The Priest at Prayer, July 3

The Third Part - Vices and Virtues

ZEAL

Second Meditation - The Unzealous Priest

I. Zeal for God's glory and the salvation of souls is the essential purpose of our priesthood, just as the purpose of the lawyer is the defence of legal justice, and that of the doctor to heal disease, and of the soldier to fight for his country. Without this eminently priestly virtue I should be a strange paradox, a mere cipher, wine without body, soldier without weapons, or, as St. Vincent de Paul expressed it - a "pasteboard priest"; because the essence and spirit of the priesthood would have evaporated, leaving me only a skeleton.

Thine eyes, O Lord, will never fail to detect in me the gift of Thy priesthood, but will they look in vain for priestly works? Hast Thou not been appealing to my conscience for years now and repeating the words spoken by Isaias to Sobna, the temple prefect:

What dost thou here, or as if thou were somebody here? . . . the shame of the house of thy Lord (Is. xxii, 16-17)

Thou dwellest in my House (Thou canst say to me) and hast command as my steward, and yet thou wearest not my livery, the livery of charity which never fails to display the badge of zeal.

II. The priest who devoted all his money and time to the service of the sick and poor would be held in veneration as a Saint; but surely spiritual misfortunes are not less harmful than those afflicting the body, and they are far more frequent. The spiritual Jobs are more numerous and more wretched. Their plight is incomparably worse, because their wounds are deeper and more festering and dangerous, penetrating as they do into the very principle of life, both temporal and eternal, the human soul. To heal the soul diseased and wounded by sin is therefore a work of greater merit than the relieving of temporal distress in all its shapes and forms.

Moreover, every Christian-minded person has the right to devote himself to corporal works of mercy; and in actual fact, many thousands of both sexes give their time, money, and personal attention to their neighbours' physical ailments; but when it comes to drawing souls away from sin, to announcing the eternal truths, to pardoning sin and infusing grace into their souls and strengthening them in grace through the administration of the Sacraments; in a word, to opening the gates of heaven to them; then it is the priest alone who has to act, for to him it was said:

And to thee I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven.

And God help me if, due to my indolence, I come under the curse spoken by Christ:

Woe to you, lawyers, for you have taken away the key of knowledge. You yourselves have not entered in, and those that were entering in you have hindered. (Luke xi, 52)

Or this other curse:

Woe to you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut the kingdom of heaven against men; for you yourselves do not enter in, and those that are going in you suffer not to enter. (Matt. xxiii, 13.)

III. St. Bernard says somewhere: "A beast of burden falls and all run to the rescue; a soul perishes, and nobody gives a thought." But the most shameful thing for an unzealous priest would be to confront his indifference and thoughtlessness, while souls around him perish, with the satanic determination of so many wicked men bent on their ruin, men who expend formidable energy, often quite disinterestedly, in the accomplishment of this dire enterprise; priests of Satan who serve their Master extremely well and nearly always for the sheer delight it affords them.

To this might be added another comparison equally humiliating to me if I am a priest without zeal; namely, the contrast between my idle, fruitless existence and the holy, tireless efforts of so many Catholic men and women in the world who are making use of every means at their disposal to lead the lost sheep lovingly back to the Fold of the Good Shepherd.

And here am I, chosen by Christ Himself, made shepherd and swain by divine right of office, squandering my trivial existence in counting and checking up the emoluments my office yieids me, complaining of my small dividends, and with my back turned to the care of my flock, who are

distressed and lying like sheep that have no shepherd. (Matt. ix, 36)

And maybe I am also criticising and damning and opposing with all my strength the labours of those good lay people, who should be, not my model and confusion, but simply my collaborators. At the Judgement-seat of God they will be my judges.

IV. The following words were spoken by a famous political orator in Spain before the civil war:

"A cloud of prosaic suffocation has been stifling modern society for a long time now. Ideals are taken as a joke; any aspiration rising a foot above the earth is considered a laughable chimera.

"We are being invaded by the bureaucratic spirit, we are suffering from what I might call a 'promotion and grub' mentality, we have come to think that there are no undertakings of sufficient nobility to warrant exceptional energy; and thus we have seen this country of ours turned into an immense provisions store, where the body is given meager contentment and where the soul has to fend for itself.

"The priest, the soldier, the university professor, the artist, seem to renounce all dream of conquest and settle down to while their time away as best they can, without considering or seeking or caring for anything beyond their own individuality."

O Jesus, Divine Craftsman of pure and high ideals, I shall never consent to such a lamentable state of affairs within the sphere of my own life; I do not renounce all dream of conquest, I do not wish to pitch my tent in a No-man's land; with all those legions of Thy heroes, I will encamp in the well-defined and glorious zone of Thy infinite love for the glory of Thy heavenly Father and the eternal salvation of souls. I wish to die and to live like Thee, like so many of Thy followers, furthering Thy Kingdom among those whom Thou hast redeemed by Thy Precious Blood.

Resolutions
1. I shall scrupulously discharge the ministerial duties pertaining to my office. This is enough, if I am unable to do more, and God will be well pleased.

2. Although I may not be obliged to perform certain ministerial duties by reason of strict justice or equity, I shall nevertheless administer the Sacraments and preach out of charity, offering to help the parish priest, etc., if I haven't a church of my own.

3. My main concern, for the right practice of zeal, will be what the Church expressly demands of Her priests in virtue of their orders and respective functions; but I shall not refuse to open my mind or my heart or my hands to any other method of apostleship no matter how unusual or new it may seem, because every age brings with it its own peculiar needs; and I myself shall devise ways and means if the traditional ones fail to meet my requirements, on condition that I am not forbidden by lawful Authority. Flexibility is the most needful attribute of the Christian Apostle. I must be able to say:

"I have been everything by turns to everybody, to bring everybody salvation."-(I Cor. ix, 22)

4. The one thing I will not do, not even to save the whole world, is to offend God or to expose myself to the proximate danger of sinning; for I am never permitted to prefer any good, however secure, high-minded, or supernatural it may appear, to my own spiritual welfare necessary to save my own soul.
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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!