The Priest is not his Own - Part II

In our last post, we considered a particular problem which the witness of the Cure d'Ars suggests. The priest signifies something for us - and not just for us Catholics, but for the whole world. But what he signifies is disproportionate to his person. His existence points to Christ, under a specific aspect. While all the baptized participate in the mystery of Christ, the priest, in fact, participates in a unique way. But what distinguishes the priest's participation in the mystery of Christ from every other form of participation? In this post, we will try to identify what is unique to the priesthood. In particular, we will see that the priest shares not only in the priesthood of Christ in a unique way, but also in the mystery of Christ as victim. In Christ, and in the vocation of the priesthood, the work of sanctification (i.e. the ministry of making the Church holy) involves a special kind of self-offering.
Whatever it is, it is difficult to be faithful to. Even the Cure d'Ars struggled with this. In our last post, we considered how almost all his peers and superiors viewed him as incompetent. Some held him as too incompetent to be a priest. This was not for lack of intelligence. But it did have a lot to do with his own insecurities over his very late and very poor education. Yet if we stop here, we do not really fully see why the John Vianney struggled with a lack of confidence and why this lack of confidence was so great that he actually attempted to forsake his parish ministry on occasion. Here, we are going to consider a mystery that is at the heart of the priesthood for every man who tries to live it out to the full -- this feeling of unworthiness.
John Vianney was very concerned about his own salvation. Even as his efforts as a pastor met with great success, he had to fight back thoughts that perhaps he was decieving himself concerning where he really stood with God. Some of this self-doubt may have been brought on by his peers and teachers. Some of it also seems to have come from God. In fact, after he was made pastor of Ars, he asked the Lord to allow him to see the truth about himself. And even great saints can find the truth overwhelming.
The reason for this is that our hearts are filled with every kind of misery and weakness. This does not mean we are completely evil. But it means that what is good, noble and true about each of us needs to be saved – and only God can save it if we let Him. He never imposes Himself, but patiently deals with the darkness we suffer as we are ready and willing. This is why there are deep wounds that the Lord, in his mercy, does not allow us to see all at once. Otherwise, the magnitude of our brokenness can overwhelm us, and we despair.
So normally God allows us just a tiny peak of what he is suffering with us and in us. When He gives us this glimpse, it is only to move us to trust Him and cling to Him all the more. For the fact is, we are powerless to deal with the pain we carry within. And, God never intended that we should try to deal with it by ourselves. He yearns to deal with it - but to do this, as we have already mentioned, we must surrender to Him. In the case of the Curé of Ars, God wanted John Vianney to rely on Him alone - so the Lord showed him something about himself to completely humble him. And it did.
The unfortunate side-effect of this vision was that John Vianney struggled off and on with the desire to run off to a more austere form of religious life, and there in hidden anonymity to work out his salvation. He was afraid, in the effort to help others find salvation, he was taking the time he needed to fully surrender himself to the Lord.
It is here that we find a great mystery of the spiritual life that applies to everyone. When the Lord gives us a great work, He also gives a great grace - not only for the edification of others, but also for our own salvation. God is always more generous with those who are generous to Him.
Although John Vianney would run away on occasion, God always brought him back. The Curé was almost oblivious to the grace of God at work in him because he could only see his brokenness. The Lord however sent his parishioners and friends to intercept him before he got too far. It was through others, through those he ministered to, that the priest of Ars slowly accepted that God was sanctifying him, not despite his priestly ministry, but because of it. John Vianney learned to accept his unworthiness as an integral part of the mystery his vocation signified.
So, what is it the priest signifies? What is the reality to which his very person now points because he has been joined to the office of the priesthood? Fulton Sheen suggests a secondary meaning of Christ’s word’s “This is my Body” sheds light on this question. When the priest says the words of consecration, not only is bread and wine changed into the Body and Blood of Christ, the priest is also identifying himself with Christ in a sacramental way: He is a visible sign of an invisible reality, and that reality is Christ crucified. He is, after all, saying, “This is my Body.” Bishop Sheen suggests that we see at every mass what the person of the priest is become through Holy Orders a “priest-victim” who signifies Christ himself.
But now we get to what is perhaps the oddest part of this exploration. The priest is supposed to signify Christ, the Priest-Victim, whose perfect sacrifice has saved us from sin and death.  In most cases, however, there seems to be very little of Christ’s perfection in the priest’s own personality.  Not only do others see this - but the priest himself suffers it.  Most priests experience something like John Vianney: they feel unworthy to point to Christ and at the same time, feel compelled to offer themselves as a sign of Christ for others. So what is it in the grace of Holy Orders that allows us to find Christ crucified in the priest?  In order to answer this question, we will consider literary examples of the priesthood provided by Miguel de Unamuno and Graham Greene in our next post.

