The Priest at Prayer for July 20, Love of Hard Work

The Third Part - Vices and Virtues

The Love of Hard Work

Fourth Meditation - What should and should not be done

I. To do nothing at all is the first degree of idleness. To say Mass and recite the Divine Office hurriedly, just to get it done, and then to kill time (as though time was some sort of harmful and poisonous creature!) talking for hours on end, reading the newspaper (if I have sufficient energy to do so) - a parasite of a priest, a fruitless tree sucking the sap of other trees, marked out for those words of burning scorn and concentrated wrath from Christ's own lips:

"Why cumbereth it the ground?" (Luke xiii, 7)

A miserable, aimless, dishonest existence!

Haven't I spent days, months, years with my talents, many or few, - five, three, or one - buried in the barren sands of a somnolent survival? Am I not to be num­bered among those whom the Master of the vineyard greets in the evening with the sad reproof: "What do ye here all the day idle?"

II. Perhaps mere lack of activity is not in your line; on the contrary, you are naturally active, and neither your youth nor your impulsive imagination will allow a life of idleness; you feel the need to move around, to be always on the go, to keep your mind constantly nourished. Yes, but hasn't your mind up to now been a furnace feeding on fuel as quick-burning as it is useless - occupations that estrange you from yourself, that entertain, divert, and distract you? Aren't you like a traveller who is bored while the train swallows up mile after mile, and takes to smoking, reading a novel, looking out of the window, for no other purpose than to deaden the sensation of forced inactivity imposed by the long journey?

Distraction, diversion, entertainment, are all ways and means of escaping from the realities of the hour and from one's own personality. Is that the formula for the life of a priest? If it is, our Lord would certainly have to revise the schedule of the priestly vocation contained in these words:

I have chosen you, and have appointed you, that you should go and should bring forth fruit, and your fruit should remain. (John xv, 16)

III. Perhaps my case is different again. I consider it improper for any steady person to fritter his life away in aimless activity; that might be all right for children or people in the green of youth, but not for mature age, and much less for a priest-presbyter: an old man. At the moment of my ordination, in the full vigour of my twenty-some-odd years, I said good-bye to my youth and I cannot go back to it without forfeiting the glorious title of priest.

Nevertheless, in preference to priestly duties and clerical activities, which seemed to clash with my worldly outlook, I may have chosen other occupations apparently more glamorous, remunerative, and honour­able, almost to the point of cancelling out the former.

Have I unreservedly obeyed the injunction of the Apostle:

"Like a good soldier of Christ Jesus, take thy share of hardship.

"Thou art God's soldier, and the soldier on service, if he would please the captain who enlisted him, will refuse to be entangled in the business of daily life." (2 Tim. ii, 3-4)?

Can I swear to God and to my own conscience that I have observed the ruling of the Church - a ruling that has never changed from the beginning - about keeping away from certain secular employments?

Resolutions
1. I shall positively keep away from any occupation which is at variance with, or less conformable to, Canon Law, if only because experience teaches that the priest
comes to grief therein every time. Moreover, I resolve not to attach more importance to any work, however pleasant and useful it may seem, than to my ministerial duties.

2. If I cannot conveniently forgo all relaxation, while keeping within the narrowest limits of what is per­missible, I shall prefer those forms of recreation that have an educational value for me or which enable me to develop my priestly capabilities; such as travel or sight-seeing suitable to my state.

3. While I do not propose to deprive myself till the end of my days of games in every shape and form, I shall most definitely refrain from games of chance, a pitfall and a snare that has been the ruin of many a good priest; and so I shall say good-bye for ever to gambling-houses, casinos, etc.

4. Since card games can so easily captivate one and arouse one even to frenzy, if I do not decide to renounce them entirely, at least I promise to hold myself in check and to take them as a mere diversion; and, if I begin to find myself tied down to the card table because of an eager desire for monetary gain, or to revenge my piqued or wounded feelings, or for the sake of mere pleasure, I shall give up card games immediately.

I shall never allow the faithful to witness the degrading spectacle of, for instance, my spending the whole night at a game of cards; a thing so unworthy of the priest who has so much else to do, and who in the morning has to offer to God the Holy Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.
_________________________
Adapted from The Priest at Prayer
by Fr. Eugenio Escribano, C.M. (© 1954)
Translated by B.T. Buckley, C.M.

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