JESUS AT THE CENTER
At the heart of the process of discernment in the context of seminary formation is neither a program nor a plan, no matter how well-crafted. At the heart of seminary formation is, instead, a person, and his name is Jesus.
RENEWING THE PRIESTHOOD:
REDISCOVERING ITS ‘KENOTIC’ ROOTS
The Roman Catholic priesthood is at a crossroads. Never before in its long history has it experienced the intense pressure it appears to be undergoing at the moment. All over the world it seems, the eyes of many of the faithful are on it, watching, wondering what needs to be done about an institution that has lately been going through a very rough time, its future shape a big question mark in the minds of many.
The momentous Second Vatican Council breathed new life into the ancient orders of bishops and deacons. It even reawakened and re-energized the long-dormant community of the faithful—the so-called ‘laity’. But for some reason, the order of ‘priests’ - ‘presbyters’, seems to have been left out in the cold.
In spite of the document devoted to the ordained ministry, Presbyterorum Ordinis, the council did little to develop the understanding of the priesthood itself. It did relate priesthood directly to the role of the bishop and his ministry, thus highlighting the priest’s sharing in Christ’s threefold commission of sanctification, servant leadership, and prophetic witnessing. And yet some theologians would argue that the council was in fact rather ambiguous even with regard to this relationship.
For some time now, it has been quite fashionable in certain church circles to decry the ‘loss of identity’ of its priests, or of the entire priesthood in general. Some conservative quarters go as far as laying the blame on the council itself, arguing that instead of solidifying the centuries-old understanding of the church concerning its ordained ministry, Vatican II instead opened a can of worms and created a great amount of confusion as to the nature of this hallowed institution.
Compare that with the more progressive view that sees the exact opposite—insisting that the reforms of Vatican II in fact were not allowed to go far enough. Those who hold this view argue that the seeming resurgence of neo-conservatism and the tendency towards revisionism and restorationism, not so difficult to feel in the climate of today’s church, are to blame for the breaks that have been placed on what could have been a more thoroughgoing reform and renewal of the Catholic priesthood.
Whichever perspective one chooses though, there does seem to be a growing consensus among all parties that something significant is afoot with regard to the priesthood itself. And there doesn’t seem to be any way of stopping it. As a well-known theologian put it, Vatican II “let the genie out of the bottle, and there’s just no way of putting him back”. Change is taking place, some of it subtly, others in far more noticeable ways. The priesthood as we know it is undergoing massive transformation at a scale never before encountered in the two thousand year history of the church.
It is incorrect, of course, to imagine that there ever was a time when the priesthood was a fixed and completed institution, founded on a timeless theology and spirituality, and governed by unchanging laws. Those who view it from this unhistorical vantage point risk setting themselves up for a great deal of disappointment, now and in the future. For while the ordained ministry itself will always be a constant in the life of the Roman Catholic Church, its understanding has gone through much transformation, from the leader of brotherhood meals of early Christians, to the alter christus offering the unbloody sacrifice of the mass of medieval Christendom, to the servant-leader of today’s Christian communities living in a confusingly pluralistic world.
Even Trent, which, more than any other council in the church’s history, sought to fix as far as it could most of the parameters of the priesthood, was itself a ‘progressive’ council in the sense that it was responding to the changed context of the age. Prior to that time, there had been no need to define in those clear terms the theology as well as the laws governing the priesthood as a whole. The history of the church in the middle ages will bear this out. Nobody questioned the priesthood; nobody questioned the church. People did not see the need to do so. Most believed that things were the way they should be. The church was what lent stability and order to the life of medieval men and women.
And yet while there were constant elements to the institution wherever one went in those days, variations were not uncommon from place to place. Even the role of bishops was not uniform, neither were the liturgies. There were many liturgical rites in use, for instance, as there are in fact several still in use today. The push towards uniformity that seemed to arise from Trent was really a response to the doubt and questioning to which the modern age and its religious offspring—the Protestant Revolution—had given rise.
Religions tend to respond to perceived threats to their integrity in many ways, one of the most common of these being a closing of ranks, adopting a siege mentality, and setting clear-cut standards that would distinguish faithful adherence to the tenets of the religion from unorthodox tendencies that could dilute or compromise what then becomes labeled as the ‘official’ way. Religions may in fact be tolerant of variety and change, especially at the beginning. However, once threatened, tolerance is often set aside and strict conformity becomes the norm.
Take for instance, the situation of the early Christians who initially had been a small and marginal sect tolerated within Judaism. They worshipped with the Jews, mingled with them and shared in their worship. However, once the Jews found themselves threatened, especially by the Romans, who by then had become increasingly uneasy with numerous rebellions, the first group that found itself on the receiving end of Jewish suspicion were the followers of Jesus. The birkat-ha-nozrim, or the benediction (really a curse) of the Nazoreans, which was imposed as a prayer to be recited by all Jews at the time (including the Christians) bears this out. The Christians were driven out of Jewish synagogues and eventually persecuted.
Trent, which was the high point of the so-called Catholic ‘Counter-Reformation’ needed to provide some clarity to a religious community under siege. Whereas prior to the Protestant Revolt, a certain variety in practice and flexibility was tolerated, even slightly encouraged, the Protestant Reformers’ denial of many of the church’s teachings was met with a renewed insistence on the need to conform to the strict ways of the church if one wished to remain within the Catholic fold, outside of which, it was insisted, salvation was impossible.
However, a corollary to this demand for conformity was the tendency—already present before Trent but somehow encouraged by it—to look at whatever development had come out of that Council as fixed, final, and completed, not only for all future time, but from the beginnings of Christianity as well. What this method did was to consider certain doctrines and practices crystallized by Trent from the numerous tendencies that had evolved before it and which it had brought together in a synthesis, and then project these doctrines and practices to an earlier period as if these had already been present in their full-blown or fully developed forms at that earlier time.
The understanding of the priesthood was one of those things that for a very long time after Trent, seemed completed and no longer subject to further development and deepening. There was nothing new that needed to be said of its theology or spirituality. Moreover, much of its theology and spirituality that was synthesized by Trent was made to appear fully complete from the very first century of Christian history. Trent was merely re-emphasizing things. The priesthood for a very long time, had come to be regarded in this way.
Vatican II provided a necessary corrective to that entire frame of mind by opening up discussion as to the shape, character, and identity of the Roman Catholic priesthood. This was done, not for the sake of discussion alone, but as a response to the rapid pace of change that the world in which priests were expected to minister, was going through. Pope John XXIII wanted Vatican II to be a ‘pastoral council’, understanding the challenges and difficulties Christians were facing, and responding to their needs with solicitude and compassion. The church was ‘teacher’ and ‘guide’; and yet in the mind of the good pope, the church was also ‘learner’ and ‘dialogue-partner’. And the pope knew that the world at the dawn of the Third Christian Millenium was not the same world as that of hierarchically-ordered medieval Christianity, or the highly-disoriented world of the Reformation, or even the complacent world before the two great wars of the 20th century. There was much that the church could learn.
The philosopher Alfred North Whitehead used to say that genius is known by its uncanny ability to take note of the common and ordinary and see in it something we ordinary mortals would hardly see, even if they stared us in the face. The genius of John XXIII lay in his ability to see that a church still wrapped up in the siege mentality of the late middle ages would simply not survive the onslaught of progress in a world on the brink of change, the scope of which humanity in its entire history could have hardly imagined. If the church was not just to survive, but thrive in changed and constantly changing circumstances, it needed a new modus vivendi with the contemporary world.
With regard to the priesthood, as in many of the concerns taken up during the council, two possibilities presented themselves. On the one hand, the church could just take what the future brought with it. It could simply keep adjusting to new circumstances on an ad hoc basis, eventually finding itself with new models which it did not intentionally chose, and then regret that it had inadvertently chosen what was merely thrust upon it. Or it could be more deliberate in its choice and responsible for what shape it would like the priesthood to take in the future. In contemporary terms, John XXIII chose the way of ‘pro-activity’ rather than merely ‘reacting’ to whatever was thrust at the church by the maelstrom of change contemporary society was going through.
Take for instance the present scandals that have rocked the priesthood, or the decline in the number of active clergy that has led to the unfortunate situation of priests being overburdened with having to handle several parishes at once. Without a clear desire on the part of the church to be intentional, responsible, deliberate and pro-active in regard to the future shape of the priesthood, these two situations alone, not to mention several others that have cropped up of late (e.g., the fact that the Latin church now has a married clergy with the entry of former Anglicans with wives and children who have been admitted to the Roman Catholic priesthood), could lead to the reduction of our appreciation of the priesthood to no more than a hodgepodge of individual decisions and reactive tendencies. As Archbishop Oscar Lipscomb says in an article written for Origins, “the priesthood is too important and too corporate in Catholic ecclesiology for that to be an acceptable course of action”. However, he quickly adds that while avoiding such situation, neither should we “attempt to define priesthood entirely from above as if it is merely a matter of implementing some formulation from the past”.[1]
Vatican II was truly a pastoral council in the sense that it not only sought to steer clear of these two rather unfortunate possibilities, but also in that by doing so, it assured that discussion would continue. The opinion then that the council “opened a can of worms” is perhaps not entirely off the mark, though one should probably be a little less negative in putting it. For the council did see to it that what had been thought of as a closed and finished item in the minds of Catholics, namely, the identity of their priests, was now laid bare for everyone to see. The possibility for renewal had thus been opened, preventing the situation in which this venerable institution within the church would simply wither from within due to structures and viewpoints that no longer spoke in realistic terms to the experience of men and women of the present day.
While there is a ring of hopefulness to this note, it must also be admitted that the pastoral bent of the council brought with it its share of ambiguity, challenge and difficulty, much of which is felt to this very day. Theologians of both progressive as well as traditionalist persuasions admit that an undeniable “crisis” has taken hold of the priesthood in the wake of Vatican II. And while the more circumspect in both camps avoid making a clear cause-effect relation between this crisis and the council itself, they do accept that the council may have served as a catalyst for whatever the priesthood is now going through.
On the one hand, the ‘opening’ that the council created bore the promise of a renewed understanding in tune with the church’s contemporary needs. On the other hand, the lack of any definitive statement that would naturally accompany any open-ended discussion has undeniable created some confusion in the minds of many, both clergy and laity alike. “Floating on a sea of paper” is how one priest describes the state of the theology and spirituality of priesthood today. There are those who decry the fact that priests seem hardly distinguishable from lay people. One laywoman, answering a survey question concerning the needs of the church that had to be addressed, pointed out that “priests needed to go back to wearing their distinctive garb that would make them identifiable and distinguishable from the laity”. Some think that would help. Although one doubts whether the priestly identity would really be better understood and served in its substance were we to merely go for more external concerns like clerical garb.