“The Priest is not his Own" Part I Based on a lecture given Wed., Jan. 27, 2010

Introduction:

This lecture, presented in the blog under several parts, considers the tension in the priest between the limits of his humanity and the responsibilities of his office, his lack of belief and the demands of his vocation, the appeal of the religious imagination and the rigorous realism of our faith, and, finally, the agony of laying down one’s life and the joy of encountering the Lord. As we consider this tension and the possibility of its resolution, we will see that the pathway to the Cross is through the person of the priest.

The Problem St. Jean Vianney Presents

Jean Marie Baptiste Vianney was considered very incompetent by almost all his peers and even most of those who had responsibility for his vocation. A bishop, desperately in need of priests after years of suppression following the French Revolution, thought he saw something more, and arranged for the rather late vocation to be examined under special circumstances. So although he was not able to master Latin well enough to take the ordinary exams required of those to be ordained, examiners did discover someone with exceptional skills in the discernment of moral issues as well as firm grasp of the catechetical truths of the faith. Based on this, the bishop ordained him. John Vianney however would struggle for years with a basic insecurity regarding his intellectual and administrative gifts. None of his peers could believe it when he was appointed pastor of the small parish in Ars, a little farm village miles outside of Lyons in the middle of nowhere. No one could have anticipated that through his faith in the Lord, this uncultured, small, simple man, (with a somewhat annoying high pitched voice) would turn this sleepy parish into a center of spiritual renewal for all of France.

Preliminary Reflections of the Catholic Priesthood and the Person of the Priest

To unlock part of the mystery that unfolds in the witness of this country priest, we must pause for a minute to consider the abyss that yawns between the ministry of the priesthood and the worthiness of the person to whom it is entrusted. In a few, but rare cases, this abyss is spanned – and the person grows into the ministry, becomes completely one with his most high calling. This is certainly the case with the Curé d’Ars. But no one begins the priestly vocation with a personality and character commensurate to the calling they have received.

Fulton Sheen, in his book, The Priest is not his Own, explains this phenomena in terms suggested by the Bible and the Roman Canon. After the words of institution, the Roman Canon recounts the sacrifices offered by Able, Abraham and Melchizedek. He says that Able offers God a blood sacrifice and that this is analogous to the many priests, especially in our century, who have laid down their life for the faith. Maximillian Kolbe, the subject of a future lecture, is an example of this kind of priest.   In Auschwitz, he volunteered to be executed in substitution for another man who was the father of a family.  He did this out of love and compassion, bringing hope to a hopeless place.  There are many priests today all over the world who continue to offer this sacrifice of blood on behalf of others. 

Bishop Sheen goes on to explain that not all priests are called to shed their blood for the faith, but that many priests spend their whole priestly ministry ready to do so. These priests offer with their lives a sacrifice like Abraham, a voluntary sacrifice. To understand what Bishop Sheen is trying to get at with “voluntary,” consider specifically Abraham’s willingness to offer even his own son, an image of God the Father.  A couple of examples of just such a priest might be Francis Xavier Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan or Jean Bernard, both of whom we will also consider in future lectures.  They were fully willing to die for the faith, and almost did.  But God used them in other ways.   There are many such priests today who quietly do their ministry, rejected, despised, and at the same time joyful, their all too voluntary sacrifices completely hidden, except to the Lord.

Finally, Bishop Sheen explains that priests, whether they shed their blood or live their ministry ready to or not, all priests are a kind of sacramental sacrifice like that offered by Melchizedek.  Melchizedek offered a sacrifice of bread and wine when he blessed Abraham. These gifts were a signs of something beyond themselves. The foreshadowed a greater reality that no one could have anticipated.  In fact, their full meaning was not revealed until the night before Jesus died, “This is my Body ...my Blood."

