Unpriestly Concern for Kith & Kin
First Meditation - Motives for Avoiding it
I. We read a significant example of it in the Gospel. The two brothers, John and James, and their mother were following our Lord. They had just heard Him announce His Passion and Death with all harrowing detail:
Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and the Son of man shall be betrayed to the chief priests and the scribes: and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him to the Gentiles to be mocked and scourged and crucified. (Matt. xx, 18-19)And then (says the Gospel), at that very moment when the forecast of those impending events was steeping the Heart of Christ in bitterness of grief, the impetuous mother of the two Apostles goes up to Jesus, and with much bowing she begins asking Him for something. Womanly shrewdness, but untimely. What is she going to ask Him for in those circumstances when He is rather to be consoled than asked to be~tow favours upon others?
Say that these my two sons may sit, the one on thy right hand, and the other on thy left, in thy kingdom.No lack of asking in the dear mother! As the Eternal Father says to the Son: Sit at my right hand; as Pharao said to Joseph: Only in the kingly throne will I be above thee; so the two sons of Zebedee the fisherman should be appointed, thinks their ambitious mother, to the first places in Christ's kingdom.
The other Apostles did not welcome the request, and the Redeemer Himself, while refusing to comply with the untimely and worldly dreams of the mother and of the sons as well, who seem to have prompted her to ask for them - not only reproaches them for their childish ignorance - you know not what you ask - but promises them a place and a dignity very much at variance with the petition:
Can you drink the chalice that I shall drink? My chalice indeed you shall drink. (Matt. xx, 22-23)That is the result of the imprudent mother's hasty request: an infallible announcement of, from a worldly point of view, the tragic fate of her two sons. From that moment, no doubt, the poor mother would keep these words in her heart: not the fulfilment of her dreams, but shafts of burning grief.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways my ways.-(Is. lv, 8)Lord, O Lord, make us deaf to the voice of flesh and blood so as to listen intently to Thy call, even though Thou shouldst promise us only painful sharing in Thy Cross and sips of gall from Thy chalice.
II. Let us take next the example of Jesus Christ, an example that baffles our weak understanding and even seems to cut across the tender love we have for His Blessed Mother.
After three days of anguish, Mary has just found her adolescent Boy, the flower of all grace and beauty; and, in the rush of her motherly affection, she gently chides Him:
Son, why hast thou done so to us? (Luke ii, 48).The only explanation and consolation He gives is to answer with the words:
How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be about my Father's business?That is the standard which should govern our dealings with our kith and kin, not excluding our parents. We owe a primary allegiance to the interests and concerns of our Heavenly Father; parents come after.
Another day, while preaching to His disciples and to the crowds, He is interrupted to be told:
Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand outside, seeking thee. (Matt. xii, 47)Our Lord takes occasion from this to expound His lesson still further:
Whoever shall do the will of my Father that is in heaven, he is my brother, and sister; and mother.There was something dearer and more precious to Him than Mary's divine Motherhood: the nobility of souls who are docile to His precepts, as Mary was herself.
At the very moment of dying He reserved for His Mother, who stood at the foot of the Cross - her heart pierced by the sword, as Simeon prophesied, and her whole being drenched in bitter sorrow - only a few words: Woman, behold thy son (John xix, 25); where as from His bloodless and parched lips issued cries of pardon for His executioners and magnificent promises for the repentant thief.
Durus est hic sermo, flesh and blood will exclaim; but I do not know, and I doubt whether there can be a holier and more perfect testimony to the value of our immortal souls.
III. The priesthood has its demands, and very heavy demands, the same as those of the doctor and the soldier.
The priest is the man of God appointed to look after the interests of God and of souls. He was raised to his high dignity in order to devote himself exclusively to the things of God, as St. Paul teaches with Christ's example before Him: I must be about my Father's business: The sole reason for ecclesiastical celibacy, with all its inherent difficulties, is precisely that the priest, in the words of the Apostle, may be "concerned with the Lord's claim, intent an holiness, bodily ana spiritual" (1 Cor. vii, 34), that is to say, free from the thousand and one cares and worries arising from married life in order to devote himself single-mindedly and unfettered to the service of God and the welfare of souls.
If, in spite of my celibacy, my life is constantly tied up with the temporal and selfish aspirations of my relations and the rearing of children not my own, what do I gain by remaining celibate? My sacrifice will be to their advantage, but no one else's. I sacrificed having a wife and children to attend to, I freed myself from the burden of having to please a wife; and yet I am foolishly allowing myself to be yoked to the service of a woman and children who do not belong to me, who perhaps even despise my meaningless celibacy, and are out merely to exploit my celibate condition for their own selfish interests.
A sorry sort of celibacy mine is! Sterile for God and the Church! Impotent to prevent my heart from being divided among the multiple vexatious cares of a family and family possessions! What a wretched fate for the most beautiful, radiant, and difficult virtue of the priestly state!
This must not be! O Lord, I choose rather to abide by the Apostle's exhortation:
"I appeal to you by God's mercies to offer up your bodies as a living sacrifice, consecrated to God and worthy of his acceptance; this is the worship due from you as rational creatures."-(Rom. xii, 1)Lord, I will keep my chastity and keep it whole and entire for Thee; no, not to increase the material well-being of my father on earth or of my father's children.
Resolutions
1. In thought and action I shall be the master of my own house and property, never allowing anyone, not even my own close relations, to administer it independently of me or to treat me as if I were never to be more than a child; and this holds for my parents and brothers and sisters, although I shall not, of course, be mean towards any of them, especially if I am permitted to have them live with me.
2. Apart from my parents or immediate blood relations, whoever serves me will enter into my consideration and treatment as a person hired for services, to whom just wages must be given at the proper times, for instance, each week or once a month. I shall not allow years and years to elapse and wages to accumulate without knowing how much I owe them and without giving them their due; otherwise, besides the countless dangers of a serious moral nature to which I thus expose myself, I enslave myself to a servant who will soon come to think herself the owner of my belongings - and not without some semblance of truth! - with the result that I shall be unable to dismiss her when the need arises or prevent her appropriating what she likes, with or without my knowledge.
Lord, I do not want to merit the reproach administered by St. Paul when he says:
"If a man has not learned how to manage his own household, will he know how to govern God's church?" (l Tim. iii, 5)_________________________
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!
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