Text of remarks by Archbishop J. Michael Miller, CSB, to the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre Nov. 7, 2009.
A shorter version appeared in The B.C. Catholic.
As you know, this Year, beginning on this past June 19, has been designated by Pope Benedict XVI as the “Year for Priests,” one which he hopes will be “useful for making the importance of the priest’s role and mission in the Church and in contemporary society ever more clearly perceived.”
Moreover, the Pope has expressed the heartfelt desire that for every priest the Year will be “an opportunity for inner renewal and, consequently, that it will firmly strengthen him in his commitment to his mission” ... “It can never be said often enough that the priesthood is indispensable to the Church, for it is at the service of the laity. Priests are a gift from God for the Church.”
While this Year is clearly one directed to priests, “for them,” it is also, I believe, an opportunity for the lay faithful to grow in appreciation of the gift that the priesthood is for the Church and how it serves the laity, the overwhelming majority of Christ’s faithful, in fulfilling their vocation and mission to the world.
Priests live in the midst of the lay faithful, that they may lead them to a life of founded on the inseparability between love of God and love of neighbour. Here I would like to recall the Vatican II’s hearty encouragement to priests “to be sincere in their appreciation and promotion of the dignity of the laity and of the special role they have to play in the Church’s mission.... They should be willing to listen to lay people, give brotherly consideration to their wishes, and acknowledge their experience and competence in the different fields of human activity. In this way they will be able together with them to discern the signs of the times.”
What prompted Benedict to proclaim this Year for Priests? He told that it coincides with the 150th anniversary of the death of the Curé of Ars, St. John Vianney, “a wonderful model here on earth of a true Pastor at the service of Christ’s flock.”
The Year for Priests began just as the Jubilee commemorating the 2000th anniversary of the birth of St. Paul was drawing to a close. There is something instructive in juxtaposing the two figures. Paul was a brilliant theologian and an indefatigable evangelizer who made his way around the Mediterranean world in order to spread the Gospel that had so radically changed his life. On the other hand, John Vianney was a poor peasant who struggled with his studies, almost not getting ordained. He became a humble parish priest who carried out his pastoral service in a small and remote French village. The two saints differ widely in their temperaments and the way they lived their call to serve the Lord as his ministers of the Gospel. One went from one region to the next to proclaim the Gospel; the other welcomed thousands and thousands of the faithful while remaining in his own tiny parish.
Nonetheless, the two Saints are bound together, because both of them totally identified with their ministry and their communion with Christ. The Apostle to the Gentiles exclaimed to the Galatians: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2: 20). For his part, the Curé of Arts used to like to repeat: “if we had faith, we would see God hidden in the priest like a light behind glass or like wine mixed with water.” Through their ministry, each one, in a way adapted to the times in which he lived, issued a great evangelical challenge that bore astonishing fruits of conversion, fruits which in both cases resulted from a life of exhausting dedication. God chose as models for pastors two men who appeared poor, weak, defenceless and contemptible in the eyes of men (cf. 1 Cor 1:28-29), to bring about a remarkable growth in his Church.
St. John Vianney was a zealous priest. Before assigning him to Ars, his bishop warned him that there was a great deal of indifference in the village and very little religious practice among the men: “There is not much love of God in that parish, you will put some there,” he said, more prophetically than he realized. Quite soon, far beyond his own village, the Curé became the pastor of a multitude coming from the entire region, from different parts of France and even from other countries.
His whole life was marked by a child-like trust in God: “At a close look, what made the Curé of Ars holy was his humble faithfulness to the mission to which God had called him; it was his constant abandonment, full of trust, to the hands of divine Providence,” the Holy Father has said. “It was not by virtue of his own human gifts that he succeeded in moving peoples’ hearts . . . ; he won over even the most refractory [stubborn] souls by communicating to them what he himself lived deeply, namely, his friendship with Christ.”
Priests are men called to belong totally to the Lord, for it is God himself who calls them to be with him (cf. Mk 3:16), consecrates them in his service at Ordination, and sends them on mission. For the very reason that they belong completely to the Lord, they belong completely to the people, and are for the people, God’s own people. “Priests are there to serve the faith, hope and charity of the laity. They recognize and uphold, as brothers and friends, the dignity of the laity as children of God and help them to exercise fully their specific role in the overall context of the Church’s mission.”
The Curé of Ars always expressed the highest esteem for the gift he had received, and was in awe of it. Using the devotional language of his day, he would say: “Oh! How great is the priesthood! It can be properly understood only in Heaven . . . if one were to understand it on this earth one would die, not of fright but of love!” But the priesthood was not for himself, but for others. He used to repeat that “A good pastor, a pastor according to the heart of God, is the greatest treasure that the good Lord can give to a parish and one of the most precious gifts of divine mercy.” Marvelling at God’s goodness and of the greatness of the task entrusted to a poor human creature, John Vianney would sigh: “O, how great is the priest! . . . If he realized what he is, he would die . . . God obeys him: he utters a few words and the Lord descends from heaven at his voice, to be contained within a small host.”
Explaining to his parishioners the importance of the sacraments, he would say: “Without the Sacrament of Holy Orders, we would not have the Lord. Who put him there in that tabernacle? The priest. Who welcomed your soul at the beginning of your life? The priest. Who feeds your soul and gives it strength for its journey? The priest. Who will prepare it to appear before God, bathing it one last time in the blood of Jesus Christ?” While these words might sound excessive to our twenty-first century ears, they reveal the high esteem in which he held the sacrament of the Priesthood. He seemed overwhelmed by a boundless sense of responsibility.
