Father Timothy Menezes
 
 
Copyright © 2007 Archdiocese of Birmingham Vocations Centre. All rights reserved.
Parish Priest of St. Thomas More Parish in Coventry   I can remember wanting to be a priest at the age of 6. I can remember telling my teacher at primary school, and being very clear about it. An amusing memory for me is that the Head Teacher at the primary school said that he knew a convent where the nuns made vestments for children to wear, priests’ vestments for those who might want to be priests. I can distinctly remember my mum telling the Head Teacher that this would not be necessary! It would have been helpful to my childhood ‘Masses’ in the dining room, using crisps and orange squash, but it was not to be! I cannot separate my thoughts of the priesthood throughout the years from the experience of seeing so many priests pass through my home parish, being intrigued by their work, and seeing the fulfilment they received, and the part they played in the lives of many people. I am not sure how else to explain my sense of ‘calling’ to the priesthood except that during all the years between the age of 6 and leaving school at 18, thoughts of the priesthood never went away. At 18, I applied to the Archdiocese of Birmingham and was accepted to study for the priesthood at Oscott College. The two years at Oscott were very good years for me, and I learnt a lot from good priests and from fellow students. At the age of 20, I was sent to study at the Venerable English College in Rome. I lived there for 6 years, during which I studied theology and liturgy. I was ordained a deacon in Rome in 1994, and a priest in my home parish in 1995. The days of my Ordination as deacon and then priest were very special moments in my life, surrounded by family and friends, and with a sense that what I had always wanted to do was coming to fruition. My time in seminary – at Oscott and in Rome – was not without moments of doubt and sometimes unhappiness. But that would surely be the same for anybody making serious decisions about the future, and living in community, and being assessed by others. Over the years of my priestly life so far, I consider the appointments I have been given and the people to whom I have been sent, a blessing. Again, not without difficult times, but never have I questioned my desire to be a priest, or the sense that God continues to ‘call’, and gives me the strength to answer the call of others to be a priest in the circumstances of their lives. If I had to say what really means most to be about being a priest, it is two privileges that I experience almost daily: The first is the ability to knock on the door of any one of my parishioners, and to be invited in, as though one of the family, because people still have a respect – not for me so much – as for the priesthood, which they value very much. The second thing is to be called to be with people, and to bring something of the life of God to them, at the most precious and often private moments of sorrow and joy. Fr. Timothy Return to Testimonials Media%20Testimonials.htmlshapeimage_1_link_0