Which of you wishing to construct a tower does not
sit down and calculate the cost. Otherwise, after
the foundation, may find himself unable to finish the
work.
Luke 14
Over the last twenty years, I have led over 150 priest
assemblies in 10 countries. This coming week, I'll be in Saint Louis with the
Bishop and priests of the Diocese of Belleville. After that I will be with the
bishop and priests of the Diocese of Saginaw, Michigan and after that the
bishop and priests of the Diocese of Pembroke in Canada. In recent years,
I have looked out at, and lectured, thousands of priests, hundreds of bishops
and archbishops and a dozen or so Cardinals - something I never ever imagined I
would do when I was a young priest.
One of those priest assemblies took place a few years back in the Archdiocese
of Tuam in Ireland. On my way from the Shannon Airport to the Shrine at Knock, where
our meeting was held, the road was littered with hundreds of
half-finished houses that had been abandoned during the burst of the housing
bubble. So many people thought they could make a fortune borrowing money to build
new houses on their farmland. It looked like a war zone. People simple
misjudged whether the money would be there to complete their projects! It was
sad on many fronts.
In my last semester of seminary, one of our professors
asked us to write a paper about what we expected in our priesthood. To the person,
my classmates wrote idealistic papers as if we were all about to enter the
“promised land.” I wrote that I expected to be a priest in one of the most
tumultuous times of recent church history. My paper was ridiculed as being “too
negative.” My classmates may have been a bit like Peter when he told Jesus “God forbid”
when Jesus insisted on talking about the suffering to come. Disappointed with
the complexities of priesthood and shocked by the reality of it, over half of
my ordination class has left and are no longer serving as priests. Instead of
being “too negative,” I may have been “prophetic.” I am, of course, no better a person than those who left, but I believe I have survived and thrived these last fifty years as
a priest because I expected to have problems and I took that
into consideration from the beginning and made plans on how to handle them.
When I worked over at Saint Meinrad Seminary, after I
left here, and would tell too much truth about priesthood to the seminarians,
Father Jonathan used to tease me with “Not in front of the kids!” Father
Patrick, quoting of Canon Law, on the other hand, would tell me that
“Seminarians are to be told the truth about the priesthood while they are in
the seminary.” In any regard, to anyone making the transition from seminary, I
would simply say this: getting to ordination is easy compared to staying in and
staying healthy and effective as a priest. If anyone “promises you a rose
garden,” do not listen to them. Like marriage, priesthood can be difficult. The
sooner you embrace that fact, the sooner you can call up the personal,
emotional and spiritual resources you will need to deal with the difficulties
of ministry as a priest in today’s church. As scripture puts it, “My son, when
you come to serve the Lord, prepare yourself for a battle.” (Sirach 2:1) As
I say on the first page of my book From Seminarian to Diocesan Priest:
Managing a Successful Transition, “It’s one thing to pledge oneself to
a high purpose, but it’s another to carry through.”
My commitment to priesthood was tested a mere two week
after ordination. I had a very short “honeymoon” indeed! I had my
heart set on being an associate pastor in a nice large suburban parish. When
the call came telling me that I was being sent to the “home missions” of our
diocese, in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, every bone in my body
wanted to quit. After several futile attempts to change the minds of the
powers-to-be, I angrily loaded my car, bought a map and headed to my new parish
in the most remote corner of our diocese. Halfway there, I had a conversion
experience, one that would serve me well in the years to come. I changed my
mind. I decided to embrace what was ahead of me and to open my mind and heart
to the experience at hand. Since I didn’t get what I wanted, I decided to want what
I got. What I got was a time of unprecedented personal and spiritual growth,
more than I could have ever dreamed of for myself.
On my twenty-fifth anniversary, while I was still
pastor here, I chose the reading about Peter’s walk on water. I, like Peter,
have managed to keep going when I have “kept my eyes fixed on Jesus,” rather
than on how deep the water is or how high the winds are!
In the end, priesthood is not for cowards nor the
faint of heart. One needs the heart of a missionary, the courage of a martyr,
the patience of Job and the concentration of a tight-rope walker. The
commitment to be ordained is not necessarily the same as a commitment to
priesthood. Like marriage, true commitment begins when the honeymoon is over.
Like the would-be follower of Jesus, who naively bragged about his willingness
to “follow him wherever he went,” one needs to know that there are crosses to
be carried. That is to be expected, but that need not be a source
of discouragement. In the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “Faint not nor fear,
but go out to the storm and the action, trusting in God whose commandments you
faithfully follow; freedom, exultant, will welcome your spirit with joy.”
Anyone who thinks about priesthood, marriage or
religious life, should be good at calculating the cost beforehand and be
willing to pay the price afterwards. As for me, after fifty years of walking on
water, I couldn’t be happier - and I have people like you to
thank!
