The Heart of the Matter

What would the Catholic Church be like if there were no priests?

This past Monday, November 16^th, the Bishops of America gathered in Baltimore for their 2009 meeting of the USCCB (the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops).  The elected head of this national body of Catholic bishops, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, gave an address at the first session.  It included a reflection on what the Catholic Church would be without the sacrament of Holy Orders.  Here’s a snippet of his reflection on that point:

“The priest teaches the people in Christ’s name and with his authority. Without ordained priests, the teaching ministry would fall primarily on professors, whose obligation is first to seek the truth in the framework of their own academic discipline and whose authority to teach derives from their professional expertise.

“The priest governs the people in Christ’s name, exercising Christ’s authority in collaboration with the bishops. Without ordained priests, the only instance of real governance in any society would be that of civil and political leaders. Their authority comes from God through the people they have sworn to serve; but, in Catholicism, secular kingship confers no religious authority and a civil government has no right to deprive the Church of freedom to govern herself by her own laws and under her own leaders.

“The priest counsels people to see the hand of God directing human affairs, using the discernment of spirits to govern souls and to free people from what oppresses them. Without ordained priests, counseling passes into the hands of therapists, dedicated to their clients and skilled in examining the dynamics of human personality, but without consideration of the influence of God’s grace.

“The priest leads his people in worship, making possible the real presence of Christ, the head of his Church, under the sacramental forms of bread and wine. Without ordained priests, the Church would be deprived of the Eucharist, and her worship would be centered only on the praise and thanksgiving, the petition and expiation open to all by reason of baptism.

“Without ordained priests who love and govern their people in the name of Christ and with his authority, the Church would not be connected to Jesus Christ, the great High Priest, as Christ himself wants us to be joined to him. Without ordained priests, the Church would be a spiritual association, a faith community, but not fully the Body of Christ.”

Lessons on priesthood - Lesson One

This coming year I will mark 35 years as a priest and 30 years as a pastor.  To mark the occasion I want to begin a series of thoughts about lessons I have learned over those years about priestly ministry, particularly from the perspective of being a pastor of a parish.  It is fitting that I begin this series during Vocations Awareness Week as an ongoing encouragement to anyone considering the priesthood.

Lesson Number One:  I never cease to be surprised by how patient God is.  Human nature is what it is.  Yet, we, the baptized, are gifted with supernatural grace which enables us to rise again and again from the ashes of our mistakes.  Our fallen human nature seems to tackle us from advancing in God's grace by sin, by foolishness, by "not getting it", and by one mistake after another.  But God's grace can take the fallen person we are and by the process of a conversion of heart transform us into vessels of remarkable resilience in cooperating in God's plan, which always seems to adjust to our new circumstances. 

One of the most extraordinary elements of being a priest, and particularly a pastor, is that of being a confessor.  After so many years in a parish a pastor knows the inner life of his parishioners: what their common struggles are, what the unique person's unique struggle is, and by hearing their confessions year after year a pastor is able to see how God works with people, how patiently He regards us, how kindly He guides us to conquer our sins and find new ways to be live so as to walk in His ways.

What a joy it is for me to be a part of someone's recognizing how God is calling him or her to an increasingly closer walk with the Lord.  Think of the silent celebration a pastor knows, and cannot speak about, when a sinner finally conquers, or make great progess in conquering, a long habit of sin, or a longstanding resentment!  Think of what joy a pastor feels when an errant sojourner finally comes home to receive the sacraments after years and years of spiritual desolation!  Think of what it's like to see the light of an "aha" come to a person who finally sees what has been robbing his or her heart of joy!  Oh, how good God is!  Oh, how kind God is!  And oh, how very patient God is - with all of us!

An unexpected opportunity to evangelize!

So, there I was at my brother's house for a big indoor and outdoor party.  All kinds of people.  Relatives, shirt-tail relatives, neighbors, and friends of every stripe and some people I didn't know.  I had just come from celebrating 2 Sunday Masses and baptizing a little toddler whose (huge) family is from Cameroon.  On the way to the party I stopped at a hospice to give Last Rites and Viaticum to a dying 55 year old man.  So, my mind was filled with the beauty of people of faith.

Then, at the party I was standing at a counter noshing on carrots and a woman I did not know came to the carrots and said, "So, you're the Catholic priest?"  Uh oh, I thought, here it comes!  "Well," she said, " I left the Catholic Church and I'm glad I did!"  I asked, why?  "You really want to hear?"  Sure, I said.  Then she took aim and fired away.  After blaming the Catholic Church for one thing after another, she went on praising this her 3rd church she's been in since she left the Catholic Church.  "We have a great band and we don't hear the same thing all the time."

After her tirade I asked her, But don't you miss Holy Communion?  "Oh, we have communion."  Really?  How often?  "Every week."  Oh, I said, it's not the same, is it?  "Of course it is!"  Oh, no, I said; your church now doesn't believe that it is the True Body and True Blood of Christ, do they?