The point is, like the bread and wine at mass, that the priest signifies something more than he appears to be. Today at mass, the bread and wine continue to look like bread and wine after they are consecrated with Jesus’ own words, but we know by faith that they are not just bread and wine. They are the body and blood of Jesus. The point of the doctrine of transubstantiation and the real presence is that when we share in these gifts we enter into communion with the Lord himself, and our encounter with Him is transformative, giving us real power to live a new life. Similarly the priest appears to be a man, sometimes even a pathetic man. But he signifies something far beyond himself, and as he faithfully offers his ministry, what he signifies leads to a real and life changing encounter with the Lord himself.

Discussion continued in the next post -

The Happiness which God Designs

The happiness which God designs for his higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstacy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk and water. 
(C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity on why God decided to create us with a free will, a will that could reject Him.)

For as the Father and the Son
and He who proceeds from them
live in one another,
so it would be with the bride,
for, taken wholly into God,
she will live the life of God.
(John of the Cross in Romances (trans. Kavanaugh and Rodriguez)  reflecting on why God created the Church)

The Bridegroom' love, or rather the Bridegroom who is Love, asks only the commitment of love and faith.  Let the beloved love in return.  How can the Bride not love, the Bride of Love himself?  How can Love not be loved?
(Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermons on the Song of Songs: Sermon 83 (trans. G.R. Evans))

Spiritual Theology -- What is it?

For Catholics, in its broadest sense, spiritual theology studies the relations between what God has revealed about himself and what the Church experiences in her pilgrimage to Him.  Some look at this study as a specialized part of moral theology (a study of how Christians ought to live).  Others look at it in terms of an approach to dogmatic theology (a study of what Christians ought to believe).  It is probably best to look at it as both - because the object of study is more simple than both morals and dogma.  What I mean by this is that what we believe and how we live is completely rooted in the Church's ongoing encounter of Jesus Christ leading her into the arms of God.

It must be pointed out that what I just wrote is not accepted by most people.  The very name of this science makes it very easy to misunderstand.  There is a widespread and mistaken idea of what "spiritual" means.   The general assumption is that spiritual things are less real than physical things.  It is also assumed that the physical world is the main place for "real life."  The spiritual world is a place we check out to quench our curiosity for the weird or else a place in which we seek comfort because "real life" is too painful to deal with.  So the spiritual is reduced to prosaic, enchanting and consoling myths that help people get by.   For those who think of the spiritual life in this way, spiritual theology is primarily in the realm of imagination and emotions.  The problem with this is that the merely sentimental might help someone feel good for a little while, but it is never really enough in the long run.  Myths can be a way to avoid reality, and reality is not the kind of thing one can safely turn his back on.

The truly spiritual is in the realm of what is good, beautiful and true.  We find these things in the physical world, but what is merely visible does not limit them.  In fact, they witness to something beyond the tangible stuff of life.  In the ugliest moments of life, our most humiliating moments, and those times we really hurt someone entrusted to us - even in these moments, we can be tormented by the desire for truth and goodness which ought to be there.  If our conscience cries out, it is because there is a standard of goodness against which we have not measured up.  We did not make this standard.  Nor did any culture produce it.  Even though we cannot see this standard, it is no less real.  And, our awareness or lack of awareness of it influences the way we see and experience everything.

When we look at what God has revealed about Himself and see the relations this has with the pilgrimage of the Church, we can glimpse a beautifully unfolding tapestry into which our own lives are weaved.  The Church is the Bride of the Living God.  She pilgrimages to her wedding feast.  Each life expresses something contained in the mystery of the Church because each of us can accept or reject this journey for ourselves.   Those who study and contemplation the tapestry or tradition of this pilgrimage find the most beautiful and difficult truths of all: God's unquenchable desire for real friendship with us, the complete extent of our rejection of Him, and the unfathomable depths to which He descends to win back our hearts.  This study must deal with the stark realities of sin and death, and our aching desire for something beyond our own existence.  It also must deal with penance, prayer and the discipline of the Christian life.  Finally, and most important of all, it must strain to see our coming home, to where we really belong -- and this, in comprehensibly, in the embrace of God himself, his arms outstretched on the Cross.

Year for the Priest

I am offering a series of lectures at the John Paul II Center for the New Evangelization.  If you are interested, please follow the link below.

http://www.sjvdenver.edu/about-the-seminary/catechetical-school/the-virgin-mary-in-the-wisdom-of-the-saints