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Catholic priesthood, Christian faith, Christian life, Christianity, discipleship, Roman Catholic
There are many images of ordained priesthood that operate in our Church today – the priest as sacramental minister, the priest as co-worker with the bishop, the priest as pastor, the priest as leader of the worshipping community. These are some of the more “official” images of priesthood but there are others, I have come to realize, that can often operate in the hearts and minds of both priests and laity alike. The priest as administrator and builder operating the parish with efficient ease! The priest as superhero stomping out evil with his superpowers. (I have seen many a vocation poster/image along this line and I have to admit I find it rather silly to say the least.) The priest as shaman battling dark forces behind the scenes by the use of ancient languages and rituals. The priest as philosopher or wisdom figure enlightening the masses with his erudite thought. Are there times when a priest does have to head a building project and administrate a parish? Yes, certainly. There are also times when a priest has to wade through the darkness of sin and evil in life and I hope that at least every now and then the priest does offer something worthwhile for people to consider. All this is to say that there are many images surrounding the priest – some official and some not-so-official yet held in different hearts.
One image that I would like to explore is priest as friend but a friendship that has a specific root and foundation which is from and in Christ. I do not presume that others cannot also share in this friendship, in fact I think it is a commonality among all disciples, but for my purposes here I want to relate this vocation of friendship specifically to the ordained priesthood.
In the fifteenth chapter of John we find our Lord uttering these rather amazing words, “This is my commandment: love one another, as I have loved you. No one has greater love than to lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends, if you do what I command you. I shall no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know the master’s business; I call you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have learnt from my Father. You did not choose me, no, I chose you; and I commissioned you to go out and bear fruit, fruit that will last; so that the Father will give you anything you ask him in my name. My command to you is to love one another.” (Jn. 15:12-17)
I once read where a renowned theologian, much more knowledgeable than I, wrote that we need to, in essence, avoid the danger of presuming friendship with Christ. Friendship implies peer to peer and we must remember that Christ is “God made flesh” and we are creature. I certainly agree with this and recognize the important point being made … but Jesus did say, “I call you friends…” I do not think this should be dismissed so readily.
It is a mercy to say the least that God, in Christ, now calls us friends but it is, in fact, a mercy given. You did not choose me, no, I chose you… It is interesting to note that it is within the gospel with the highest Christology that this assertion from our Lord is found. It is a mystery of a friendship given that is truly intimate yet also does not deny the transcendence of our Lord. It is also a unique mark of Christianity in relation to all other world religions that God so greatly desires to bestow upon his followers the grace of friendship.
Christ calls us friends because he has made known to us all that he has learned from the Father and that we are to do as he has commanded. We must put what we have learned into action to fully know and live this reality of friendship. This comes after the washing of the feet where Christ teaches that we must do as he has done, which is to pour oneself out in love and service for others – especially the poor and forgotten. This, I believe, is where the door to seeing priest as friend of Christ and friend of humanity has its foundation and root.
The priest is called to serve but to serve in a unique way. Many people, many good people who do not even have to have a faith, serve continuously throughout life. Think of parents serving their children, police or EMTs serving the public, firefighters daily putting their lives at risk, people generously donating their time and effort for some cause. These are all worthwhile forms of service which might or might not be attached to some form of belief but the priest serves explicitly for the Kingdom of God. I commissioned you to go out and bear fruit, fruit that will last…
The service of the priest is connected to the Kingdom of God and therefore the friendship with Christ which the priest has been given is known and enlivened through this service to the Kingdom. I recently shared a confession with my parish. My confession was that I do not always want to serve. I do not always want to make the nursing home visit, I do not always want to sit in the confessional (especially on a beautiful spring day), I do not always want to make an administrative decision at yet another meeting, I do not always want to serve the poor but when I do, I meet Christ and his friendship enlivens and blesses me and my priesthood.
Yes, the priest can be seen through the lens of all the images shared at the beginning of this reflection but another worthwhile and truly important image is the priest as friend – friend of Christ and friend of humanity. I also believe that this image of priesthood truly explored and lived can also help provide a healing balm needed in our world today. A balm that Christ can use to help heal the wound of isolation.
We find ourselves in a time where people are truly isolated one from another and this is causing intense pain, suffering and even death. The elderly are forgotten, the poor are ignored, the “other” is demonized and our hearts are continually being more and more hardened and turned inward. We must not shrink before this gaping wound of our world’s isolation but rather hold even faster to the words our Lord speaks in John 15. Christ calls us friends! Christ calls us to love one another! Christ calls us to bear fruit that will last! In Christ, the priest must live friendship with all humanity and he does this precisely because Christ calls him friend.
Christ calls us friends! We need to believe this and truly let the awareness of this grace given sink into our lives and our hearts. We have a friend in Jesus. It is much more than just a cliché. It is a reality and a mercy shared.
I call you friends… It is a mercy given from our Lord for all his disciples but also in this Jubilee Year of Mercy it a worthwhile grace for the priest to reflect upon and truly explore. The priest as friend.
A friend of mine in the Community of Sant’Egidio has asked me to reflect upon this past Holy Week and Easter Sunday in the parish and how the community accompanied the parish in its celebration.
At the end of Luke’s gospel (Lk. 24:1-12), once the women had shared with the disciples what had occurred at the tomb, we are told that Peter runs to the tomb and upon arriving he bends down and sees “the burial cloths alone”. It seems an almost inconsequential thing. The main fact is the empty tomb, right? The burial cloths are just an after-thought one might think. John, in his gospel, is even more precise – the burial cloths are also noted but then John shares that the cloth used to cover the head of Christ was rolled up in a separate place.
