Priestly Piety
Second Meditation - The Need for Priestly Piety
I. The priest is the man of God, appointed by his fellow-men their ambassador before God. When man must appear before God in order to obtain mercy or the remission of sin or supernatural grace and strength or temporal and eternal gifts, he fears for his own littleness or unworthiness, he is afraid lest he be not admitted to the Divine Presence, his petitions be left unheeded; because he knows he is not pleasing to the Lord's scrutinising gaze.
He, therefore, instinctively goes to the priest, as to a person who enjoys God's familiar friendship; and in the priest's hands he lays his confidence and his requests. He knows that the priest of Christ, like Christ Himself, will be given audience at the Throne of the Eternal God; he knows that the priest has free access, for he is the King's close friend and privy councillor. Such is the idea of the priest in the minds of Christians; and, in its main outline, such is the idea of every priest from the day the world began.
But what if the priest is actually God's enemy? What if the priest has not practice in conversing with God but rather flees from the divine Countenance as from a source of annoyance? What if the man of God is hateful to God? How will he put before God the petitions of the people whom he represents? Will he appease God, or will he provoke God to anger? Here we have, perhaps, the clue to the doctrine taught by so many holy and hard-thinking men, the doctrine that one bad priest is the ruin of a whole town or nation, and is responsible for the greater part of public calamities.
It is obvious, O God, that if I am to acquit myself properly of my office as the world's ambassador and mediator, in imitation of Christ, I must render myself acceptable to Thee, must be a friend of Thine, a member of Thy Household, a true pleader at Thy Court; in a word: pious.
II. As a means of bringing souls to God, riches are of no avail, nor learning, nor eloquence, nor worldly pomp and power. How many surprises time springs upon the educators of candidates for the priesthood! We have all witnessed it: young men who seemed to be the cream of talent while in the seminary, when raised to the priesthood and given the cure of souls they proved to be very mediocre or even failures.
On the other hand, young men who were almost thrown out by their professors, soon after ordination began to do wonders for the conversion and renewal of souls throughout the district. What hidden talent came to light in the latter, that was missing in the former? The Spirit of Christ, Who wielded mastery over their hearts, Who guided them in their holy endeavours.
When it comes to returning to God in all sincerity, to being converted, to following the inspirations of divine grace, the human heart obeys only one deep impulse: God's personal invitation; it obeys only one attraction: the pure light of the Faith; one thing alone fascinates and captures: the life-giving perfume of Christ. (2 Cor. ii, 15:) And priests who are full of the Spirit of God, not merely good and honest men like any soldier or father of a family but solidly pious, have become this life-giving perfume of Christ, and souls run to them, and in their voice they hear the voice of the Good Shepherd.
Thy Church, O Lord, has need of learned ministers, men steeped in the sciences of things human and divine; grant them unto Her. Thy Church needs priests without blemish in the eyes of a prying world; refuse them not to Her, O Lord. But little will the Church accomplishwithout pious priests, Her best treasure, fishers of men for Thee. Lord, never refuse Thy Church these priests of piety; increase their number; let them be the salt of the earth, to free the earth from its so great corruption; let them be the light of the world, to scatter the world's darkness!
III. God help me if I am not pious! An ordinary Christian, a farmer or a family man, will perhaps manage to observe all the commandments, will go for months and years without a single serious breach of the divine law, merely on the strength of Sunday Mass, Easter duties, and a few popular practices of devotion; that is, without being particularly pious.
But shall I, a priest, be as good and as honest without real, solid piety? I wish to God it would bear contradiction, but no, the fact is that if a priest is not solidly pious he will not even reach the standards of ordinary decency and honesty, in the elastic meaning given by the world to these terms. The fundamental and unassailable truth is that a priest who is not pious will very soon degenerate into a perverse Christian, into a man without a moral conscience, into a rake, a blackguard, a public scandal. . . .
