceased) who was still doing jobs round the church building into his nineties. Such men are a special gift to us. They live to the end the principle that the priesthood is not just a job, it is a life.