This Sunday is the World Priest Day. It is an outgrowth of World Marriage Day – and there is a powerful link between the two vocations. Both involve a lifetime of commitment, and sacrifice, and an unshakable love. One involves a love for a spouse. The other, a love for God and His Church. And a love, too, for His people. So this Sunday, we want to thank our priests for that gift of self, that offering of love. Thank you for morning mass and afternoon confessions and unexpected calls that brought you to the bedside of someone at the last moment of earthly life. Thank you for the countless times you have offered us the Body of Christ, blessed and broken — so that we too, though broken, may be blessed. Thank you for laying down your lives – and for being a bridge between us and God.