But the Curé of Ars knew that the greatness of the priesthood was not for him to glory in. It was for souls, for others. For the sake of Christ, he sought to conform himself to the radical demands that in the Gospels Jesus put before the disciples whom he sent out: prayer, poverty, humility, self-denial, voluntary penance. And, like Christ, he had a love for his flock that led him to embrace penance and self-sacrifice for those entrusted to him.
Rarely has a pastor been so acutely aware of his responsibilities, so consumed by a desire to wrest his people from their lukewarmness. “O my God, grant me the conversion of my parish: I consent to suffer whatever you wish, for as long as I live.” In fact, he often did penance which his people did not do. He was truly a pastor completely at one with his people – a model for all priests.
The Confessional: The Priest Brings Forgiveness
Two “places” – both of them in the church building itself – marked the Curé’s ministry to his people. He drew them to the confessional and to the altar, both the altar of sacrifice and of repose.
A fundamental characteristic of this extraordinary priest was his diligent ministry of hearing confessions. He regarded his first responsibility as teaching the faithful to desire repentance. To draw them to the sacrament, he stressed the beauty of God’s forgiveness. All his priestly life and all his strength was dedicated to the conversion of sinners. Above all, he knew, that it was in the confessional that God’s mercy manifested itself. The Curé reflected on God’s mercy saying: “It is not the sinner who returns to God to beg his forgiveness, but God himself who runs after the sinner and makes him return to him.”
St. John Vianney recognized in the practice of the Sacrament of Penance the natural fulfilment of the priestly apostolate, in obedience to Christ’s mandate: “if you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (cf. Jn 20:23). Although undoubtedly he experienced that the ministry of reconciliation is the most difficult, the most delicate, the most taxing and the most demanding of all ministries, especially when priests are in short supply, St. John Vianney distinguished himself as an excellent, tireless confessor and spiritual director.
For almost fifteen hours each day, he lent a patient ear to penitents. This work began early in the morning and continued well on into the night. Five days before his death, when he was completely worn out and had no strength left, the final penitents came to his bed to receive absolution. Indeed, toward the end of his life, the number of those who came to see him each year reached eighty thousand.
Since the love of Jesus is living and perduring, it must continue in the world until the end of time. The Eucharist is the ongoing gift of the love of Jesus. According to God’s plan, the Eucharistic Presence is brought about through the priesthood.
The Curé’s confessional opened the way to the altar. For him, as for the great Tradition of the Church, the the two Sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist were closely linked. Without a continually renewed conversion and reception of the sacramental grace of forgiveness in confession, participation in the Eucharist cannot reach its full fruitfulness. Just as Christ began his ministry with the words “Repent and believe in the Gospel” (Mk 1:15), so the Curé of Ars generally began each day with the ministry of forgiveness.
The Saint’s existence was a living catechesis that placed the Mass at the centre of his day. The Eucharist was at the very centre of his spiritual life and pastoral work. He said: “All good works put together are not equivalent to the Sacrifice of the Mass, because they are the works of men and the Holy Mass is the work of God.”
The Curé of Ars was particularly mindful of the permanence of Christ’s Real Presence in the Eucharist. He spent long hours in adoration before the tabernacle before daybreak or in the evening. During his homilies he often turned towards the tabernacle, saying with emotion: “He is there!” His good example drew his parishioners so that quickly they took up the habit of coming to pray before the Blessed Sacrament, discovering, through the attitude of their pastor, the grandeur of Christ’s Presence in the Eucharist. “One need not say much to pray well,” the Curé explained to them, “We know that Jesus is there in the tabernacle: let us open our hearts to him, let us rejoice in his sacred presence. That is the best prayer.”
And so, dear friends, we are celebrating this Year for Priests. It must be a year in which the lay faithful say to their priests and to wider society that they are proud of their priests, that they love them, honour them, admire them and recognize with gratitude their pastoral work and the witness of the their life.
Sadly, it is true that some priests and bishops have been involved in gravely problematic and scandalous situations. Such grievous matters cannot be overlooked or excused. However, it is also important to keep in mind that these pertain to a very small portion of the clergy. The overwhelming majority of our priests are men of great personal integrity, dedicated to the sacred ministry; they are men of prayer and of pastoral charity, who invest their entire existence in carrying out their vocation and mission, often through great personal sacrifice, but always with love of the Lord, the Church and the people in their pastoral care.
The words of Pope Benedict to us priests this past June sum up my feelings and thoughts:
There are also, sad to say, situations which can never be sufficiently deplored where the Church herself suffers as a consequence of infidelity on the part of some of her ministers. Then it is the world which finds grounds for scandal and rejection. What is most helpful to the Church in such cases is not only a frank and complete acknowledgement of the weaknesses of her ministers, but also a joyful and renewed realization of the greatness of God’s gift, embodied in the splendid example of generous pastors, religious afire with love for God and for souls, and insightful, patient spiritual guides.
It is for these latter reasons – and each one of us can add many more – that the Church is proud to celebrate this Year for Priests, for our Priests, who, like St. John Vianney, spend themselves for souls.
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