The Priest at Prayer, June 25

The Third Part - Vices and Virtues

FAITH

Second Meditation - Priestly Motives for Frequent Acts of Faith

I. Not every kind of Christian faith produces happiness, only that which is steeped in, and animated by, charity, and made fruitful in good works; "the faith that finds its expression in love." (Gal. v, 6) And more especially, the faith that waxes resplendent, like the rising sun, until it reaches the zenith brightness of heavenly glory; the faith that goes from strength to strenth by dint of repeated and fervent acts.

If every Christian must live by faith in order to win God's blessings, much more so the priest, who must win blessings for himself and for others.

What a blessing it would be if our Lord could address to His priests, to everyone of them, those admiring words He spoke to the woman of Canaan: O woman, great is thy faith! (Matt. xv, 28)

II. The priest, more than anyone else, has to bear in himself and for the sake of others, the brunt of that fearful battle which St. Paul describes so sombrely:

"It is not against flesh and blood that we enter the lists; we have to do with princedoms and powers, with those who have mastery of the world in these dark days, with malign influences in an order higher than ours." (Eph. vi, 12.)

What priest has not often felt in his flesh and spirit the crack of the whip from those mastering influences.

What priestly heart has not been seared, by the Enemy's "fire-tipped arrows"? Where is our refuge and defense? The Faith. No other weapons but those so vividly depicted by the Apostle:

"Take up the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the fire-tipped arrows of your wicked enemy." (Eph. vi, 16.)

Dear Lord, if my flesh and spirit have been scorched so often and have quivered under the poisonous sting, is it not because I have kept the solid shield of faith thrown into one corner, like a rusty old heirloom, instead of burnishing it daily, forging and re-forging it in the furnace of Thy Sacred Heart, and studding it
with the diamonds of Thy love?

III. The Catholic priest, in his particular capacity as teacher and educator, has only one thing to justify his existence; faith. No Catholic priest should answer the description of a Protestant minister given by a certain wit: a gentleman dressed in black, who on Sundays ascends the pulpit to say sweet reasonable things. The commission from Christ is: Teach all nations whatso­ever I have commanded you. (Matt. xxviii, 19)

Our task is to teach and command what He taught and commanded, nothing else; and our teaching must rest on His divine Authority, not on our own fallible reasoning.

Christ, the Redeemer, is pledged to continue being the Light scattering the darkness of the nations from century to century through the medium of my words given life and shape in the living mould of the Faith.

Hence, the torch of faith must be ever burning bright, in my heart, on my lips, in my hands.

IV. Very serious harm is done to the faithful if we give them the slightest justification for saying what they say only too often about an individual priest, and even about priests as a whole when illicitly indulging in generalizations: "They haven't any faith; they don't even believe it themselves!"

What a dreadful calamity when that malicious remark seems to rest on solid proof, when there are facts to show that the priest does not possess the faith, the living faith! It is a Satanic call to sur­render arms, to stage a general withdrawal, to desert from the army of Christ.

How many parishes and villages and towns there are which no longer acknowledge Christ as their God, have formally withdrawn their allegiance; for no reason at all except the evil life of one of Christ's ministers, a life that fails to square with his preaching, or even a life of unbelief and apostasy!

Such is the terrible power which I wield as a priest; a kind of omnipotence over men, even to the point, O Jesus, of stripping Thee in their minds of Thy Divinity, or of tearing It to shreds.

V. In my ministerial duties, in my struggle against cer­tain temptations, that is, as often as my priestly calling constrains me to undertake things beyond the reach of my human weakness, why not have recourse to faith? To the man of faith everything becomes a possibility. The difficulty lies, not so much in things themselves, as in maintaining my faith at its proper level. I can do all things only in Him who strengthens me, only when God places His own Power into my hands. Then, why not take Him at His word?

"We have learned to recognise the love God has in our regard, to recognise it, and to make it our belief." (l John iv, 16)

If I have faith in God's love for me, why not have faith concerning things so much less astounding and stupendous? God, who does not refuse me His love, will not refuse me these lesser things, will refuse me noth­ing.

Resolutions
I. To flee from vice, in particular, sensuality, on whose slippery gradient a priest would easily and very soon slide down to the depths of unbelief and even apostasy. I shall keep my conscience pure, because "some, through refusing this duty, have made ship­wreck of the faith." (Tim. i, 19)

2. To act by faith's impulse, to increase the number of acts, or at least to put more life or intensity into the acts I already make in the course of my ministerial duties.

3. To inform my whole life with the light and life of the Faith; my intellect, with thoughts of the Faith; my will, with longings born of the Faith; my words, with ideas and affections inspired by the Faith; my undertakings, under the guidance of the Faith. Let all who know me closely be obliged to think and say of me: "He's a man of faith."

4. To take real delight in teaching the ignorant and children the rudiments of the Faith.
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Adapted from The Priest at Prayer
by Fr. Eugenio Escribano, C.M. (© 1954)
Translated by B.T. Buckley, C.M.

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Please pray for our priests and pray for vocations to the priesthood!