Do you know what our top request for gift suggestions is?

What can I get for my priest?

Pastors serve their parishes all year, celebrating Holy Mass, providing us the sacraments, and being called upon at all hours to shepherd their flocks.

We don’t understand how all-consuming and wearying this can be–just as much as raising a family, but even more out-of-control (quite literally).

Let me tell you from personal experience: While I was working on a theology degree, I moved across the country for a new job, so had to travel back every month to complete the coursework. The pastor gave me a key to the rectory and allowed me to save $$ by staying in a spare bedroom there.

I finished my coursework late on Fridays and Saturdays–I mean like 9:00 at night late.

I would arrive at the rectory and let myself in. He was almost never there yet.

When he did arrive, he would say, “Hi, Ken. I need to check my messages real quick–see you in a minute.” This was back in the days of answering machines, and when he pressed the button, I would usually hear something like, “You have 15 new messages.”

He would listen through them and if none of them was a sudden need for a hospital call which he needed to respond to, we would sit down and chat for a bit. Sometimes he would have to make several return phone calls first.

So, instead of getting your pastor wine this year (to be consumed and forgotten), here is my list of 4 unique and thoughtful gifts you could get your Pastor this Christmas (and why!)–gifts that will last and make him smile and keep talking about it all year!

Spiritual Bouquet Card

Parish priests have so much on their plates and often, we forget that while they are in the midst of leading so many of us in prayer, they also need our prayers!

Our Spiritual Bouquet Cards are a meaningful way for you to “gift” your parish priest prayers from your family this Christmas.

These cards came with accompanying stickers (each one signifies a different prayer!) so it’s as easy as 1-2-3:

1. Kids say a prayer for your parish priest,
2. Peel & place the sticker corresponding to the prayer on the front of the card,
3. REPEAT with more prayers until they have created a beautiful spiritual bouquet composed of the prayers they selected & prayed!

OK: then #4. Sign the card, add whatever else you wish to say–and mail it!

The back of the card explains what a spiritual bouquet actually is, while inside the card indicates which color bloom signifies which prayer has been said for the recipient’s intentions (and the words to the prayers are printed, too).

This is a meaningful way for you to share your prayers with your parish priest this Christmas!

Give him Catholic playing cards

Does your pastor like to join in game nights with the youth group? Relax with other priests? Then these playing cards were made for him! Give him two beautiful decks that he can display in his living room for conversation or pack in his bag to bring to parish parties!

Yes–these are standard playing cards but with a Catholic twist! We also wanted our deck designs to subtly express a love for God while paying tribute to the Holy Family—Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

We found our design inspiration in the Holy Rosary! Each suit pays respects to a different set of Mysteries of the Holy Rosary. We assigned Hearts to the Joyful Mysteries, Clubs to the Luminous Mysteries, Spades to the Sorrowful Mysteries, and Diamonds to the Glorious Mysteries.

We wanted our face cards to represent real persons, so we assigned the Aces to the Holy Spirit, Kings to Christ the King, Queens to the Queen of Heaven Blessed Virgin Mary, and Jacks to Saint Joseph! Each face card is designed to be a new and unique interpretation of a member of the “Royal Court” according to a particular Rosary Mystery, virtue, or title being highlighted.

You can learn more (and even print off a beautiful “cheat sheet”) HERE. (Hint: the Queen of Hearts is visibly pregnant and the King of Hearts is the Child Jesus. Try to bluff with those in your hand when you’re not in a state of grace!)

Hang the Face of God in the Rectory

The Catholic Church has preserved a rich heritage of sacred art, each work a reflection of the artist’s personal contemplation of God, displayed to deepen the meditation of millions of viewers over the centuries.

But the Holy Images we have made available now for the first time are something quite different: the images represented were not the works of human hands.

And the gift we have created with them reveals something that was described by researchers in books–but we decided to create a product that makes their discovery visible for contemplation!

The Holy Images are high-quality photographs of two miraculous relics left by Our Lord Himself. Janusz Rosikon generously provided us the actual size, high-resolution photographs of these images.

Now, these are images that have baffled scientists for centuries. They cannot explain the source of the images on two very fine and ancient fabrics. The materials holding these images are themselves likewise inexplicable. They should long ago have crumbled and decayed into dust.

The Holy Images consist of three faces from two life-sized, high-resolution photographs taken by Janusz Rosikon during his two-year pilgrimage across the continent of Europe investigating the relics of Christ.

One the left you can contemplate the famous image of Our Lord’s Face in death as preserved on the Shroud of Turin.

On the right is the image visible on the Veil of Manoppello, the face cloth placed by Our Lady on her Son’s face in the tomb. This image is so little known but is as miraculous as the more famous face of the Shroud.

And this is what is unique to our product: The center image is an overlay composite of those actual-sized photographs.

We were inspired to create this by an insightful observation made in 1979 by a German Trappist nun: precise measurements of the faces visible on both the Shroud and the Veil were shown to match perfectly–from the anatomical structure of the faces to the wounds visible on both–proving that they are the face of the same person, one dead, the other alive.

It is one thing to read this astounding fact in a book: it is quite another to SEE IT with your own eyes!

Contemplate and ponder in your heart the Face of God Who endured His Passion to die, then to rise again to conquer death–all out of love for you!

This is a beautiful, one-of-a-kind gift that your pastor can hang in his home for years to come. Perhaps he will put it in his office or in the sacristy to see before every Mass he celebrates or in the foyer of the parish or in the school for the children to see!

There is nothing more touching than presenting to a man who has vowed his life in service to God to have the face of the man Jesus Who called your priest by name to his vocation.

You can learn more about this magnificent image in our blog post here.

[NOTE: A deacon candidate who visited recently was so taken with these images hanging in our home, that we’ve decided to do this: if you add a note to your order for the Holy Images that this is a gift for a priest or deacon, we will add free-of-charge this new book which details the history of and research on the Holy Veil of Manoppello. It is a very little known relic, which so inspired Pope Benedict XVI when we visited it in 2006.]

Give him something…LEGO®?

Yes, we’re serious. We always thought this set was for KIDS until we started getting reviews from Moms of PRIESTS.

“Bought this for my Lego loving son who was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia in 2016 as his First Mass Gift. He put it together and it’s in his parish office where all can see it. It is a real conversation piece and the kids love it. Excellent set. Highly recommend it. So detailed. He loves it.”

“We bought this for our son who is getting ready to enter the seminary. He loved it!”

“Our kids were so excited to receive this as a Christmas gift. Our parish priest even came over to work with the kids as they put it together.”

We tested this ourselves–and shared it with our local seminarians. They LOVED it and even created their own unique vestments out of tissue paper!

The priesthood is tough–why not give your priest (young or old) something FUN so they can engage in pure enjoyment this Christmas season?

What are you getting your pastor for Christmas?

What have you gotten in the past? Let us know so we can perhaps update this list next year with your suggestions!

PS Kerri told me not to forget to mention this prayer aid, now in its 3rd printing: The Rosary of Saint John Paul II. It is a beautiful prayer book that he can return to again and again. Right now we’re offering buy-3-for-the-price-of-2, so you get one for yourself free and two for gifts. My daughters tell me the sisters in a convent nearby love this book!

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Ken

Ken Davison created Glory Stories, which became a weekly radio series heard globally on the Ave Maria Satellite Radio Network and EWTN's radio network, WEWN. In 2007, he and his wife, Kerri, founded Holy Heroes--and their children stepped in to help shortly thereafter to create the online "Adventures" for Advent, Lent, Spiritual Adoption, and Marian Consecration.

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