So much of the Christian life seems to be about “going out”. We are called to go out to proclaim the good news. We go out to share Christ’s love. We go out to serve others. This is good and authentic to our faith and it is the mandate that Christ has given us as Church to proclaim the good news to the ends of the earth.
Jewish midrash is a way of interpreting Hebrew Scripture that seeks to fill in the gaps and therefore bring forth truths of faith. A midrash on the scene of God appearing to Moses in the burning bush that we heard in the first reading (Ex. 3:1-8a,13-15) holds that the bush had thorns. God witnessed the suffering of the Hebrew people in Egypt, their daily struggle and pain, and therefore God chose to reveal Himself to Moses in the midst of a thorn bush to show that He is a God who is present in the midst of the suffering of his people.
hrist comes to reveal the truth of who God is and to call us into relationship with Him because here and only here is where we will find true life. What choice will we make? We each have only so many days allotted us.
On January 31st, the Church will celebrate the Feast of St. John Bosco – a man who devoted his life to helping young people. One of the greatest blessings of our Christian faith is the witness of men and women throughout history who let go of their own needs and worked tirelessly for the good of youth and those generations who were to come after them. The witness of these men and women should call us, as the Church, into a reflection on how best to minister to youth and young adults, especially in a time and culture that is “youth obsessed”. We can readily see how this obsession plays itself out in all areas of society – the entertainment and news media industry, politics, sports, education, relationships – just to name a few. A fair question is how might this “obsession with youth” bleed into and perhaps even negatively influence the Church’s own ministry to youth and young adults just as they are seeking to claim their own Christian faith and discipleship and how might we best avoid the danger of this obsession?
There is much worthy of reflecting upon in today’s gospel (Jn. 2:1-11) which gives the account of our Lord’s first public miracle – the turning of water into wine and the wedding in Cana. We can see in the image of the couple running out of wine on their wedding day a symbol of the ending of the Old Covenant and the freshness of the New Covenant beginning with our Lord turning water into wine. We can see in Mary’s noticing of the wine running short a concern for the young (and probably poor) couple who will soon be greatly embarrassed by not being able to provide for their guests. The first step of true mercy is noticing needs and not being indifferent toward others in their plight. This is a good witness Mary gives us during this Year of Mercy.
My father was brought up in a Presbyterian household although how staunch it was is open for debate. A story I once heard was of an exchange which occurred sometime after my father’s conversion when my two great aunts from Mississippi made a visit to my grandfather and grandmother. Noticing a little dust on the family Bible one aunt is said to have remarked, “Maybe if that Bible was not dusty, Jack would never have converted.” A number of years later my own aunt (my father’s sister) would tell these same two great-aunts, “Michael has decided to enter Catholic seminary and we are very proud.” The southern equivalent of drawing a line in the sand!
My mother did not grow up in affluence as my father did. Her childhood was spent in a small town in North Carolina. Nominally, I believe that she was raised Baptist but it seems that church was not a major factor in her younger years. She did once tell me that for a while she worked at a local Methodist retreat center frequented by the young (and then single) Billy Graham. “All the young ladies would swoon over him,” my mom once confided. She never said if she was one of the ones swooning. Right out of high school my mother left Brevard to work in book-keeping for a man who owned a number of hotels scattered around the southeast. Mr. Faw was a good man. He looked like Colonel Sanders, the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken, and for the fun of it would sometimes dress like the fast food icon just to see people’s reaction. Mrs. Faw was of Eastern European descent and she once gave my mother an eighteenth century lithograph of the Virgin Mary holding the infant Jesus. My mother treasured this gift and today it hangs on my wall.
At one point (prior to marrying my father) my mother was sent to a hotel owned by Mr. Faw in Oak Ridge, TN. At that time it was the only hotel in the city and therefore the temporary residence of visiting scientists from all over the world who came to do work and research in the government-run laboratories. My mother met a wide variety of people those years and at one point was approached by the FBI to help keep tabs on a visiting couple that the government thought had Russian connections. For this effort my mother received a signed letter from J. Edgar Hoover thanking her for her service to her country. One scientist my mother met and became a good friend of was a Franciscan nun from the Northeast. She taught at a university and had come to Oak Ridge to do some research. She and my mother remained friends for many years and I do believe that her friendship and that of Mr. and Mrs. Faw were what helped my mother in recognizing the beauty of the Catholic faith which, in turn, enabled her to make the choice to become Catholic.
My father and mother each walked their own journey of life and of faith (like we all do) but through their journeys and their own reflecting on experiences (i.e. use of the illative sense) they both came to belief in God and in the Church. I do not know all the experiences that added up to their each making their choice for faith. I never will and that is probably for the best. There are some things rightly left between the soul and God alone. These are and will remain the missing jigsaw pieces of their own journeys but I must admit that I do take great delight when I hear a story or memory shared that sheds a little more light on the journey each one had. These insights bring me joy and, I believe, are gifts given to help us who remain to continue our own journeys of life and faith.
Some of the best advice I ever came across regarding homily preparation was in an essay written by Annie Dillard. In the essay Dillard made use of the imagery of following bees as a way of exploring the adventure of writing. If you want to find a bee hive (and honey) then follow a bee. If you lose sight of the first bee then wait and when you catch sight of another bee follow it. By so doing you will eventually be led to the bee hive. The same is true for writing. When an idea or thought, no matter how strange or non-sensical it seems at the outset, pops in your head then follow it. Let the thought lead you even if you do not know exactly where it is going. It may take you to where you want to go. If it takes you only so far then stay there and wait for the next thought.
