Fr Bill Casey Mini-Bio

I'm father Bill Casey from the congregation of the fathers of Mercy and I have been a member of this congregation since 1986 and I have been in religious life now for 34 years and before I enter religious life I served as an officer in the army and at one time I thought that I would make a career out of the army but thanks be to God he had other plans for me and I answered a different calling I think the seed of my vocation was really planted long before I ever went into the army I think I actually got the calling during my college years and in my college years I began just out of curiosity to read the Bible and study Sacred Scripture and I began to take my spiritual life a little more seriously and when I began to study the Scriptures it really changed my life it really changed my whole outlook on life it changed my way of thinking and feeling and acting I think once that seed was planted I began to get that call I began to lose interest in my career in the Army and I knew that nothing would satisfy me other than pursuing that vocation that call of the Holy priesthood I found out about the fathers of Mercy just from reading the same little black and white ad that was in a little Catholic weekly newspaper that my mother used to get this little paper it was called the wander right and my mom would always have that paper sitting on the coffee table in the living room of our house and a lot of the time I would pick it up and read it out of curiosity you know out of boredom sometimes but the fathers of Mercy ran this same little black and white ad in there for years and one time it really just grabbed my attention and the little ad said the fathers of Mercy need men to bring the mercy of God to all it said dedicated to the Magisterium of the church and devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary and I saw that I said hey that's for me and so I decided to write a letter to the late father John O'Brien who was the Superior General at that time and we were based in Cold Spring New York at that time he wrote back to me and then he followed up on the phone call invited me to come up there for a visit and I remember going up there the Cold Spring New York for lunch one day and I met father O'Brien father John Malloy who is really the priest who revived the mission apostolate with the father's of mercy and we hit it off immediately and Here I am what I love the most about my vocation is just carrying out our apostle it to preach I've been preaching parish missions now for almost 30 years and I have given somewhere between three and four hundred parish missions and that's just the missions that's not including the retreats and the various conferences and the novenas and the 40 hours devotions and all the like I would not trade these years on the road for anything in this world and for me the greatest satisfaction my greatest joy is to bring someone back to the church someone back to the sacraments who has been away for many years and so often the fruits of the parish missions are manifested in the confessional we spend so many hours hearing confessions as such a an important part of our charism of mercy and we can never lose sight of that and that that's why I have always loved and will always love what the Fathers of Mercy do what we have is our founding charism keep on praying hmm you know some people think that there are certain men who naturally receive a call to the priesthood and always respond to it right then we know of course that is not so a young man who receives that calling has got to cooperate with that grace and the call to the priesthood is one of the greatest graces that God can ever give I always say it is the greatest thing God can never call a man to do say what you will but you have to nurture that calling by your life of prayer by your devotion to our lady by spending time in front of our Lord and the Most Blessed Sacrament by trusting in the fact that the Holy Spirit will get you where God wants you to be I always say that the call of the priesthood starts out like a crazy idea but it's a crazy idea that won't go away and if you have an authentic calling to the priesthood nothing nothing else you try to do will ever fully satisfy you you're not going to be completely at peace and satisfied until you answer that call [Music]

Channel: Fathers of Mercy

Views: 3,045

Rating: 4.9766083 out of 5

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Id: TGzW20B8htM

Length: 5min 31sec (331 seconds)

Published: Tue May 19 2020