Tomorrow the Pope will initiate the Year of the Priest (just as we are coming to the end of the Year of St Paul). The focus will be clearly on the presbyterate. At first reading, Cardinal Hummes' letter to the bishops announcing the decision seems to be almost wholly concerned with discipline: reaffirmation of the value of clerical celibacy and the bishops' power to discipline the clergy under them. A significant addition is the requirement to regularize the position of those who have left active ministry without obtaining dispensations — bishops now have the ability to begin the laicisation process for any of their priests who have been five years or more away from their ministry. John Paul II made it quite difficult for priests to obtain laicisation so one most hope that this latest development is a pastoral response to situations that are often deeply distressing to those concerned. One cannot help wondering, however, whether the real challenge is being overlooked. So many priests seem to have low morale, to be uncertain about their purpose, to feel lonely and unvalued. It is difficult to be a priest but sometimes one has to ask where the initial love and enthusiasm went. The priesthood cannot be separated from a life of prayer. No amount of action, however good, can substitute for that. Let us pray that the Year of the Priest will offer all our priests a deepening of their life of prayer, joy in their service of God and the Church and a renewed sense that what they are and do is truly pleasing to Our Lord. And incidentally to all of us, too. Tell your priest how much you value him!