The duties incumbent upon me are so very heavy! Take, for example, the duty of observing absolute and perpetual chastity of body and soul. Am I going to break that vow freely entered into before God and the world? If I do not keep it, if my soul burns with impure desire, if my body seeks to wallow in lustful pleasure, how is it possible for me to give rein to my appetites and not sustain the loss of moral integrity and common decency? How can I indulge my passions without plunging into the direst depths of infamy and abomination? No, it is quite clear, I cannot. Therefore, an unchaste priest is a perverse and abominable man.
Now then, am I, or anyone else for that matter, capable of such absolute purity by my own unaided efforts?
"To be master of myself was a thing I could not hope to come by except of God's Bounty; I was wise enough already to know whence the gift came. So to the Lord I turned, and made my request of him, praying with all my heart. . . ." (Wisdom viii, 21.)No merely human interest or consideration was ever, of itself, sufficient a bridle to fleshly concupiscence: neither the desire for health, nor the dread of disgrace, nor the natural esteem of purity, nor nature's noblest aspirations. Has not my own experience taught me the lesson? Only a longing for the rewards of everlasting life, the fear of eternal punishment, a respectful regard for God's constant and all-seeing Presence, a contempt for degrading satisfactions, a sober life united to Jesus Christ, the laborious steering clear of sinful allurements; all this, together with divine grace, is the only force which adequately refrains and harnesses to reason and to God our most violent appetite of the flesh. And all this is called piety.
IV. Priestly piety encounters, to be sure, powerful and formidable opposition. One type of adversary proceeds - who would believe it? - from the ranks of some of your own fellow priests.
Experience, unfortunately, bears witness to this. When certain priests get together for their little parties and gossiping parlours, perhaps your name crops up in the course of conversation. "We know him well enough; not what he makes himself out to be. What does he mean by going around with the face of a mystic, mumbling his prayers at every hour of the day - the old wheedling humbug!" They may even throw it into your face and make social contact almost an impossibility for you among your colleagues. You'll be the target of numberless unfair and scathing remarks. Take stock of it, but meanwhile, esto vir, be a man; don't let it daunt you. If God and your own temperament have endowed you with calmness of manner and strong convictions, choose an opportunity, when there are a number of witnesses, to face up to your accusers, and serenely, without losing your nerve or your temper, take the ring-leader to task along the following line of thought, if not in so many words:
"Let me be frank with you. Yes, I am trying to be pious, I am trying to keep in close touch with our Lord; and for very serious reasons. Experience has shown me how weak I am and how I am bound to yield to passion and break my most solemn promises, if I am left to my own devices. I don't want to take back every word I gave to God and the Church; loyalty is no more than common decency, like that of the military man not to run away from the firing line; but I'm convinced that my own unaided efforts are not enough to ward off defeat; so I'm determined to gather strength to remain loyal. That strength has its source in God and in Christ, nowhere else; and it is piety that opens up that source of strength to me. So now you know why I am trying to lead a life of piety."Resolutions
1. From this very day I shall conform not only to the standards of liturgical piety and those of self-sacrificing obedience and service, as outlined in the last meditation, but also to the following prescriptions of Canon Law:
Canon 124 : Both the interior life and the exterior behaviour of the clergy must be superior to that of the laity, and must excel them by the example of virtue and good deeds.2. Besides my ministerial duties and liturgical functions, my daily timetable of piety will include the devotional exercises prescribed by the above Canons; and I shall not omit any pious exercise except for serious reasons, giving preference to the above-mentioned over any others, however holy, commendable, and enriched with indulgences, the latter may be.
Canon 125: The Ordinary must take care (1) that the clergy frequently go to confession; (2) that they make each day a meditation of some duration, visit the Blessed Sacrament, say the rosary, and examine their consciences.
Canon 126 : All secular priests must at least once in three years make a retreat for a length of time to be specified by the Ordinary, in a religious house or other place designated by the bishop. No one shall be exempted from the retreat, except in a particular case, for a just reason, and with the explicit permission of the Ordinary.
This programme, besides being meritorious in itself and in the sight of Jesus Christ, who was obedient unto death, death on the Cross; besides consisting of acts which are essentially good and efficaciously sanctifying, will have the great merit of obedience to the divinest Authority on earth, our Holy Mother Church.
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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!
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