Reflection to presbyterate from Bishop John M. D'Arcy
The following is a talk Bishop John M. D'Arcy presented to his priests at the fall presbyterate meeting Oct. 22 at Sacred Heart Parish, Warsaw:
It is never right for a bishop to conclude a day with priests without offering some brief reflection on the beautiful life that we are privileged to live together. As the time remaining for me as bishop lessens, and indeed, my time in this life lessens, I treasure every day more and more. The gift of priesthood, which we share. So challenging. So beautiful. So filled with mystery and with opportunity.
In a few days, I will have the great privilege of ordaining two more young men who will join us, prostrate themselves on the floor of the sanctuary of our cathedral church, as you did so many years before. As I did in another cathedral. Twice, once to be ordained as a priest and once later in life, a bishop.
I am currently still involved in the installation of pastors, a journey, which began in midsummer and still continues. So I hear over and over again, Sunday after Sunday, the response of the priests renewing with a full heart the promise that they made on the day of their ordination, to offer the Eucharist, to pray for the people, to preach the word of God, to offer the sacraments and to be faithful to the church.
When I see coming along the young men, in which we find so much hope, at times I think I would like to ordain them — Andy Budzinski next year and then the two Coonans. But then again, I think how wonderful and encouraging it will be to the next bishop that he finds three young men of such quality, whom he will have the privilege of ordaining. Will that not give him great encouragement, and make him realize that there is a local church here with vitality and strength? It will, in a way, be a gift that you have given him — greater than any gift you might offer him or we might offer him, such as a miter or a crosier on the day he is ordained — but we should do that also.
I have consecrated some altars recently, two at Notre Dame. I have consecrated churches here and the focus is always on living stones. It is important, as is the beauty of the church; it is the living stones, the hearts and minds being offered to God, a sign of the true vitality of the church.
St. Gregory the Great said this, "What is God's altar, if not the souls of those who lead good lives? Rightly, then the heart of the just is said to be the altar of God. So as we watch two more young men prostrate themselves before the altar, we cannot let it become simply nostalgia or some kind of a romantic experience. Rather, this ordination during the Year for Priests is a call to all of us to renew and strengthen our offering of our love — to God.
A call to fidelity.
The sub-theme of the year given by Pope Benedict XVI was "Fidelity of Christ, Fidelity of the Priest.
What is this fidelity, to which we are called and which we should renew at the sacred day of ordination in our diocese in our mother church — now only a few days away.
I would propose to you three aspects of this fidelity for us to ponder during the year.
First, it is a fidelity to love. Second, it is a fidelity to truth. Third, it is a fidelity to a life of prayer, for I do not think we can have the first two without the third.
All three make possible the fidelity of the priest — and all three are necessary if we are to experience the joy that comes from a total fidelity — none of these can be left out.
Fidelity to love
Tonight, I am going to speak at Little Flower Parish. I was asked about a month ago, and I said I would speak on their patron saint. To her and to the saints there is given a realization, a conviction about the love of Jesus Christ for us. You all know about Therese's desire to be a martyr, an apostle, a missionary. She is the patron saint of missionaries although she never left her home area, except for her trip to visit the pope at the age of 15.
Here is what we find in her biography, which is considered a classic. Her great heart was filled with love and she wrote, "I feel within me other vocations. I feel the vocation of the Warrior, the priest, the apostle, the doctor, the martyr," and the commentator says, "What was missing in the core of her life at the Carmel could also be missing in the life of the priest and the life of the martyr ... Now turning from every particular ideal, be it a Carmelite, priest, apostle or martyr, Therese chose to 'be' love, right where she was..." — Patricia O'Connor, — The Inner Life of Therese of Lisieux."
"... The apostle explains how all the most perfect gifts are nothing without love. That charity is the excellent way that leads most surely to God."
"I finally had rest..."
"I understood it was love alone that made the church's members act, that if love ever became extinct, apostles would not preach the Gospel and martyrs would not shed their blood..."
"Then, in the excess of my delirious joy, I cried out: O Jesus my love ... My vocation, at last I have found it ... My vocation is love!"
"... In the heart of the church, my mother, I shall be love. Thus I shall be everything ...