Meanwhile, there are also those who speak of the “clericalization” of lay people and the fact that rather than the laity being reawakened and empowered to be witnesses of the gospel to the world, they have in fact been drawn into the sanctuaries of our churches and made to do things that used to be done by priests. As one theologian noted, instead of being “unleashed” upon the world in order to transform it, lay people have been “corralled” in “churchy environments”, doing ministries that usually revolve around the internal life of the parish or diocese.[2] And in document after document, it seems that the Vatican over the last couple of years has been quite busy doing what some see as “damage control”—trying to clarify and discuss in less ambiguous ways, what is supposed to be ‘unique’ about the ordained ministry. The papal encyclical on the Eucharist, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, seems to bear out this observation.
In the midst of all this, one can’t help but feel for those caught in the whirlwind—priests themselves. There was a time when Catholic parents considered it a great honor to have a son wanting to join the august ranks of the clergy. Of course, to some extent, this remains true in many developing societies. (Still, one shouldn’t be reading too much into the merit of this phenomenon, since as sociologists of religion point out, in developing countries especially, there are those who still see the priesthood and a career in the church as a means of upward mobility.) And yet, in the more urbanized areas of such places, one can already encounter parents who do not only frown on the idea that a son wants to be a priest, but actually discourage him from pursuing this state of life.
This isn’t an entirely new phenomenon of course since even before, parents have been known to dissuade sons and daughters from choosing a vocation to the priesthood or religious life. But aside from the fact that their number is growing, one of the reasons they now give for discouraging their sons is precisely because the priesthood no longer provides the same social standing it did at an earlier time. A priest tells the story of receiving a phone call from a mother who wanted him to help her “discourage” her high school valedictorian son from entering the seminary. “He has too much of a future in the world to be kept inside a seminary”, she said. She didn’t want the scholarships being offered to her boy by two really great universities to go to waste. The priest politely told her that it was his job as vocation director to encourage young men to enter the seminary, not dissuade them. But he promised her that he wouldn’t interfere with what her son eventually decided to do. The son must have listened to his mother, as he wasn’t among the new students in the seminary when the semester began.
The priesthood used to provide parents with a certain kind of recognition in society. Mothers and fathers were proud to have a priest-son. It somehow increased their standing among their peers. And priests themselves, even in cities, used to enjoy tremendous respect and reverence from laypeople. The situation is changing fast. Increased social-standing is no longer provided by a priest-son in many places. The decline in the number of applicants in many seminaries even in the Third World, especially in the more highly urbanized areas, attests to the changes that, although still not very pronounced, are nonetheless there, and are surely to speed up in the near future. And that’s just half the story. It isn’t only the case that the priesthood in many contexts no longer serves as a vehicle for better social standing, in other societies, it has even become a cause for shame and embarrassment for parents whose sons express a desire to become priests.
Donald Cozzens in his book, The Changing Face of the Priesthood, reports of an instance when after mass, a priest colleague found himself talking to a young man who said he wanted to try it out in the seminary. “Suddenly his mother stood between them and grabbed the pamphlet from her son’s hand. Throwing it down, she said with a voice of steel, ‘No son of mine is going to be a priest’. Perhaps surprised at her own vehemence, she added, ‘Nothing against you, Father. It’s just that no son of mine is going to be a priest”.[3]
It seems that it is becoming more and more difficult to be a priest these days. A priest in a large archdiocese tells the story of how he was one day taking a walk only to be stopped by a car and called a child-abuser by the bunch of youths inside. After that incident, he said, he always felt uneasy wearing his collar in public. What young man would want to be subjected to that, when there are so many other professions out there where he can find more respect and fulfillment in life? As Cozzens points out, “the proliferation of vocational choices brought about by such economic, social, and professional success can be daunting to a young man considering a life commitment to the Church. So many paths lie open to him, paths that he can realistically follow with a high probability of success, that the stirrings of a call to the priesthood may simply go unheeded.”[4]
It is a very difficult period not only for the institution itself, but especially for individual priests who are trying their best to hold onto their calling in the hope that soon, there will be a turnaround and the renewed and re-energized priesthood that had been hoped for at Vatican II would finally be realized. For now though, they find themselves having to live with the anxiety and ambiguity of the “in-between”. Some wonder if it is wintertime for the priesthood, and they wait for springtime to come.
Still, as Albert Camus once said, “in the midst of winter one can find in himself an invincible summer”. The ambiguities, uncertainties, scandals and difficulties all herald a real crisis. Few doubt that, though many remain hopeful. As the theologian Bernard Häring says, a crisis could be either a “manifestation of decadence,” or a “sign of growth, or an opportunity that allows for new growth”.[5] And there are not a few, from both conservative and progressive camps, who see present difficulties as unmistakable signs of decay - the result having “betrayed” the divinely instituted character and nature of the priesthood.
For those, however, who have remain trusting of the often-complex workings of God’s Spirit of which John XXIII in his genius so keenly took notice and sought to put in front of the consciousness of the church, these ambiguities, uncertainties, and crises represent no more than the flip side of the coin. The other side being no less than the promise that finer perspectives can be discovered within which a reconciliation of the priesthood’s difficult past, its troubled present, and its hopeful future can be realized.
The wounds of the priesthood will find healing, and priesthood itself, one must trust, will find wholeness once more. A more progressive writer argues that what we’re seeing could very well be the end of the priesthood as we know it.[6] The more hopeful, and by that we mean the perspective more in tune with the ‘spirit’ of the Council, would be perhaps to see the present challenges as birth pangs of something new and exciting. And these two perspectives don’t have to necessarily exclude one another. They could very well be part of one whole experience.
The ‘calvary’ of the Roman Catholic priesthood today is the very process it is having to undergo, a process of death to old and no longer meaningful structures and birth to deeper and more meaningful possibilities for the future. Perhaps just as Christ’s own experience of calvary—while being wholly salvific—did not represent the end of the story, so too is the crisis undergone by the priesthood today. It could very well be no more than a stopover on the way to something richer and more profound, something that breaks and deconstructs, if only to create a deeper and richer wholeness. Valuable as it might be, Calvary must, and will be transcended, for there is much more that comes after the experience of the cross, even if there is no going around it, and no skipping it. It must be undergone in its totality, so that the wholeness and healing that lie beyond it may also be experienced completely. The question is, how?
Though he was in the form of God,
Jesus did not count equality with God
a thing to be grasped at,
rather he emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in the likeness of men.
And being found in human form
he humbled himself
and became obedient unto death,
even death on a cross. (Phil. 2:6-8)
It is vital that anyone who seeks to plumb the depths of the nature of the priesthood remember that kenosis—“self-emptying”—lies at the very heart of the movement that the historical Jesus founded. As a matter of fact it is the core idea of Christianity’s “Master Narrative”, the “Incarnation” of the Only-Begotten Son of God. In the mind of Paul, whose letter to the Philippians we just quoted, the act of divine self-emptying which Christ undertook when he became man, was no pleasant fiction designed as a façade to veil the ‘reality’ that Jesus was the Only-Begotten Son of an Almighty and Powerful God.
The powerlessness of the infant whose birth is celebrated on Christmas Day is no mere lovely fairy tale meant to warm hearts and inspire gentle and kind deeds. The very word used to speak of Jesus taking the “form” of a slave is meant to describe not some accidental or marginal character, but the very nature of Christ. A servant, a human being in every sense of the word—that’s what he truly was. This was no mere external show. The sense one gets from entering into the verses of Philippians is that there was a genuine stripping off of omnipotence and a real entering into the powerlessness of humanity.
Neither is this a mere prelude to the disclosure of Jesus as a powerful Lord and Master, a conquering hero sent to redeem God’s people and re-establish the Kingdom of Israel. The disciples made exactly that mistake and were rebuked by Jesus himself on many occasions. It would be wrong to suppose as some do that while Jesus did appear powerless, this was not really the case, because he was merely hiding from everyone’s view, the fact that he was the most powerful person alive and that at his command, day could be turned into night. Growing up, I remember hearing a priest say that Jesus was actually merely being patient with his tormentors, and that he could have easily incinerated them with bolts of lightning had he desired that. Power, I remember this priest say, is even greater when a powerful person holds himself back, knowing fully well he could destroy his enemies with a word. And Jesus, he added, was precisely that kind of guy: all-powerful and yet patient, preferring to “hold himself back”.
That, I believe, makes the kenosis of Christ, a sham, and is perhaps one of the greatest perversions of the Christian message in its 2000-year history, and possibly the gravest act of betrayal of Jesus himself. The fact is, Jesus founded his community on a group of losers, not only in the eyes of the world, but in reality. We sometimes imagine that the inadequacies and weaknesses and often lack of understanding shown by the disciples over and over again in the New Testament was no more than a show, something which only seemed to be the case, but in fact wasn’t. We imagine that in fact, they were really strong, victorious, powerful men destined to lead the church. Were they not, after all, the first disciples, the future pillars of the church, the future foundations of the “New Jerusalem”?
The fact is, Christianity was founded by a man who died the death of a common criminal and whose work was continued by a band of mostly uneducated and powerless individuals. In life and in death, Christ in the eyes of the world, was a loser. And so were his disciples. That isn’t something we should sugar-coat nor interpret in some pseudo-gnostic fashion, by saying that their failure was no more than a veneer hiding true strength and absolute power. No, Christ was truly powerless—at Bethlehem as a child, and at Calvary as the crucified carpenter who by his death, put the final nail in the coffin of the world’s understanding of power. Jesus’ death on the cross was the final blow to all of the world’s pretensions. By being truly weak, Christ turned worldly power on its head and forever showed it to be what it truly is—a sham, a pale imitation if that, of what genuine power is—something perfected only in weakness. For those who profess to be Christ’s followers therefore, especially those who seek to follow closely in his footsteps—to seek power in any form is a downright betrayal of the Crucified himself.
Perhaps the renewal of the priesthood will come, not through the adoption of some sophisticated program or plan, not even the fine-tuning of theology that would make it more responsive to the signs and needs of the times. The answer might actually be far more simple, and it may have been what the present crisis has been reminding the church all along: a rediscovery of its original inspiration, a return to the one who was its original inspiration: Christ who took the form of a slave and became obedient unto death, death on a cross.
Notes.
[1] Oscar Lipscomb, “Dialogue About and Within the Priesthood”, Origins, 28:1 (May 21, 1998): 12.
