Lesson 36
What Is The Life Of A Priest Really Like?
Welcome back to our Lenten Lessons on the Sacraments as we finish up today on Holy Orders. Over the years people have asked me, “When did you know for sure that you wanted to be a priest?” “About six months after I was ordained.” People are usually surprised by the answer, but it’s the truth. I think most people would have some hesitation or doubt about making such a huge decision, because I knew that once I said yes, once I was ordained, there could be no turning back. But love always requires taking a risk. Those who get married do the same thing. As the poet Robert Frost wrote years ago, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.”
So what happened? It was late one Sunday night, the weekend had been packed with Masses, confessions, a wedding, a baptism, and counseling grieving parents over the sudden and unexpected death of their teen age son. (I have long learned that the best counseling in that situation is just to be present and listen.) I was emotionally and physically exhausted, but filled with joy that I had no time for myself that weekend and had spent everything I had serving others for God. And that made me very happy and convinced this is what I was born to do.
So what is the life of a priest like? It all depends what you make of it. The Church needs priests who are humble, happy, hard-working, healthy, and holy, and so the life of the priest has to be based on putting prayer first: at least a half hour for mental prayer in front of the Most Blessed Sacrament every day, attentive praying of the Divine Office throughout the day, time for spiritual reading, the Holy Rosary, and various pious devotions throughout the day so that the priest reaches the point where he can’t tell the difference between working in the presence of God or praying. It is a continuous conversation with God, with a real awareness of the presence and agency of the Angels and the Saints, especially the Blessed Mother, St. Joseph, and the Guardian Angels. I consider myself very blessed to live in a center of Opus Dei, surrounded by other men who daily strive to live a life of prayer and service, with a spirit of cheerfulness. Their good example is a big help. I feel sorry for so many priests who live alone, because as we read in the Bible, “it’s not good for man to be alone.”
My favorite book on the priesthood might be a little dated, but it was written by a priest from the Diocese of Detroit, Fr. Leo Trese, and published in 1950. It was the first of twenty books he would go on to write and the title is “Vessels of Clay.” It is a fictionalized account of a day in the life of a country priest in the 1950s. Even though it might seem dated, it holds eternal truths, especially about the supreme importance of daily prayer and the daily office. His chapter on charity is superb, and I still remember these lines: “courtesy for all comers” and “my time is God’s time, and God’s time is for everyone”, and finally, “courtesy is so easy, it is so cheap. And yet.”
Along the way I have learned a great deal from observing the lives of other priests, especially my brother priests in Opus Dei whom I regard as saints. But there is another priest I once heard on Relevant Radio, and he’s not the kind of priest you would ever see wearing a cassock, but his words pierce through the chaos of competing priorities of what you say and how you use your time. From his years as pastor of a parish, he remarked, “People don’t care about how much you know, but they know how much you care.”
As a priest, my life has to be for others. That’s why I usually dress as a priest, in my clerical outfit so people can recognize me in public. Wearing a roman collar in public is the opposite of putting a “do not disturb” sign on your door. Wearing the collar means, “please disturb me” so I can help you: bless you, pray for you, encourage you, forgive your sins, listen to you, give you a rosary, whatever.
So tune in every day of Lent to learn more about your Catholic faith, because if you Learn it, then you can Live it; and if you Live it, you will Love it; and if you Love it, you will never Leave it!
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