At last, this young woman said she found peace, "I will be love in the heart of the church. I am speaking here of a personal love for Jesus Christ, which overflows in service. It is the love that draws the priest to the cancer ward. The love that will bring him to the homes of those who are homebound. The love that will forbid him from turning that ministry over entirely to laity, and never himself entering the door of that home with the body and blood of Christ.
It is the love, which makes the priest realize that it draws him to intense preparation before preaching. To preach out of love for the word he is speaking and out of the love for the flock who are listening. As I mentioned in our conference last spring, St. Paul was very much aware that he did not speak with eloquence, "lest the word of God be emptied of its meaning."
The second fidelity is to truth
I was struck by two recent experiences in our diocese about this fidelity to truth. Fidelity to truth for the priest means that he is willing to give the hard saying. Hard for himself, perhaps because he does not believe it strongly enough; because he thinks it is too hard for the people and they might reject it. Or a greater temptation, he may worry that they might reject him.
Two things brought this home to me. In early September, we had in this very city, some excellent speakers focused around a serious pastoral problem. The widespread use of contraception and contraceptives among Catholics, and a related problem among good women in good marriages. I refer to infertility. This conference was sponsored by our family life office, and there were over 100 people present — including many who work in ministries to families.
Two people, a man and a woman, spoke to me about fidelity. The man was Dr. Holly from St. Vincent's Parish. I knew of him. Fred and Lisa Everett have spoken to me about him and about his conversion, and they have worked with him. But it was his own words that were especially powerful. Dr. Holly had always prescribed contraceptives to Catholic women and indeed to women of all different faiths. How it had troubled him, and how when he went with his family to a Japanese restaurant, he was greeted by the restaurant owner saying, "Oh, big family, good Catholic family, good Catholic man."
A grace came. He said to himself, "I am not a good Catholic man; I am not a good Catholic doctor." Knowing it would cost him financially; he went to his office on Monday morning and told his staff he would never again prescribe contraceptives. He had heard the call of God to be faithful to the truth. Christ gives similar graces of courage to his pastors — if we are open to them — the courage to be faithful to the church — to truth.
There was a woman at my table from St. Pius X Parish, Granger. A convert to the faith, drawn to this meeting, because of the publicity concerning infertility, and because she had been referred to Dr. Holly who in turn referred her to Dr. Hilgers at Omaha, in the hope she could have a child. During the break, she told me some of her story. She said how good she felt, because she received support in this diocese and in her parish for fidelity to the church. But she spoke of how hurt she was and scandalized when she went to confession at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, shared with her confessor the anguish about not being able to have children, and how she was told to try in vitro fertilization. She told that to the group at the conference.
Two people who were faithful
Two people who were faithful to truth, and one priest who was not.
The other incident was the presentation given to us by Father Bransfield at our study week, and how he presented, so beautifully, the church teaching on this issue. How it relates to the dignity of the woman and of the man, grounding it in Pope John Paul II's "Veritatis Splendor" and other church documents, such as the "Vade Mecum for Confessors," of which I have a copy for you today.
No one would dare prostrate themselves before the altar and rise up for the imposition of hands, if he did not believe and hope that the call was from Christ, through and in the church.
The church calls us, the church ordains us, the church gives us the mission, the church gives us the truth. We can never, in the confessional or the pulpit, give anything but the teaching of the church of Christ — or ever imply that we support going against it.
Yet there has been a massive failure of priests and bishops to express this truth in all its beauty. And it is beautiful. I want to repeat the story I told at the meeting and also at the priests' study week at Pokagon. Our teacher, on study week, showed us the beauty of the church's teaching on these issues. How it relates to the dignity of the human person, to the attractiveness man and woman find to each other, to children and the future of humanity. This requires study on your part and mine.
How many opportunities have been given to the parish priest to make this truth real in the confessional? In the high school classroom? To public school students? In the pulpit? In preparation of young people for marriage? In counseling of married couples? Of course, some will resist it. The culture is powerful — especially in this area.