[2] Allan Figueroa Deck, “Ministry and Vocations: Going Back to the Drawing Board”, America (March 14, 1987): 218.
[3] Donald Cozzens, The Changing Face of the Priesthood: A Reflection on the Priest’s Crisis of Soul (Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 2000), 134.
[4] Cozzens, The Changing Face of the Priesthood, 133.
[5] Bernard Häring, Priesthood Imperiled: A Critical Examination of Ministry in the Catholic Church (Ligouri, Missouri: Triumph Books, 1989), 115.
[6]Thomas Fox, “Journalists Hear Frank Talk About Church Issues,” National Catholic Reporter (October 13,1995): 2.
GOD ALONE MAKES WHOLE
THE BROKENNESS OF OUR LIVES
The seminary is a place of "encounter in honesty" before God,
a place where "wounded healers" are born.
O felix culpa,
O certe necessarium Adae Peccatum,
qui talem ac tantum meruit habere Redemptorem!
O happy fault,
O necessary sin of Adam,
that has gained for us so great a Redeemer!
(From the Exultet, the Easter Proclamation, English, Old Translation)
The life of a priest is a good and truly happy one—in the best and truest sense of these words. And it is even more so when he lives his ministry with his whole being in it, heart, mind, body, and soul. And yet a priest who is happy isn’t a perfect priest, one who always says and does the right thing, who never makes mistakes, who has never experienced failure, disappointment, or frustration. Rather, one who finds true happiness and peace in his calling and his ministry is a person who has recognized the reality of his imperfection. He is always in the process of being invited to respond to Christ’s call to live a faith that is genuine and a life that is full. He is one who knows that to be genuinely human is to recognize one’s weakness, sinfulness, and ultimate inability to save oneself on his own. He is one who has come face to face with the fact that however hard he tries, he is a creature of this earth, born into sin, and therefore constantly failing in his response to God.
Brokenness, after all, is part of the human condition. In a very real sense, it’s our wounds and scars that not only define us as human beings, but also bind us together as brothers and sisters, in the most profound way. No one escapes woundedness, least of all the priest. I’m sure that the years you have spent in seminary have, by now, made you aware—perhaps even painfully so—of this perplexing reality. We may not like it, we may refuse or reject it, we may even run away from it, but it just keeps coming back to confront us, reminding us not only of our pained and scarred state as persons, but also of our calling as ministers of the Gospel, to transcend these hurts and allow them to transform us into ‘doctors of souls’ and ‘healers of the wounds of humanity’.
The German theologian Dietrich Bonhoffer who was killed in a Nazi concentration camp just days before it was liberated, used to say that “when Christ bids you come, he bids you come and die”. There is a very real sense of “dying” that is asked of one who enters seminary, as there is a very real invitation to continue along this path when one is ordained. Sacrifice is a word that many find undesirable in our age of comfort-seeking and soft-values. In many ways, the harshness of the church—real or imagined, especially before the reforms of Vatican II—has led many to go to the opposite extreme and champion what some theologians call the “therapeutic culture” that denies any value to suffering and sacrifice, even if these are undergone for the sake of a higher purpose. This is something we need to guard against, especially among those being formed to be future priests. Being able to sacrifice—to “carry one’s cross” as Jesus says, and to live with the challenges and difficulties of seminary formation, are things we need to accept and to a certain degree, welcome, as means of forming us into strong and courageous ministers of the gospel.
When I was a student, my spiritual director used to tell his students not to fear looking deep into ourselves, even if what we saw there frightened and terrified us, even if what we saw there was dark, scary, and embarrassing. “Look at it”, he would say. “Don’t ever deny what you see, whether it be good or otherwise. Because what you see is a real part of who you are and that is where you will find God at work, and that is where you will find your way to him”.
I never forgot that wise priest’s advice. It made me honest. [His word was always, “be brutally honest with yourself, even if it hurts”.] He made me look unflinchingly at sin and grace dwelling in me, and he made me realize the reality of God’s challenging love. It was a love that was true. It was tough. It was never the coddling type. “God is Father”. He wants us to be responsible, to be accountable, to realize that we are men, and must live up to the demand that we be “good”. And we must strive, despite constant failure, to live a life of integrity, truthfulness, honesty, conviction, and fidelity to the commitments we make. But God is like a “Mother” as well, forgiving to those who come to him acknowledging their mistakes and resolving to try again. He is compassionate to those who come to him in their sinfulness as well as the acceptance that on their own, they will not succeed.
A priest is a happy man because he knows he is a “vessel of clay”, made of earth and therefore given to weakness, formed by a potter’s hand into a masterpiece that is beautiful but fragile. A happy priest is one who can look at himself squarely and see himself for everything that he is, a person broken and wounded, sinful and weak, and yet loved by a God who has known him long before he was born, who has singled him out, not to give him privilege, but to form him into an instrument, by which grace can be known by a people who are just as vulnerable, beautiful, and fragile as he. In this a priest becomes a “bridge”.
Only by seeing himself in his weakness and fragility can a priest also know what it truly means to be a creature of grace, loved infinitely by God, and therefore tasked to share that most profound experience of grace with those to whom he ministers. And this is born of having come face to face with who and what one truly is. One cannot separate one’s priesthood from one’s humanity, they go hand-in-hand. The priesthood is not sugar-coating on something bitter; it isn’t something tacked on in order to make something unpleasant look good, or enhance something that would otherwise be unappealing. A priest is a “vessel of clay”, he is a man like other men, but he is also one who has peered deep into the reality of himself, and with the strength and courage given by Christ, willingly accepts what he encounters as a gift of God, the very earth out of which God is going to fashion for himself, an instrument who will bring a message of grace, compassion, love, and challenge to a world that is also striving to make sense of its experience of darkness and light.
The only way by which a priest can live up to his call to heal those who are wounded by life is for him to realize on the one hand that he has been given the strength to do so, while on the other realizing that in the end, he himself is in need of healing, because he too, like everyone else, is wounded. He is at the same time messenger of grace and sinful messenger, healer and healed, chosen vessel and unworthy instrument. In his being dwell the twin-realities of light and darkness, grace and sin. In his awareness and living out of this reality alone does he serve his purpose as “bridge-builder”, between a sinful and pained humanity, and a compassionate God who loves unconditionally. And it is by constantly reminding himself of his living within this tension of grace and sin that he escapes the temptation to blow his importance out of proportion or to despair that he will never be truly worthy.
A priest can only heal if he himself has experienced the healing touch of Christ in his life. This presupposes that he has come face to face with his own frailty and inability to pull himself out of the ‘darker side’ of the human condition. It is when we stand before our own sinfulness, when we confront and are confronted by the undeniable fact of our wounded humanity, when we stand in the stark nakedness of the wrong that we are capable of doing as men, that the purifying flames of God’s undying and all-embracing love for us slowly begin to burn us, stripping us, until it accomplishes in us the emptying of self that is at the heart of Christ’s Incarnation. Then, as we hit rock-bottom and find ourselves declaring, like Peter, “leave me Lord, for I am a sinful man” (Lk 5:8), we begin to understand the words: “My grace is enough for you, for in weakness power reaches perfection”. (II Cor 12:9)
It is one of the supreme paradoxes, one of the most profound mysteries of the life of priests that only when our ultimate limitations stare us in the face do we also realize the depth of God’s love for us. Just as only those who have drunk life’s cup to the dregs know what it means to truly live and value life, so too only those who have sunk into the mire—despite their best effort—can fully comprehend their ultimate inability to rescue themselves from it and acknowledge their utter dependence on God. For it is often our mistakes, errors, and sins, that bring us to God—by means of the profound realization that on our own, we can accomplish precious little, and can in fact cause tremendous harm rather than good.
Priests are men of clay and earth, they aren’t supermen by any stretch of the imagination. One’s being a Christian, one’s being a disciple, his vocation as a priest, demands that he lives a life worthy of his calling. And he must do everything in his power to be worthy of his state. But he isn’t superman. He is, rather, as fragile and sinful as the next man, yet he has heard God’s voice in the night asking him to be His messenger (I Sam 3:2-10), but not after having told him first that He loves him, forgives him, and accepts him; and not after having challenged him, “Sin no more” (Jn 8:10)
“God loves me, no matter what”. This simple statement represents the “rock of faith” upon which a priest’s healing ministry is built. Without it, he builds on sand. Without it, he has no Good News to proclaim. A priest must be able to say with conviction: God loves me, accepts me, makes use of me, however sinful I am, however dark my life might have been, however incomplete I feel, however unworthy I am in the eyes of all the world. This is not for me a cause of pride because of a feeling of predilection. No, it is the simple recognition that I am nothing, period, and “Yet God loves me still”.
“God loves me, no matter what”. Only the priest who has come to the full realization of what this simple utterance means can say to those he ministers to: “God loves you, no matter what”. It represents the same profound conviction at the heart Jesus’ words and deeds two thousand years ago. It is the same conviction that must power a priest’s healing ministry in every age. For only a personal experience of this intimate connection and unconditional acceptance by God, can give legitimacy and credibility to a priest’s words of consolation and comfort in a world so deeply skeptical and cynical, because of its having been wounded over and over again.
Only when a priest fully realizes and accepts that he bears in himself the reality of sin redeemed, can he be a healing balm to others. The Letter to the Hebrews says as much: “He is able to deal patiently with the ignorant and erring, for he himself is beset by weakness and so, for this reason, must make sin offerings for himself as well as for the people”. (Heb 5:2-3) Only when a priest fully understands what this means in his life can he learn to be patient, accepting, tolerant, compassionate, kind, loving, thoughtful, generous, and forgiving. Only in being so can he be an instrument of God’s healing grace in the lives of the people he serves. But it is also only in being so that he can challenge people to holiness, and thereby live out his prophetic mission with a credible voice. Only in being so is he truly a priest.
The realization of God’s love in the face of real human sinfulness is the deepest experience of grace there can be. In no other statement is this reality so profoundly captured than in those magnificent lines in the Exultet sung at the Easter Vigil: “O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam which has gained for us so great a Redeemer!” None other summarizes completely, the mystery of a priest as healer and healed, and as sinful and graced.
The seminary is a place where young men are first and foremost initiated into this “encounter in honesty” before God. It is in seminary that a future priest must be taught to stand in the presence of God, empty of all his pretensions, bereft of all the trappings that can hinder him from showing God who and what he truly is. But it is also the place where he must be told that while such prospect might seem utterly terrifying and excruciating, it is the only way by which he will be able to genuinely offer something worthwhile to God. And it is the only way by which God can use him to communicate his life to his people. The seminary is the place where one learns that rather than being a fearful experience, standing before God in all honesty of self, is actually the profoundest experience of grace there can be, and hence there is absolutely nothing to fear. Enter into the fire then, allow the flames to consume you, and know that God will be there with you.
