Ars Celebrandi:
Toward a Spirituality of the Diocesan Priest
ROCHESTER PRIESTS’ RETREAT
Notre Dame Retreat Center
Canandaigua, New York
5-9 June 2022
IN SEARCH OF A LITURGICAL SPIRITUALITY
FOR THE DIOCESAN PRIEST
Priests are among the most wonderful of human beings. They suffer from the same pains and stresses as any other group, but they are constantly fed by a burning desire to do the right thing, to give their life to Christ and to his Church.
They are in love with their people and with the faith which Christ sends them to bring to the young and the old, the bright and the not so bright, the cheerful and the depressed, the rich and the poor, and all the people in between.
But Priests are also sometimes depressed, and in a sad spiritual straights. The older ones grew up in a time when the priest was the most admired man in the community. Today their brothers are accused of molesting children. The younger ones suffered under a pastoral ministry that seems more intent on balloons and flowers than on faith and practice. Many of them labor under the burden of skepticism and a search for authentic authority.
All Priests are weighed down by bureaucracies struggling to establish priorities, a media voracious for a fresh scandal, and people suffering in a world of ever-new challenges to what they believe and who they are.
It’s not all bad, certainly. There’s the great majority of parishioners who love their priest more than he deserves. I will never forget the outpouring of affection upon the death of my first pastor. As their only remaining priest, the parishioners practically anointed me with the tears they shed for this good man. The love which people hold for their parish priest is extraordinarily durable, as recent studies on the impact of the sexual abuse scandal have shown.
But still, especially for the Diocesan Priest, it can be hard to pray.
While much of the following pages apply equally as well to my religious brothers, allow me to begin with a disclaimer. Religious priests are a wonderful leaven in the diocesan dough. They bring us Francis to call us back simplicity, and Dominic to make us think, and Ignatius to give us a conscience. Each of the founders of religious communities still minister to us through their dedicated sons.
But these Priest sons have their Father to look to for inspiration and support. In comparison, the diocesan priest can often seem like an orphan.
So where does the diocesan priest go to drink deeply of the particular charism of his calling? It is, I suggest, to the Sacred Liturgy.
Here is the center of his day, the source and the summit of all his activity, and the principle time when the Church is made manifest to him and to the world.
The Sacred Liturgy is the bridge between the daily life of the people of God and Christ, who invites them to partake of his heavenly banquet. It is the pontifex between this world and the next, and the Priest is the gatekeeper. In the Sacred Liturgy two great loves of the priest’s life are brought into a holy communion: the People of God and the Lord who formed them into a royal priesthood.
Here too, then, we can find the root and the sustenance of the priest’s spiritual life. Here it all makes sense, and here the priest finds the “food for the journey” on which he guides the flock entrusted to his care.
When I first wrote these words, I was sitting at my desk in Assisi looking out at the Cathedral of San Ruffino. This is what I saw:
There are a dozen kids playing soccer in the piazza in front of the Church. The twelfth century lions serve as goal posts and the door of the Church the goal.
The Pastor just walked by the kids on his way to Mass and stopped. He puzzled over whether he should yell at them about possibly doing damage with their games. And then he smiled and went into Church.
They looked on with amazement at Father, this little incarnation of mercy. They wonder about him and about who he is. As they play their soccer, they trust that he is praying for them; that when they get lost in the coming years, he will help them get home; and that when the pain gets like the cross he will help them to understand.
They need him to be holy. To be a man who says his prayers. And we do too.
[Here are the presentations which followed. Please click the title to download the text.]
MONDAY
TUESDAY
PREACHING WHAT YOU HAVE BECOME
WEDNESDAY
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[Here are the homilies from the retreat. Please click the title to download the text.]