"You don't believe that you are eating Jesus at communion, do you!?"    Of course I do!  "No," she said; "communion only represents Jesus and His Last Supper.  I never believed that communion was actually Jesus, even when I was Catholic!" 

Then you never really were Catholic, were you? 

How can it be that she spent 49 years in the Catholic Church not believing that the Eucharist is indeed the True Body and True Blood of Jesus?  Maybe she did, but she mentioned that she went through a divorce at the time of her departure from the Catholic Church; and even though a divorce does not separate one from Holy Communion, some people feel that it does.  That's because they misread their situation, as being unworthy, or somehow dis-graced, so they feel that they have to go elsewhere.  That is truly sad.  So, let's spread the word among our divorced Catholics that it's only a remarriage that so conflicts with the Gospel mandate, "Let no man put asunder what God has joined together," that reception of Holy Communion becomes an issue.

Meanwhile, my brother was sending one after another of his adult kids to rescue me.  Thank God for my family.

She said, "I had no idea that's what's going on in a Catholic funeral."

I was really exhausted on Sunday.  Three Masses, a class to teach, Spanish Confirmations, a Sacrament of the Sick to confer, a fascinating dinner with an Eritrean family celebrating Easter according to the Eritrean calendar, First Holy Communions, and inviting everyone at all the Masses to our upcoming Town Hall Meetings.  I was pooped. 

Then at 10 PM, I got a call to give Last Rites to a man who was in the actual moment of dying.  I went immediately, but he had died right after the family hung up from calling me. 

After the prayers for the dead, I visited for a while with the family, asking what their husband and father was like.  As the conversation moved along, the new widow said that she really perferred Presbyterian funerals.  (She belongs to a parish that used to share a worship space with a Presbyterian congragation.) 

So I asked, "Why?"   "Well," she said,"we have so much ritual in the Catholic Church but in the Presbyterian church the funeral service is more a matter of everyone getting up to tell what the deceased meant to them."  Her son piped up and said, "Mom, that's what a Vigil is for." 

So I used this moment to do some teaching:  "Oh, I don't think you understand the meaning of the Mass.  What we are doing at a funeral Mass is gathering around the loved one as he or she is meeting God, face to face, perhaps in the judgment scene.  And these gathered loved ones are joining the deceased along with themselves in the Sacrifice of the Altar as the gift Jesus gives to the Father.  Even the incense bespeaks the prayers of these family members and friends going up to heaven just as Jesus gives the Father the gift of Himself, along with the deceased loved one, and us, as His idea of the best gift He could give the Father.  So, the funeral Mass in the Catholic Church is not the time to talk nice about the deceased; that's done at the Vigil the night before the funeral Mass.  The funeral Mass is the time to unite the deceased one by our faith, hope and love to the sacrifice of Christ."   

The widow said, "I had no idea that's what's going on in a Catholic funeral."  So, I told them I'd put this exchange in my blog.  I hope they read it.

One of my favorite things

One of the great joys of being a priest is doing baptisms, especially when I have witnessed the marriage vows of the parents.  So, recently I had this joy again.

Andy and Kim asked me to baptize their baby daughter Haley.  What a thrill for me, as well as for them.  Baptism is the giving of the gift of citizenship in heaven.  In these days when we are very conscious of what a lack of citizenship can do to a person's status in our country, so also we should become more aware of what it means to be a citizen of heaven.  It means that we are sons and daughters of God, that we have the dignity of being as important to the Lord as any priest, prophet or king [or queen].  Only if we forget this dignity do we run amok in life.  Only if we toss away our citizenship and our dignity do we fail to live up to our potential.  So I am grateful to Andy and Kim not only for asking me to do their baby's baptism, but even more importantly I am grateful for the Faith being so important to this couple that they want to pass on this dignity, this citizenship in heaven to their daughter.  As Haley grows up she will decide if she treasures this gift, but in the meantime I know her parents do!

One of my favorite priestly things to do

I seem to have a steady business in helping formerly non-practicing Catholics return to "the practice of the faith," as we call it.  It happens so often that I have this advice for anyone who is concerned about the state of the souls of their loved ones who seem to be spiritually wandering:

Let's never give up on anyone. I have too often ministered to adults who rediscover "the pearl of great price" later in life. Lots of times, the wanderer will say that they don't agree with the Church on this or that teaching. To that I'd like to share a great piece of wisdom from a professor I had in the seminary who taught "grace": If there is ever anything in the Church’s teachings that you find difficult to accept, don’t toss it out. There’s just too much reflection on the Scriptures and too much history of wisdom that produced that teaching. If you can’t accept it, don’t deny it; just put it on a shelf in your mind for later in life when you have some more years behind you and some more wisdom that comes to those who grow in wisdom and grace.

Maybe that’s what we should pray for when we pray for our loved ones who are on a religious sabbatical: that they may grow in wisdom and in grace