There is a paradox that characterizes the life of a good and happy priest. In facing what is most terrifying, he does not find himself defeated and destroyed, instead he finds himself on fire, emboldened to proclaim to the whole world, the grace and forgiveness that he has personally experienced as he brought to God’s altar, everything that he was, the desirable and the undesirable, the holy and the unholy, the darkness and the light that dwell in him. Only a man who has known what it means to stand completely empty before God can become an instrument of grace that will set on fire the hearts of other men and women who will recognize in his very experience, a similar invitation to open themselves up as well to the flames of God’s purifying truth.
Truth, for the priest, not only sets him free, it also makes him an instrument of the truth. But truth begins with oneself. There is simply no other way. A vessel that has not been washed, cleansed, and purified by the truth, will forever fail in communicating God’s grace and mercy that alone can wash, cleanse, and purify the hearts of others who long to experience what a priest experiences. One who fails or refuses to stand in all honesty before God and self will find himself grasping at straws, carving an identity out of superficial trappings that will only give fleeting and superficial happiness. How many seminarians and young priests sometimes find themselves erecting wall upon wall around them, each wall higher than the previous one, each wall mistaken for the real thing? And as one goes through his priestly life, the walls increasingly become a cocoon which makes a priest slowly forget who he is. He begins identifying himself with the externals he has erected around him, as his true self recedes more and more. Soon he becomes comfortable living an “un-truth”. But the walls eventually come crashing down. They always do, and the life he has lived is shown to be what it truly is. Then he breaks down, sometimes completely. The words of Jesus in the gospels must be our constant guide in this matter:
“ Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known. What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light; what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops. And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna. Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s knowledge. Even all the hairs of your head are counted. So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows”. (Matt 10:26-31)
The history of the church is replete with stories of individuals who thought they could forever live in such way, only to one day have a rude awakening. The scandals that have rocked the church will forever be monuments to this sad and unfortunate reality. It is the greatest service a seminary can do to the church and to the life of individual priests, to see to it that every seminary student is spared the heartache and destructiveness of this experience. But this can only be done if the seminarian seeks to live in honesty, integrity, and truthfulness. He must not be afraid to live the truth and bear witness to the happiness and goodness of a life lived in fidelity to it. But this is something that does not happen overnight. Living for the truth is a journey that progressively deepens our encounter with Christ. It sets us on the path to reaching the innermost core of ourselves, the place where St. Augustine encourages us to go when he says, Noli foras ire, in te ipsum redi, in interiore homine habitate veritas. “Do not go out. Go inwards. Truth dwells in the inner man”. The place where God dwells is found deep within our hearts and souls, not in some external or superficial trapping, however attractive it might be.
In the end what we find, as we journey deeper into the reality of our vocation, is that our call is to enter into the heart of Christ himself. And as we move closer to our goal, we discover that at the very end of the journey we find something that we’ve known all along, something that has always been the case, and that we are merely rediscovering. We haven’t really arrived at something completely new, only a rediscovery perhaps of something that was already there at the beginning, something that many of us tend to forget. As we progress in our journey, we discover more and more the foundational reality of the priesthood: we are called to be spiritual leaders, we are called to be spiritual men. That perhaps is the simplest, but also the most profound realization we can have. It almost sounds too simple. But it is precisely because of its simplicity that it can be forgotten. One who seeks to follow in the footsteps of Christ, must consequently set his heart on things that belong to what Augustine says is intimeor intimo meo, that “which is most intimate than our most intimate thought”. He must strive to be a man of spirit; he must learn to see through superficial and marginal, and go right to the heart of the matter, and the heart of the matter is Christ whom he touches, knows, experiences, and is conformed to, when he sets his heart and mind to becoming that spiritual guide, that instrument in the hand of God who has chosen to continue his Son’s work in the world through the life, ministry, and witness of his priest.
A PRAYER TO GOD,
FOR THE GRACE OF LETTING-GO
The Prayer of a Young Man Beginning Life in Formation
Loving God, I give you thanks for having called me
to this great and wonderful adventure called seminary life.
While my heart is filled with joy and my spirit with great excitement
I am slowly discovering that this path I have chosen
asks that I give up many things which have already become part of my life.
And let me be honest with you, I’m not finding it easy at all.
It is not always easy to let go of what I’ve gotten used to, Lord.
It’s difficult to let go of late night outings with my friends instead of studying.
It’s difficult to let go of mornings when I can stay in bed instead of going to prayer.
It’s difficult to let go of the good food I enjoy at home.
It’s difficult to let go of the freedom to go wherever and do whatever I please.
It’s difficult to let go of my friends, especially that girl whom I like so much.
It’s difficult to let go of those moments when I choose to be by myself
instead of having to deal with others in community.
It’s difficult to let go of my biases, prejudices, and ideas that give me comfort and security.
It’s difficult to let go of many more things, old habits really die hard.
This new life scares me at times too.
How do I know all this letting-go will bear fruit?
How do I know that giving up all these things
will result in my becoming happy with the path I have chosen?
How do I know that letting go of my former ambitions and dreams
will really allow me to give my life entirely to you?
How do I know that all this sacrifice will make a good priest out of me?
How do I know that I will not fall later on and cause pain and sorrow to your church?
How do I know that this is your will for me and not something I merely imagine?
Speak, Lord, your servant listens.
Let me put my trust completely in you.
Allow me to see that though the initial stage of my journey
may be dark, difficult, and uncertain,
your presence is more than enough to calm my fears,
to lighten my burden, and to give me the strength and courage
to stick to this path that I have chosen,
in the firm conviction that you who have asked me
to let-go of many things that have given comfort and security to my life
will give me in their stead, the greatest consolation there can be:
the knowledge that wherever I go, whatever happens, whomever I become,
you will always be there to love, guide, and protect me.
Amen.
I wrote this prayer for the new seminarians of St. John Vianney Seminary in Miami, when I became their rector in 2017.
LUKEWARMNESS:
THE DEVIL IN DISGUISE
Our calling as priests
is not to comfort and ease, but to nobility
and greatness.
Many years ago, I remember complaining to my spiritual director in seminary about how I was having a hard time juggling the intensity of my studies with the other demands of formation. After a few moments of silence, he simply said to me: “Jesus didn’t call you to a life that's easy; he calls you to an adventure that is great.”
He then got up, took a book from his shelf and asked me to use it for spiritual reading. He placed a marker on page 291, and suggested I read the contents of that page first.
It was the memoir of the Greek poet and philosopher Nikos Kazantzakis, and the pages Father John singled out was from a section entitled “Report to Greco”. Let me share with you briefly what that section said. [I've written it in my journal, together with many other ideas and whatnot that I picked up and learned from my good spiritual director, God rest his soul.]
Blowing through heaven and earth, and in our hearts and the heart of every living thing, is a gigantic breath—a great Cry—which we call God. Plant life wished to continue its motionless sleep next to stagnant waters, but the Cry leaped up within it and violently shook its roots: “Away, let go of the earth, walk!” Had the tree been able to think, it would have cried, “I don’t want to. What are you asking me to do? You ask the impossible!” But the Cry, without pity, kept shaking its roots and shouted, “Away, let go of the earth, walk!”
It shouted in this way for thousands of eons; and lo! As a result of desire and struggle, life escaped the motionless tree and was liberated.
Animals appeared—worms—making themselves at home in water and mud. “We’re just fine”, they said. “We’re comfortable here; we’re not budging!”
But the terrible Cry hammered them mercilessly. “Leave the mud, stand up!” “We don’t want to! We can’t”
You can’t, but I can. Stand up!”
And lo! After thousands of eons, man emerged, trembling on his still unsolid legs.
The human being is like a centaur; his hoofs are planted in the ground, but his body from breast to head is tormented by the merciless Cry. “Be what you have been made to be”, it calls to him.
Man replies: “Where can I go? I have reached the pinnacle, beyond me is an abyss”.
And the Cry answers, “I am beyond. Stand up!”
Jesus in the Gospels, speaks of the kind of life those who wish to follow him can expect: “Foxes have dens, birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head”.
There is an urgency to his invitation, and an earnestness that is expected of one who responds. “Let the dead, bury their dead”, he says to one prospective follower. They are words that show, not a lack of sympathy, but a sense of urgency. And to another he says, “No one who sets his hands to the plow and keeps looking back is fit for the Kingdom of God”.
Jesus didn’t call us to a life that is easy; he calls us to an adventure that is great. “Offer to God,” St. John Vianney says, “only that which is worth offering”.
And is that not the reason we were drawn to the priesthood in the first place; to offer to God, our best, our utmost, our highest? Because nothing else will do.
Why is it then, that after a while, we begin to lose fire, zeal, and enthusiasm? We begin seeking the easy way, the comfortable and convenient way, the way that requires the least amount of effort and energy on our part.
Lukewarmness, a number of masters of the spiritual life tell us, is the devil in disguise.
Gregory the Great and Thomas tell us it has “six daughters”: (1) a lack of hope, (2) uncontrolled imagination, (3) laziness, (4) a cowardly disposition, (5) an overly-critical spirit that fails to see anything good or worthwhile in others, and (6) an ill-temper.
These are snares, they say, that are placed on the path of one who seeks to follow Jesus who says: “If you wish to be my follower, you must deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me”.
And yet, how often do we find ourselves creating strategies and game-plans (for every area of our life in formation) to make things as easy as possible, and to take the path of least resistance. (Mind you, there is nothing inherently wrong with that; we aren’t masochists.) But when seeking the way of ease becomes a habit, especially for one who seeks to one day be an effective minister of the Gospel, we slowly but surely, extinguish the fire of our commitment.
Beware the snares of comfort, ease, and convenience that will be placed on your path towards following Christ.
He didn’t promise us ease; he promises us greatness. He promises an adventure in which we will have to spend our entire life, and every single breath aiming not for the easiest way, but the highest way, the utmost, and the best. Our goal is to reach the summit of life and of faith, and there, encounter the God who says to us: “I am beyond, stand up!”
Lukewarmness, my dear younger brothers, is the devil in disguise.
When things start getting too easy, and when you start getting far too comfortable, when you start getting lukewarm in any area of your life here in seminary – be wary, it may no longer be Jesus walking by your side.
