Priests do so much for us.  We go to our priests for our spiritual needs, prayer requests, Mass offerings, and sacraments (sometimes urgently).  Through the hands of the priest we receive the greatest gift ever given — the Holy Eucharist.  Without our priests, we would not be able to receive the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of our Lord, Jesus Christ.  Yet, how is the priest sustained spiritually in all that he does for us?  Praying for the priest is one of the most generous things we can do for him. 

COLORADO SPRINGS. Deacon Eugene Eastham died Oct. 18 at his home in Colorado Springs. Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated Oct. 26 at Our Lady of the Pines Parish. Burial followed Oct. 29  at Pikes Peak National Cemetery.

NEW YORK. A serious, even lugubrious, tone and a top-flight cast add heft to the ecclesiastical melodrama “Conclave” (PG, Focus). Yet the film is fundamentally a power-struggle potboiler kept roiling by attention-grabbing plot developments — the last and most significant of which Catholic viewers will likely find uncomfortable at best.

BISMARCK, North Dakota. In 2012, when Michelle Duppong, who was about to become director of adult formation for the Diocese of Bismarck, North Dakota, asked Jacqueline Matta Balzer if she could be her roommate, Balzer had no idea she was dealing with a possible future saint. Still, “You could just sense there was a holiness about her,” Balzer recalls.

Advent and Christmas are coming quickly. On Dec. 1, the First Sunday of Advent, Bishop James Golka will be leading the Office of Vigils at St. Mary’s Cathedral at 5 p.m. I am hoping to convince you to come join us for this beautiful prayer.