You Shall Be a Blessing: Twelve Letters on the Priesthood

German Cardinal Gerhard Muller is a voice contemporary Catholic priests need to hear. You Shall Be a Blessing is an affirmation of priestly life and ministry presented in twelve letters. Muller offers personal encouragement through finely honed theological and spiritual insight on the meaning, history, and importance of the priesthood to today’s Catholic Church.

Vocational identity is an enduring concern among Catholic priests, bishops, teachers, and many lay Catholics around the world, particularly because of the challenges wrought by a changing Church and rapidly shifting culture. The struggle to navigate the personal and sacramental meanings of a priest’s place in the Church is made more difficult by the disheartening loss of the Church’s credibility in recent years and by seismic shifts away from the practice of religion by believers across the western world. Yet most priests continue to serve and lead the people in their care with great compassion, conviction, and desire to serve.

In You Shall Be a Blessing, Cardinal Gerhard Muller, former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, writes as a spiritual father and careful teacher in twelve letters to priests, offering clear picture of their role in the life and work of the Church. He also addresses the theological tasks and spiritual disciplines needed by priests as they give witness to the Word, serve, and sanctify the Church.