Seminary IS MEANT TO BE
a 'School of Honesty'
before God, before others,
and before ourselves
“Beware of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees,” Jesus admonishes us in the gospel. The Greek root of the word “hypocrisy” is hypokrinomai, which means “to pretend,” “to play a part,” or “to feign”. It was one of the greatest sins of the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, and he never tired of reminding them of the need to be honest before God.
“The seminary,” my old spiritual director used to tell me, “is a place where a young man must be initiated into that school of honesty and integrity where he is challenged to stand before God, stripped of all his pretensions and masks, so he can present himself to God as he is, in the fullness of his humanity, with its good and bad, its light and its shadows.”
Our time in seminary must be a time of growth in heroic truthfulness before God, before those forming us, and before ourselves, because it is the only way by which our humanity can be transformed by God’s grace.
In this effort, though, one the greatest enemies we shall encounter is fear. Fear can make us hide our true selves, from those forming us (sometimes even from our spiritual directors), from God, and often, even from ourselves. It makes us want to not see those things about us that we don’t like, things that embarrass or make us uncomfortable.
Fear makes us want to run away from the shadowy parts of ourselves, from things that perhaps our family and our society have told us are bad and unacceptable. And so we hide them, pushing them deep into a corner of our souls where we think no one will see them, and where they can stay hidden and forgotten.
And that is a problem. Because they don’t stay hidden forever. They reassert themselves even more powerfully later on, especially after we’re ordained and the support of seminary life is gone.
Hypocrisy is a manifestation of a great insecurity, a great fear to look at oneself with courage, honesty, and trust in God’s mercy and love. It was one of the Pharisees’ greatest sins.
With ourselves and with God, Fr. Adrian Van Kaam, author of Religion and Personality says, we must be “brutally and ruthlessly honest.” We mustn’t be afraid nor embarrassed to look into the darker and shadowy side of who we are. For they too - as my spiritual director never tired of reminding me - are God’s gifts; hard, tough, difficult and even painful, but gifts nonetheless.
Older Christian terminology calls them the “crosses,” we have to bear. Saint Paul calls them “thorns in the flesh.” Of these “thorns,” Van Kaam says:
“We fear that by looking at those things about ourselves which we aren’t so proud of, that by acknowledging their existence, they will destroy us. Paradoxically though, when we do acknowledge them in all honesty before God and ourselves, they don’t destroy us. Instead, they become sources of strength, for ourselves and for those we shall later on serve as priests."
Because through such honest acknowledgment of our thorns, and with the suffering and pain such honesty can cause us, we allow God’s grace to shine its light into those darkened areas of our lives, purifying and transforming them.
And we come to understand the truth of Paul’s words: “In weakness, power reaches perfection. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (II Cor. 12:9)
Seminary life is a journey
of ever-deepening trust,
for the sake of being conformed
to the image of Christ.
Seminary life is a journey towards being conformed to the image of Christ, according to the mind of the Church, the two thousand-year old community of believers to which we belong. Now when Jesus sent his disciples out, one of the things he commanded them to do was to “take nothing with them for the journey” except that which was an absolute need.
While a seminary student is not yet being “sent out” to do ministry, the words of Jesus to the disciples have an echo in his life. When we enter seminary, the only thing we take with us is ourselves. The thing is, this ‘self’ we take with us can sometimes be the greatest and heaviest baggage we carry.
Our ‘self’ is what we bring to Christ and present to God when we enter seminary. It’s the starting point of our journey. It’s the material that will be used - the "material cause", to borrow a term from Aristotle - of what is to one day become, a finished result, namely, a priest according to the mind of Christ. Without it then, there can be no finished product. The question is, what exactly is this ‘self’ we’re bringing along with us?
It’s the coming together of many things: our intellectual, emotional, physical, and even ethical make up, our family background, our education, our upbringing, our strengths, our weaknesses, our personality quirks, our problems, etc. The self is a very strange mix of all sorts of things: good and not-so-good. “We are darkness and light”. But it is this “strange mix”, this “impure mix” that is the most basic ingredient or material that God will use to mold the future priest he wants us to be. There is no other.
The philosopher Martin Heidegger says - I'm paraphrasing here - that “the inauthentic is the ground out of which the authentic arises”. Who and what we are in our totality—the good and the bad, the pleasant and the unpleasant—the fact that in us dwell the twin realities of sin and grace—this is the ground out of which God will form the priest he wants. For as Thomas Aquinas says, “grace does not destroy nature. It builds upon nature and brings it to perfection”.
When we enter seminary, and all throughout our years in formation, the invitation is always: “come as you are”—because it is our encounter with Christ in formation that will transform us. We do not do it ourselves.
Who and what we are, our humanity–the core of ourselves–this is what needs to be formed and transformed by our life in formation; not the externals or the accidentals of our character or personality.
This, however, involves a tremendous risk, requires a lot of confidence and trust, because it can be daunting, even scary. And fear is the greatest enemy of formation, discernment, vocation, faith, and of life itself.
There’s a great amount of risk involved in seminary, especially if one does enter fully into the process of formation. There’s a lot of “what ifs” involved. What if I’m just wasting my time here? Are all these things going to produce the result they say they will? Is my ‘investment’ of time, self, energy, effort, etc., worth it? There’s a lot I’m really giving up.
Every so often I still think of the ‘life’ I’ve ‘missed’ because of entering seminary too early. On some days I feel bad when I think of the ‘what-ifs’. But as Adrian Van Kaam, spiritual author of books on formation says, growth in maturity is realizing that in life, some doors really need to be closed, not all paths can be taken. And becoming the person God wants us to be involves accepting the fact that we can’t be everything we would like to be, but only the best of what we have chosen to be.
There’s also a great amount of risk involved in entrusting ourselves to those in charge—the priests and professors who are part of the seminary formation staff.
We have our own ideas, our own visions, our own dreams, hopes, ways of doing things, of seeing things, etc. Sometimes they will agree with what those forming us think, sometimes they won’t, at other times, they’ll probably go against them. But this is part of the package, not only of seminary life, but of being part of the church as well.
Being a good priest (and a good seminary student) involves recognizing, accepting, and living within the tension of being a faithful and obedient son of the church, and being “one’s own man”. Part of our calling as seminarians, and later on as priests, is to learn to be at peace as we live an “in-between” kind of existence.
Theologians for instance, can encounter teachings of the church or ways of presenting the church’s teachings that are challenging. And here there are always two dangers involved: either complacency or rebelliousness. One can simply ‘go with the flow’. It’s one thing to remain faithful to the teachings of the Church, it’s another thing to use that as an excuse for not wanting to struggle with the demands of these teachings. Fidelity must never be made an excuse or cover for laziness of mind and complacency of soul. Thomas Aquinas was misunderstood when he first articulated his philosophical and theological positions; some his books were even ordered burned in Paris; but no one could ever accuse him of complacency and unfaithfulness.
Similarly, it’s one thing to struggle with the more difficult and challenging teachings of the church, perhaps even find oneself perplexed about them, it’s another thing to use this as an excuse for destructive critique and dissent. Perspicacity and a critical mind must never be made excuses for adolescent rebelliousness and a deep-seated need to always be proven right by proving everyone else wrong.
But these dangers do exist in seminary formation: Laziness and complacency on the one hand, arrogance and rebelliousness on the other. Living within the healthy tension of being a ‘faithful son of the church’ and being ‘one’s own man’—is the only honest way to go, the via media where virtue stands. But this is risky, tricky, and oftentimes, tiring, as it is always far easier to acquiesce to the extremes.
But that’s where the challenge lies. “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter through are many. How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. And those who find it are few”. (Matt. 7:13-14) The ‘middle way’ where virtue lies is the ‘narrow gate’, the difficult and challenging path—which is why few choose it.
Here, as a footnote though, we must add that even in doing theology, the ‘key’ is to always give our faith community’s accumulated wisdom of two thousand years the heavier weight. It always works.
It’s also risky because every community has its share of unfortunate stories of trust betrayed, of disappointment and disillusionment.
Many years ago, when I was sent by my bishop to study abroad after college, one of the persons on staff whom I trusted and thought was my friend and was supporting me turned out to be one of those who were trying to put hindrances on my way. It was only years later that I learned of it. All’s forgiven and forgotten of course; but the case proves the point why some students sometimes find it difficult to open themselves up to those guiding them. Perhaps they’ve heard of ‘stories’—and not very encouraging ones.
But that’s the nature of the situation, and while saying that doesn’t mean simply accepting it and doing nothing to somehow change it if and when we can, it also doesn’t mean that we can transform it overnight. The possibility of trust betrayed is real; and yet just as real is the possibility of trust deepened—something I experienced with the spiritual directors I was blessed to have as a student in seminary, not to mention the really great priests on formation staff I was privileged to meet, and under whose care and guidance I experienced the tremendous growth in my life as a person, my vocation as a seminarian, and my faith as a Christian.
Trusting those the church has tasked to form us involves a real risk on our part, and yet it’s a risk we must take and is one worth taking.
There are three basic types of persons: those who run, those who sit on the sidelines and watch, and those who take the risk and commit.
The first two types are those who fear getting hurt. And so they either run away from risk or prefer to watch while others play. They will most likely never get hurt; but neither will they ever know the joy and triumph of succeeding. Those who risk and commit, on the other hand—they are the ones who will most likely experience hurt, who could in fact suffer loss; and yet they are also the only ones who open themselves fully to the possibility of winning.
The courage to take risks and to commit to things, even if things can be fearful and intimidating, is born out of a deep trust and confidence, in oneself, in others, and especially in God.
This is not just a superficial kind of confidence, but one that comes from the heart; and it can be nerve-wracking and even disappointing at times. Think of Abraham, for instance. God called him out of the comfort of his home, inviting him to follow into the unknown, with only a promise that he shall be made the father of many nations. Years later, we find Abraham pouring his heart out to God; he had no sons, he had no nation. Yet we know how Abraham’s story ends: God kept his promise.
This same trust in God lies at the foundation of a seminarian’s ability to trust those tasked to form him, in the process of formation itself, and in the wisdom of the Church in whose care he commits himself when he enters seminary. “We stand taller when we stand on the shoulders of the giants who have come before us”, one of my professors in Louvain used to constantly remind his students. To trust in the wisdom of the formation process is to stand on the shoulders of the giants of our faith, whose wisdom represents the accumulated treasure of two thousand years.
Only a genuine and profound trust and confidence in God will allow a priest to effectively minister to people in both a prophetic and pastoral way, challenging and encouraging them at the same time.
In this, fear is the seminarian’s greatest adversary. But this isn’t the kind of fear that is the “beginning of wisdom”. “Fear” that is at the “origin of wisdom” is the result of an earnestness to do what is good, right, and just before God. This is “holy fear”.