Delicacy is called for, and also restraint, and understanding, and compassion. But today, more than this, courage is called for on the part of priests. Courage to proclaim the truth, in season and out of season. I sometimes recall when I was in Rome as a student priest. It was during the late days of the Second Vatican Council and many people came to speak with us, including famous theologians. But the only one I really remember was the great Dorothy Day. Someone said to her "what is the role of the priest, or what do priests mean to you," or some question like that. She replied briefly, "My priest is the one who gives me the hard saying."
In the discussions during the study week, I mentioned what Pope John Paul II had told to us bishops during his recent pastoral visit to the old Spanish mission in California. Two nights ago, while preparing these thoughts, I went back and found the phrase that had struck me so much and prompted me to speak of it again at the "ad limina" visit with the Holy Father.
"It is sometimes reported that a large number of Catholics today do not adhere to the teaching of the church on the number of questions, notably sexual and conjugal morality, divorce and remarriage. They sometimes claim that the dissent from the magisterium is totally compatible with being a good Catholic and poses no obstacles to the reception of the sacraments. This is a grave error, which challenges the teaching of the bishops of the United States and elsewhere. I wish to encourage you in the love of Christ to address this situation courageously in your pastoral ministry, rely on the part of God's truth to attract assent and on the grace of the Holy Spirit."
"We must also constantly recall that the teaching of Christ's church, like Christ, himself, is a "sign of contradiction.' It has never been easy to accept the Gospel teaching in its entirety, and it never will be. The church is committed; both in faith and morals, to make her teaching as clear in understanding as possible; presenting it in all the attractiveness of divine truth... The revelation of God par excellence is found in the cross of Christ, which makes God's folly wiser than human wisdom."
What struck me then and stayed with me, which I presented to the pope later at the "ad limina" luncheon, was the term: attractiveness. It was only one word. How do we make it attractive, I asked him. Then he gave me that response that is forever written in my heart. He got very serious, like a philosopher, and said, "It is necessary to understand the soul of the woman. All these things, which are meant to liberate the woman: premarital sex, contraception and abortion, have they liberated her or have they enslaved her?" Keeping in mind the great Dorothy Day, I ask this question to you and to myself, have we been faithful to the truth and willing to give people the hard saying? My dear priests, I ask this question to myself in prayer and repentance and in truth, seeking only to know his will and to do it.
The third and final fidelity, on which the other two depend, and from which they receive their life:
The fidelity of prayer
In his beautiful book, "Jesus of Nazareth," Pope Benedict XVI speaks of prayer as central to vocations. He said the drawing of vocations is not like hiring employees, vocations are always founded in prayer. The prayer of the young man, himself. The prayer of his pastor. The prayer of his parents. Because if it comes from prayer, then we know it comes from God.
Are we faithful to prayer? I refer to the fullness of prayer:
1. The Liturgy of Hours, the whole thing, every day. I find myself, if I start excusing myself, because I had a busy morning, or busy afternoon, or busy evening, I need not say a part of the Divine Office, then I would find that excuse every day. I believe we all have the obligation to say all of it, every day.
2. Fidelity to offer Mass every day, keeping in mind what Pope Benedict XVI said in his letter on the Year for Priests about John Vianney, that he offered his whole self afresh to God at every Mass. Also quiet prayer and adoration, the prayer of love.
3. The sacrament of penance every month, a good confession, honest and true.
Prayer is a communion of love every day between the priest and the heart of Jesus Christ. It is no wonder that the Year for Priests started on the feast of the Sacred Heart, for it is in that mystery that we find the meaning of the priesthood. John Vianney said it, "The priest is the love of the heart of Christ." That word of his is quoted in the catechism of the church.
When we pray, we offer ourselves to God afresh, then we will go to those in need, even when we prefer not to. Then we will be faithful to the Word of God. Then love will be a reality, and so will Jesus Christ.
May I close with the words of Pope Benedict XVI.
"The faithful expect only one thing from priests, that they be specialists in promoting the encounter between man and God. The priest is not expected to be an expert in economics, construction or politics; he is expected to be an expert in the spiritual life."
May God grant us a presbyterate filled with the love of God, with fidelity to truth and fidelity to prayer.
Thank you. Let us sing the Salve Regina.
