*Note: The title and the opening lines are meant to be humorous, not serious. Please take it lightly. In retrospect I see it could be offensive to some - especially after someone wrote to me and pointed it out! My apologies. Please take it in the spirit it is intended: helpful, not hurtful - and be forgiving!
We have too many decent priests. I am tired of decent priests. Decent priests have done me little good.* Sound shocking? Then read this, from the classic little book The Soul of the Apostolate, which I’m currently reading:
If the priest is only decent, the people will be godless. And we have many godless people - not just in the world today, but in the pews. Catholics who use contraception freely, and see nothing wrong with it. Catholics who immerse themselves in the world, are indistinguishable from the world, and aren’t even aware there’s a problem with it. Catholics who live together before marriage, and see nothing wrong with it – 80% in my archdiocese, and my archdiocese is one of the better ones. Catholics who never, or rarely, go to confession. Catholics who receive the Eucharist unfeelingly, in a state of sin, and so are unchanged by it.
Priest, if you are merely nice, and teach others to be merely nice, you have failed in your calling as a priest – and failed in your calling to form your people in the image of Christ; more, to form Christ in your people. We are eating God; meant to live on God; we need to be taught how to do so, and become His dwelling place on earth, here and now. We human beings are the meeting place between heaven and earth, between God and creation, and we need to be taught how to open ourselves up and let God in, for real, right now, through Christ. But if you are not pursuing Him yourself, seriously, every moment of the day, you cannot teach us how.
And to truly open up and let Him in means work: constant prayer, constant self-renunciation, constant self-examination and confession, constantly talking with and listening to and trusting in Christ. It means constant study, learning and deepening in your Faith, so you can hand it on to others.
You cannot teach and hand on what you do not know yourself. If you do not develop a prayer life, an interior life, how can you teach us to? If you do not practice honest self-examination and admission of your own faults and weaknesses, how can you expect us to? If you do not develop the practice of confession as a deep, soul-cleaning spiritual activity for yourself, how can you teach us to? If you do not take sin seriously, how can you expect us to? If you do not seriously love God and do everything possible to get as close to Him as you can, develop your relationship with Him, learn to communicate with Him and listen to Him and truly follow Him and teach and preach Him and His truths regardless of the cost, make of your life a sacrifice, an immolation to God – how can you expect us to?
You are in persona Christi – in the person of Christ. That means you are Christ, are meant to be Christ to us, and more: you are to deliver Christ into our very souls, and teach us how to open up to Him totally, in every part of our lives. But if you are not opening up to Christ in every part of your life, striving to hand over every part of your life to Him, you cannot do it for us.
You must be more than merely decent. More than pious, more than fervent. You must be a saint. Only in becoming a saint can you then, by the grace of God, help us to become saints, too – the one thing to which we are all truly called. So be a saint, which is to be Christ, totally, given up and surrendered and abandoned to Him, martyred for Him, for love of Him, more and more as you live your life. Then you will see your congregations catch on fire, and run after you in love to be transformed, so attractive will you be. Because we will not see you, but Christ in you – and run to you to hear His voice, feel His touch, feel His power transforming our souls and our lives.
Down with decent priests, I say – and up with Christ! Up with priestly souls so radically changed and transformed in the fire of Christ’s love that you really radiate Christ to us, and draw all souls to you to be transformed as well, in His love! That is what we need! Up with Christ – and up with priests who are truly in Christ, in whom Christ truly is! “For I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” (Gal 2:20)
God bless you. I know it’s hard work, in a tough and thankless world that too often opposes you – and that includes the people in the pews. But the rewards are so much greater than the losses: Christ Himself will love you, and reward you. If you don’t, the losses are too great, and there is little, if any, reward. A merely decent life, being merely nice, for a priest is boring, stultifying, deadening – not only to yourself, but to the souls in your care. And in the end, will Christ truly love you, and truly reward you?
No, be like Christ, and in the end rise to heaven carrying a great number of souls in your wake, souls you brought to Christ during your priestly life on earth, as a gift to Christ. Then He will truly love you, and reward you beyond your wildest dreams.