The type of fear we speak of, which is the enemy of trust, is fear born out of an insincere heart. It is the result of a desire to see to it that everything is right because one is aiming at something, or aiming to get something. It is fear that results from a purpose or goal that is ultimately incompatible with the call one has received from God. This fear is the most dangerous kind, for (i) it makes one hold his cards too close to his chest, (ii) it makes one always want to say ‘the right thing’, (iii) it makes one always ‘guarded’ in his words and actions, never ‘letting his guard down’, (iv) it makes one put on a façade which he believes is acceptable and will win him favor, (v) it makes one suppress what his heart and conscience may tell him, and finally (vi) it makes one put on a false ‘persona’ or a ‘mask’.
One who succumbs to this fear will eventually be left without knowing anymore who or what he really is. He eventually learns to live a lie. The very ground which God should be working on and transforming through the formation program, gradually disappears. The externals of one’s personality then become the source of one’s identity—trappings, trinkets, titles, honors, degrees, wealth, power, fame, etc. Soon he identifies with these externals, like the Pharisees of Scripture who “lengthen their tassels and widen their phylacteries”, he mistakes style for substance, mistakes the fancy robes he wears for genuine religion, the accessories he burdens himself with for authentic faith, and a mountain of mumbled meaningless words for true spirituality.
What difference is there between such seminarian or priest and the whitewashed tombs Jesus railed against? When the person beneath disappears and is replaced by a hollowed-out shell, what else is there for God to work on?
OUR LIFE IN SEMINARY
CAN TRANSFORM US INTO MEN,
OR IT CAN DEFORM US INTO BOYS
On the Dangers of Complacency, Indifference, and an Unhealthy Sense of Entitlement in Seminary Formation
"Father, I entered seminary because I wanted to be challenged. I was at a World Youth Day when Pope John Paul II issued a challenge to the youth that were present. He told us not to satisfy ourselves with what is easy, but to seek what is noble and good. I entered the seminary wanting to be a man; this place has turned me into a boy."
This was the reply a former student gave me when I asked him why he decided to leave seminary. He was that type of seminarian whose choice to leave, someone like myself who has been in formation ministry for decades can really feel sad about. He was just a really good, mature, hard-working, level-headed kind of guy whom everyone on formation staff believed could have been a really good priest.
“I entered seminary wanting to be a man; this place has turned me into a boy.”
For as long as I live, and for as long as I am to find myself involved in the work of teaching the Church's future priests, I will never forget that young man's words, nor the warning they hold for all of us on this journey towards being more closely conformed to the person of Christ.
There is tremendous beauty and goodness in seminary formation; but like everything in this world, it has pitfalls for those who lose sight of their reasons for having wanted to enter seminary in the first place.
There's this gospel passage where Jesus, encouraging his followers to hold on to his teaching, tells his listeners that his truth shall set them free. Perhaps thinking he was suggesting that they somehow weren't free, some of his listeners counter that "they have never been slaves" since they were "Abraham's descendants." (John 8:33)
For the Jews, Abraham was one of the greatest figures in all religious history; and they considered themselves safe and secure in the favor of God simply because they were his descendants. This admiration they had for Abraham was perfectly legitimate; he is after all, a giant in the religious history of the world.
But, as Jesus points out in the same gospel passage (8:34-47), it was what followed from this admiration that eventually became problematic. For they believed that Abraham had gained so much blessings from his goodness that this merit was sufficient, not only for himself, but for all his descendants as well.
This in effect, led to a very bad attitude of complacency, indifference, and an unhealthy sense of entitlement on the part of the people of Jesus' time. They became less concerned with seeking and obeying God’s will, and had instead allowed their religion to deteriorate to the point that they could not even recognize the Messiah for whom they had been waiting. In fact, as Jesus says, they now even wanted to kill him. This could hardly be the work of Abraham’s children.
They had forgotten that being chosen by God conferred upon them, not only great privilege, but great responsibility as well.
The Covenant was not meant to be a one-way street.
In our case too, our being called by God, our being privileged to receive such great a gift as our vocation to the priesthood, confers upon us a lot of blessings; but it also comes with tremendous responsibility – which we forget or neglect at our own peril.
Consider the relative ease of our life in seminary. Yes, there are hurdles and problems here and there; no one denies that. But consider the larger picture.
You get up in the morning, you know that immediately, your spiritual needs will be met. The chapel is right there; the opportunity to receive Jesus in the Eucharist is given to us daily. No need to drive, no need to rush to church to attend prayers or Mass like people outside who then have to beat rush-hour traffic to get themselves to their workplace afterwards.
When Mass is over, your bodily needs are provided for. You don’t have to worry about preparing breakfast for yourself. The refectory is right there. The same is true at noon and dinner time. (Pope Francis used to cook his meals for himself.)
Afterwards, your intellectual needs are satisfied. No need to rush from one building on campus to another. The classrooms, the good, kind, and understanding professors are all there.
And neither are your emotional needs neglected. When you have a problem or a difficulty, your spiritual director, or other gentle, patient, and understanding priests are right there, willing to listen, so are friends and peers who are always ready to lend you a hand on practically anything.
A number of years ago, I mentioned these to a seminarian, hoping that were he to realize and truly embrace the many blessings God gives him in his daily life in seminary, he'd do his best to live up to his potential and give himself fully to the demands of formation.
His reply pained me greatly:
"That’s okay, Father; I’m asked to deny myself a lot of other things anyway."
His words reminded me of something a priest I know said to me many years ago - half-jokingly, of course - after I asked if it was such a good idea to get himself a rather expensive car after he was made pastor:
“No wife, no kids, no high paying job. I don’t think God would get mad at me for a few toys here and there”.
Beware of the danger of entitlement, be on guard against complacency, and rid yourselves of the thought that denying ourselves certain things means license to replace them with others.
The sacrifice and self-oblation at the heart of our promises of celibacy, simplicity, and obedience, will mean nothing if we substitute in their place, things that are incompatible with our calling.
The things that offer us a certain degree of ease in our life in seminary are meant, not to make us comfortable. They aren’t entitlements for the things we deny ourselves. Rather they are meant to free us, so that we can give ourselves to the demands of our vocation and our formation, with greater commitment, with total dedication, and with an ever-growing sense of self-giving, today as seminarians, and later on as priests who will be sent to serve and minister to God’s people.
We are in seminary to be formed as men, not to be deformed into boys. Sadly, that has happened too many times, to too many seminarians, in too many seminaries.
Remember, when things start getting too comfortable, and we start becoming complacent, even lazy, we cease to follow Christ, who has called us, not to a life of ease, but to a life of greatness - one that ends, not in comfort, but on the cross.
Do not satisfy yourselves therefore with what is easy, but seek what is noble and good. Seminary formation can transform you into the man God wants you to be, or it can deform you into a boy.
The choice is always yours.
JOURNEY INTO THE HEART OF CHRIST
Letters to Seminarians on Faith, Life,
and Formation
Published in 2003 by Claretian Publications, these letters were written to students I taught at the major seminary in Manila from 1998 to 2003.
FIRST LETTER
We walk by faith, only hindsight is 20-20
It wasn’t easy putting the material for this book together. Every time I sat down and tried to write, there was always something else that needed attention: a student needing to be taken to the hospital, a problem at the library, evaluations needing to be finished, course material and grades that needed to be completed. The litany seemed endless at times. Add to that the fact that in the last four and half years I was with you, I kept getting moved from one post to another: spiritual director, human formation director, pastoral director, librarian, vocations director, prefect of discipline. At one point I was even the moderator of the seminary newsletter. At certain moments it just felt like I was all over the place, spreading myself out too thinly, especially since I was also teaching philosophy and theology classes, not only at the seminary but at several other universities as well.
Thankfully my seminary assignment finally ended (or at least the active involvement in formation work), since we’re still together in our philosophy and theology classes. And while I’ve had to deal with the inevitable transition—one always has mixed feelings about endings, you know—I’ve also found myself having more time to write. While I miss being more actively involved in seminary formation, I’m also happy to have more time to do something I thoroughly enjoy—writing. All that hard work in seminary is also paying off since it didn’t only prepare me to work with our young people at the university, it also enabled me to understand seminary life and formation more. It exposed me to different areas of formation that would’ve been completely alien territory had I not been assigned to them. I learned much in doing those jobs that I can now look to as additional sources of reflection.
I saw seminary life from a different angle—that is, from the ‘other side of the fence’. The view was definitely different from when I was on the student’s side. As a seminarian there were always things that were inaccessible to me—and understandably so. Being on the ‘receiving end’, so to speak, of the formation process, there were many goings-on in the seminary which I could not be privy to, such as what transpired in that room where evaluations happened at the end of each term, what the community life of seminary priests was like, what the principles were behind the different formation programs, what went on in the process of accepting applicants to the seminary, etc.
Even as a student though, I’ve always believed that seminary formation would benefit from more—not less—transparency, i.e., from a student’s knowing more about the intricacies of seminary life than merely waiting for the end-of-the-semester appointment with the rector when he would receive a piece of paper telling him what the formation staff thought of him—despite the fact that most of them don’t even know his name. That was one of those things I found quite disconcerting as a student. I guess I could understand the challenge of knowing a hundred or more students well, or of bridging the ‘age gap’ as some would call it. But I never really liked the ‘aloofness’ of some of our superiors. Professional distance was one thing, disinterestedness in who we were was another. Besides, I could never figure out how a good judgment could be made about our fitness to continue in formation by persons who seemed scarcely interested in getting to know us well.
Still I suppose it is often easier for seminarians, just like students in any college or university, to draw up ‘wish lists’ about how they think the institution should be run. Seminary students especially, have a penchant for offering unsolicited advice and at times, stinging criticisms of those they live with. It certainly was the case when I was a student. And I could tell things haven’t changed much either when I became a formator, except I was now on the receiving end of the critiques. What goes around comes around I guess. (Although I must admit that you guys were very kind to me when I was at San Carlos; not always, but most of the time at least. And I should be thankful for that.)
It is in this regard that being assigned to the seminary immediately after ordination was providential, even if I wasn’t too happy about it then. The view was certainly different from the formator’s vantage point. Things that seemed so easy to say and do as a student, began appearing in a much more different and challenging light. Gradually, and not without difficulty, I came to understand and appreciate the immensity of the task faced by those charged with forming future ministers of the church. It’s a sacred task, and one that should not be taken lightly by those assigned to seminary work.
This is especially true since “forming” future priests is not at all like “producing” something on an assembly-line or conveyor-belt type mass-producing machine. It’s lives of individual persons that seminary priests are dealing with, and that always requires a lot of care. Life is fragile after all, in all its stages. And the stage most seminarians are in—the teenage and early adult years—is even more fragile and complex than others. This is one thing I am most grateful to God for having given me in Louvain—loving and caring formators who were really interested in my well-being as a student.
As my new understanding of formation work grew, so did my appreciation for the students I was forming and teaching. And as I moved from one seminary job to another, I came in contact with more and more seminarians, in different capacities. I began to know you personally, you hopes, dreams, fears, anxieties, and yes, your failures and weaknesses as well. And yet, far from harming that “professional distance” that should always be there between teacher and student, our interactions instead proved to be revelations for me. I began seeing none other than myself in those I was forming. The things you were expressing at conversations—those too were my hopes, dreams, fears, anxieties and weaknesses when I was on your side of the fence. Gradually, Greeley’s and Fernandez’s wise admonitions I read as a student were making a world of sense. Slowly but surely I came to understand things that I understood only in a limited way back when I was a seminarian.
Gradually too I felt as if two halves of my life were coming together: that half that sought guidance and direction, and that half that sought to give it. By the time I was given a new assignment at the University of the Philippines, and thus had to bid farewell to seminary work, I knew my understanding of formation had arrived at a new, deeper, and more meaningful level. By the time I was leaving seminary, all my regrets about not having had enough time to write because of too many activities with the students had all but vanished. I came to see all those seemingly “useless” moments when I felt I was just “wasting” my time being present to them, as invaluable in my own continuing formation.
The thing is, that’s usually how it is for a seminarian or priest. In fact, its’ not just for us; the case is true for everybody. It’s only from hindsight that one can see patterns emerging. Hindsight is often 20-20. And from one’s present vantage point, the road ahead is rarely clear and the direction one would like his life to take is usually uncertain. With enough faith and trust, however, the vagueness of one’s starting point as well the often overwhelming darkness of the path ahead can not only be borne with courage, but actually overcome and transformed into a source of great personal improvement. One then not only survives the uncertainty, he can even thrive on account of it.
This is all the more true of one who seeks to minister to God’s people by following closely in the footsteps of Christ. He needs to be both active and patient in living the challenges and difficulties of his calling, whatever shape or form these may take in daily life. He must be an “active” participant, because discerning the will of God does not amount to passively waiting for things to unfold or to merely react when they do. And yet he should also be “patient”, because the process of discernment moves not only from darkness into light, but from clarity to greater clarity as well. This reminds me of a hymn we used to sing at evening prayer at the seminary in Louvain, part of it goes:
“We walk by faith and not by sight, no gracious words we hear
of him who spoke as none e’er spoke. But we believe him near.
We may not touch his hands or side, nor follow where he trod,
but in his promise we rejoice, and cry ‘My Lord and God’.”
Things will not always be clear, especially at the beginning of our adventure into the heart of Christ. In fact for some, there is much in the entire journey that would seem dark, difficult, and at certain moments, even impossible. We only have to recall God’s call to Abraham who was well-established and doing well in his homeland when God called him and promised to make him the father of many nations (Gen 12:1-3). Not only was the invitation difficult as it meant going into completely unknown territory, but to compound matters, many years later, we find Abraham still childless and wondering out loud how he could possibly be the “Father of many nations” when he remained without even one heir: “O Lord God, what good will your gifts be, if I keep on being childless?” (Gen 15: 2)
In God’s own time, however, Abraham did have a child, two of them in fact. And the rest of course is history. For those of us who wish to follow Christ, the lesson of Abraham’s call and his adventure from terra firma into terra incognita serves as a reminder that challenging, difficult, and sometimes gut-wrenching as the needed response to God’s invitation might be, there is always joy and gladness that awaits those who put their trust in a God who keeps his promises, however long it sometimes seems to take him. Of the faith, hope, and trust that a follower of Christ needs to have, no truer words were spoken than those of St. Paul:
“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard…the things which God has prepared for those who love him”. (I Cor 2:9)
SECOND LETTER
Good awaits those who make it
through tough beginnings
Human nature is a wonderful mix of two tendencies that are in constant tension with one another: the sense of adventure on the one hand, and a desire for stability and security on the other. The first is that which pushes us to launch, like Abraham, into unknown territory, blazing new trails, discovering new and wonderful things about life, learning new things and growing on account of them. The second is that which keeps us safe and reminds us to be wise in our ways, it prevents us from being too hurt and wounded by the many uncertainties of life. It also enables us to take stock of what we’ve learned in our adventures, remember them, and even share them by handing them down to others. The first is an invitation to courage, the second a reminder to be cautious. Both are needed in life, both are needed by someone who wishes to follow in the footsteps of Christ.
The healthy tension that characterizes the relationship between these two tendencies, however, must always be maintained. To simply allow one to dominate while forgetting the other is to allow oneself to be carried into either of two extremes: throwing all caution to the wind on the one hand, or an inordinate desire to maintain the status quo on the other. Of the two however, it is usually the latter one that often gets the better of us. It’s safe, its convenient, it’s comfortable, and one who chooses it is less likely to be hurt or wounded in the process. This is why many choose to remain in their so-called “comfort zones”. It is the path of least resistance, you see. Unfortunately it’s also the path of least learning and growth as a person.
The Greek author Nikos Kazantzakis has a very interesting little story in his work Report to Greco. It illustrates very well the difficulty one experiences when faced with the challenge of having to move out of his “comfort zone”—one’s terra firma, into terra incognita—the promised land of growth and newness of life:
Blowing through heaven and earth, and in our hearts and the heart of every living thing, is a gigantic breath—a great Cry—which we call God. Plant life wished to continue its motionless sleep next to stagnant waters, but the Cry leaped up within it and violently shook its roots: “Away, let go of the earth, walk!” Had the tree been able to think and judge, it would have cried, “I don’t want to. What are you urging me to do? You are demanding the impossible!” But the Cry, without pity, kept shaking its roots and shouting, “Away, let go of the earth, walk!”
It shouted in this way for thousands of eons; and lo! As a result of desire and struggle, life escaped the motionless tree and was liberated.
Animals appeared—worms—making themselves at home in water and mud. “We’re just fine”, they said. “We have peace and security; we’re not budging!”
But the terrible Cry hammered itself pitilessly into their loins. “Leave the mud, stand up, give birth to your betters!”
“We don’t want to! We can’t”
“You can’t, but I can. Stand up!”
And lo! After thousands of eons, man emerged, trembling on his still unsolid legs.
The human being is a centaur; his equine hoofs are planted in the ground, but his body from breast to head is worked on and tormented by the merciless Cry. He has been fighting, again for thousands of eons, to draw himself, like a sword, out of his animalistic scabbard. He is also fighting—this is his new struggle—to draw himself out of his human scabbard. Man calls in despair. “Where can I go? I have reached the pinnacle, beyond is the abyss”. And the Cry answers, “I am beyond. Stand up!”
Two thousand years ago, Jesus presented a child to his disciples as a model for all those who wished to follow him. “Unless you acquire the heart of a child you cannot enter the kingdom of God”, he said. (Mt 18:3) A child is someone who has not yet closed himself to the many possibilities that the great adventure of life presents. In many ways, our lives approximate the reality of being a child. It’s always in the process of growing and maturing, of developing and enriching itself. However, while this process involves a great deal of “trial-and-error” as well as “wrong turns” and “dead ends”, one really has no alternative but to allow himself to be carried by the flow, and to make the most of every experience he encounters along the way.
For a seminarian—one who wishes to follow Christ more closely—this means developing a greater openness to the many wonderful—and, at times difficult—experiences to be met along the way of formation. Beginnings are especially tough, but if you are willing to “stick to it” till you gets the knack of things, any new experience eventually becomes not only bearable but can actually be enjoyable. New things are experienced that way, and seminary life is no different. I’m sure you remember your yearly summer pastoral assignments, and how before you actually get to your posting you feel a great deal of anxiety that lasts pretty much until a few days after you get there.
I know some students who get ‘stomach butterflies’ as they await the day when they leave for their assignment. I guess what is anticipated is really much more anxiety-inducing and fearful than when what is awaited for actually arrives. And it’s always interesting to see how after a few days, you start adjusting to the new place; and a few weeks into the assignment, you get really involved and start really having fun with your work. I know students who by the time they have to leave their summer pastoral, actually feel they’d like to stay longer or that they’d at least like to return. And they do return, having made a connection especially with the people they’ve met and made friends with. They build new relationships and discover that their original fears and anxieties before the assignment were really unfounded.
We eventually “get the hang of things” and enjoy our work. It’s the same with seminary formation. You will start losing your fears and anxieties after a while, you just have to be patient. Just remember to keep your sight on God’s promise of something great and wonderful awaiting you if you are willing to leave behind your “comfort zone” for something new, exciting and worthwhile. Like every great adventure, seminary life can be tough at the outset, but if you just “hang in”—“persevere” as they used to say—you’ll eventually discover that it can be the greatest adventure and journey of your life, one that will challenge you, stretch you to your limits, and make you discover new and wonderful things about yourself, God, and others. And you will gradually learn to set your sight firmly on your goal as you put your trust in God who will always be there for you.
A PRAYER TO GOD
FOR THE GRACE OF LETTING - GO
Loving God, I give you thanks for having called
me to this great and wonderful adventure called seminary life.
While my heart is filled with joy and my spirit with great excitement
I am slowly discovering that this path I have chosen
asks that I give up many things which have already become part of my life.
And let me be honest with you, I’m not finding it easy at all.
It is not always easy to let go of what I’ve gotten used to, Lord.
It’s difficult to let go of late night outings with my friends instead of studying.
It’s difficult to let go of mornings when I can stay in bed instead of going to prayer.
It’s difficult to let go of the good food that I’ve enjoyed at home.
It’s difficult to let go of the freedom to go wherever and do whatever I please on weekends.
It’s difficult to let go of my friends, especially that girl whom I like so much.
It’s difficult to let go of those moments when I choose to be by myself
instead of having to deal with members of the seminary community
some of whom I don’t like, and who do not like me.
It’s difficult to let go of many more things, old habits really die hard.
This new life scares me at times too.
How do I know all this letting-go will bear fruit?
How do I know that giving up all these things
will result in my becoming happy with the path I have chosen?
How do I know that letting go of my ambitions to become a doctor or lawyer
will really enable me to give my entire life to you alone?
How do I know that all the sacrifices being asked of me will really make me a good priest?
How do I know that I will not fall later on and cause pain and sorrow to your church?
How do I know that this is your will for me and how do I know
that I am not making a mistake when I try
to overcome my anxiety that it might not be?
Speak, Lord, your servant listens.
Let me put my trust completely in you.
Allow me to see that though the initial stage of my journey
be dark, difficult, and uncertain,
your presence is more than enough to calm my fears,
to lighten my burden, and to give me the strength and courage
to stick to this path that I have chosen,
in the firm conviction that you who have asked me
to let-go of many things that have so given comfort and consolation to my life
will give me in their stead, the greatest consolation there can be,
the knowledge that wherever I go, whatever happens, whomever I become,
you will always be there to love, guide, and protect me.
Amen.
THIRD LETTER
PRAYER, PASTORAL WORK, AND A FEW THOUGHTS
AT THE END OF A MINISTERIAL ASSIGNMENT
It is with no small amount of gratitude that I write you this letter. We have been together for a number of years now, and in that brief period of time, I have seen you grow and mature into the good Christian gentleman that you are today. I have also learned much from you, and have matured because of the interactions we’ve had. You have taught me more than you can imagine, and have formed me in more ways than I had first anticipated.
Believe it or not, our often seemingly insignificant conversations have fueled in my heart a burning desire to keep myself firmly anchored onto the roots of my vocation, and the reasons for wanting to be a priest in the first place. I have drawn much strength from you; I only hope, in the same amount as you have managed to gain from me. And so I feel blessed to have been given the chance to serve you, for in doing so, you have transformed me.
Formation is truly a two-way street. The ‘formator’ learns as much from those he forms as the latter do from him. One is neither too wise nor intelligent that he has nothing more to learn from others. That’s a fundamental principle required of anyone who does not want to stagnate in life. A teacher learns from his student, a priest from his flock, the church from the world. I am happy God has taught me this valuable lesson through you. And so at the beginning of this letter, I extend to you my sincerest thanks. You have been wonderful instruments of God in my life as a man and as a priest.
I write you as I take leave of seminary work and continue once more the process of discerning God’s call in my life. Yes, discernment does not end with ordination. As a matter of fact, on the day your bishop lays his hands on you, your process of discernment enters an even more earnest phase, only this time, it is the expectation of your formators that the scaffolds of seminary life which once supported you have been internalized and integrated into your very self, transformed from external structures into an inner way of being that mirrors the mind and life of Christ.
What are these ‘scaffolds’, these sources of ‘support’ and ‘nourishment’ that the seminary gives you? The chief one of course is your interior life, your life of prayer and communion with God. It is never a cliché to say that our spiritual life is the anchor of our entire existence as Christians and as priests. It ‘cements’, as it were, everything we do, binding together into a coherent whole, all the other dimensions of our life: community, studies, human and social development, and pastoral work.
Without a firm anchoring onto a solid life of prayer and communion with God, much of what we do loses substance and depth. Our relationships become superficial and functional; our desire for learning and education is made an end in itself, or worse, a way to put others down in our belief that we are superior to everyone else; our pursuit of self-knowledge degenerates into narcissistic self-absorption, and our pastoral ministry starts to be defined in terms of the ‘work’ we do—the ‘success’ or ‘failure’ of which is determined by the number of ‘activities’ we line up. This last one is especially important to bear in mind, as it sometimes is the view of many that ‘being pastoral’ means drawing up as many programs or accomplishing as many activities as one can, wherever one is assigned.
‘Being pastoral’ is an attitude before anything else. ‘Pastoral work’ without the proper ‘pastoral attitudes’ of tolerance, understanding, openness, acceptance of others, but also of critical and deliberative thinking, deteriorates into a catalogue of ‘things to do’ or ‘activities to undertake’—at whatever cost. Detached from the ‘atttitude’, ‘being pastoral’ can become an area whereby the centrality of the self, it’s ambitions and goals, is made the priority, over and above the ‘reason’ behind the attitude—which is to serve the needs of God’s people, and not the requirements of the our ego.
Knowing what is really behind our motives for our many undertakings is never an easy task—and that is why discernment is never a finished process. I’ve learned that from my seminary formators years ago. But many of the experiences I’ve had over the four and a half years we’ve been together in the seminary have made me even more aware of its reality. And as I bid formation work goodbye, at least for now, I am only too keen on renewing a commitment to develop that pastoral ‘attitude’ further. Education is an open-ended process, and there is much for all of us to learn.
I will certainly miss many of the things I’ve gotten used to in the past few years: hearing your laughter in the corridors, presiding at Eucharist and listening to you at community prayers, teaching you in class, watching you study and work in the library, hearing your confessions, guiding you in spiritual direction, and perhaps, the activity I enjoyed the most, just hanging around you and chatting, sometimes for hours on end, sharing my life, my stories, my experiences and jokes with you, hearing your own stories, and telling myself, “there’s really not much difference between us, I just happened to get to where I am a little earlier than they”. There is much still for all of us to learn.
FOURTH LETTER
Only Christ deserves a ‘fan club’
Allow me to share with you some thoughts on our calling as ministers and messengers of the gospel. I chose to become a priest because I wanted to live a life that would bring me closer to God and to people, and I believed that that life was one lived in simplicity, faithfulness, and brotherhood with everyone. As a young boy I also did think of being something else: a lawyer or a doctor perhaps. I did, after all, have the intelligence and commitment to be whatever I wanted to be. But I decided I wanted a simpler life, a kinder, gentler life that would bring me peace and communion with God and my neighbor. And so I chose the seminary over the university, and put my whole being into responding to God’s invitation. San Carlos was my home for five years before I left and ‘complicated’ my life with the study of philosophy and theology.
When our formators sent me to study in Louvain ten years ago, I found myself both excited and anxious. I was excited because I knew I was looking forward to more adventures, and anxious, because I thought that leaving for further studies would move me farther away from the simple and ideal life I had so earnestly wanted for myself. The thing is, by the time I was in fourth year philosophy, much of my earlier interest in living a simple life had slowly ebbed away. There’s a lot of unnecessary power-play in the church; and one of the things I had to recognize quickly and guard against, even in seminary, was the fact that power, prestige, and authority are sometimes too attractive to pass by.
I still remember some of my contemporaries who even as seminarians would talk about wanting to become monsignors or bishops one day, of holding such and such position in the church, or of being assigned to this or that parish because it was big and so on. I remember one guy who spent most of our class hours doodling miters and crosiers and drawing episcopal coats of arms. Granted these are the products of still-childish minds which have not yet fully grasped the enormity of responsibility in the church—much like James and John perhaps, wanting to sit at Jesus’ right and left—still, we would be hard pressed to deny that such actions and others similar to them, speak of a manner by which some students, as early as seminary, regard ministry in the church. It is, for some, a means of upward mobility.
Even then, I used to constantly remind myself that if that were what I really wanted, if power, authority, wealth, and fame, were what I earnestly desired, I should leave the seminary and choose a profession in which my ambition would not be hindered at all by any admonition to “carry no extra shirt, no belt, no purse”. It just seemed hypocritical to profess that one were following Christ’s command to live in simplicity and trust in God’s providence when one’s life was lived in pursuit of their very antitheses.
But I cannot deny that when I left for further studies, at the back of my mind was that nagging thought that here was an opportunity for me to add a feather to my cap, a few more letters after my name, a couple of degrees to be proud of and show off—perhaps to make me feel that I was better than most. Was my going abroad going to be my ticket to upward mobility in the church? Back in 1992, at least, it was a question that seemed to get an affirmative answer.
The surprising thing, of course, is that instead of turning out to be that way, my six years away from home turned out to be an unusual ‘purification’ of sorts. For it was at the university in Belgium that I met truly great and noble people, mostly professors, theologians, philosophers, who have spent their lives in utter anonymity, and yet whose works influence the very thought, not only of the church, but of society as well. And yet these were men and women who willingly shunned the spotlight, who refused to make their lives the focus of attention, and who chose to efface themselves and “decrease, so that [Christ alone] might increase”. They were human beings who, in my mind, were of exceptional character and nobility; and they formed and solidified the core of how I have come to define myself and my ministry.
In grade school and high school with the Franciscans who educated me, I grew up singing, “Make me an instrument of your peace”. An “instrument”—it was an idea that embedded itself so deeply in my young mind. I am an instrument, nothing more, but nothing less either. For in my very being one, I share in the work of Christ who is in the end, the sole point and reference of everything I am and do. A poet once said that all we really do in this life is “contribute one verse to the everlasting poem written by the hand of God himself”. Just one verse—just one—but a verse nevertheless. As such, no less important than the entire poem, for without it, the poem would hardly be complete.
This is why even as a seminary student like yourself, I promised myself one thing—and it’s a promise I hope I can keep for as long as I live, and that is to remain as far away as I can from the trappings of power, wealth, prestige, and honor that so profoundly characterize many, even in the church. But that’s me; it doesn’t make me any better than anyone. Just different perhaps.
The Franciscan priests who taught and molded me in my early years drilled into my consciousness the value of a simple and carefree life that was the inspiration of one of the greatest and most noble human beings who has ever lived, Francis of Assisi. It is strange—though not completely incomprehensible—that at this particular juncture in my life, the inspiration that first brought me to seriously consider becoming a priest, has found itself enkindled once again. I say it is strange because I never imagined that living and working with seminary students would become for me an almost daily reminder of the anonymity of the life of a disciple, the hiddenness of the life of one who seeks to be no more than the moon to Christ who must always be the sun.
This is also why I kept telling you while we were together, that only Christ deserves to have a ‘fans club’. People will naturally find us ‘attractive’ in many different ways. Many priests and seminarians after all are kind, gentle, and caring. Many of us are good speakers, and not a few are actually good looking. People like those qualities. The thing is, while there’s nothing wrong in receiving their praise and admiration (and we should learn to say “thank you” sincerely, by the way, whenever we are appreciated), we also shouldn’t forget that those words of praise do not primarily belong to us. They are first and foremost directed to Christ, not to ourselves. Granted that doesn’t always happen, it still doesn’t change the equation.
They’re Jesus’ fans, not ours. And we shouldn’t be going around trying to form our own groupies. One who does so completely misses the point of the whole situation. We are meant to be ‘attractive’ to people, that is true. Adrian Van Kaam the author of “Religion and Personality” suggests that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with being “a little vain”, meaning keeping oneself well kempt so as not to turn people off. But neither should we forget that looking good, speaking and acting well, are not meant to draw people to ourselves. That will naturally happen. What we’re really supposed to do is to lead them—when they do come to us—to Christ. He is the chief shepherd, remember. We aren’t the point. He is.