The Eternal Priesthood/Chapter 13
CHAPTER XIII.
THE PRIEST'S FRIEND.
It is not to be denied that the life of a priest is a life of austere loneliness. From the day that he is set apart by ordination the words are true of him, "Without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life; but likened unto the Son of God, a priest for ever."[1] He leaves home and friends; his birth and name and race are forgotten; no one asks where he was born, or cares where he may die. He is separated from the world, and never more alone than when he is in thronging streets and crowded rooms. It is true that he has his flock, his brethren in the priesthood, the whole visible Church, and all the Saints as his companions. But all this is not enough. There is a need of something nearer than this. Priests sometimes seek it in friendships, and in innocent relations of special intimacy. They need, as all men do, the solatium humanitatis. But in seeking it, or in accepting it, they often fall into a snare. "For by whom a man is overcome, of the same also he is the slave."[2] By whatsoever a man is overcome, by the same he is brought in bondage. There is no bondage greater for a priest than an unbalanced personal attachment. When he was ordained he gave his whole soul to his Divine Master; and in return he received the liberty which set him free from all inordinate friendships and all undue attachments. This liberty consists in a perfect equilibrium of his mind. It is poised on the love of God reigning over all his affections, perfecting them all in warmth and tenderness to all about him, but forbidding them so to attach themselves to any one as to lose their balance, or the perfect equilibrium of their mind. The sure signs of an unbalanced mind are frequent meetings, many letters, long visits, weariness at home, restless seeking, waste of time, impatience of solitude. When a priest finds his evenings tedious, his own room lonely, his books tasteless, it is clear that he has lost his equilibrium. He is in bondage to something or to some one, and he has lost his perfect liberty of heart. S. Jerome says: "Let the cleric who serves the Church of Christ first interpret his name, and, finding the definition of his name, let him strive to be what he is called. For if cleros in Greek is lot in Latin, clerics are, therefore, so called either because they are of the lot of the Lord, or because the Lord is their lot—that is, the portion of clerics. He, therefore, who is either himself the portion of the Lord, or has the Lord for his portion, ought so to live that he may both himself possess the Lord, and be possessed by the Lord. He who possesses the Lord, and says, with the prophet, 'The Lord is my portion,' can have nothing besides the Lord; for if he have anything besides the Lord, the Lord will not be his portion—pars ejus non erit Dominus."[3]
"God spoke with Abraham as a man speaketh with his friend." Our Lord said: I call you not servants, but friends. The priest's friend is his Divine Master. And His friendship is enough. But it is enough only to those who rest on it alone. It cannot be mingled with lower friendships. It must reign in us as on a throne. Our Lord has promised to be "with us all days, even unto the consummation of the world." And He has ordained a way of personal presence, "above the order and conditions of nature," in which He is always with us. The priest's friend is Jesus in the most Holy Sacrament, abiding for ever in the midst of us; and the priest is with Him morning, noon, and night, in continual intercourse, and a perpetual relation of love and protection on the one side, and love and service on the other.
1. This divine friendship consists first, and above all, in an identity of will with His will. Friendship is defined as idem velle idem nolle. This identity comes from assimilation to Him. If we are like Him, we shall love and hate as He loves and hates. The same things will be to us bitter or sweet as they are to Him. "We, beholding with open face the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord."[4] But a priest is to be the likeness of His Master to the world; and that likeness is a condition to the reception of Holy Orders. His will, therefore, ought to be identified with the will of his Lord. And so long as wills are identified friendships cannot fail. We well know what His will is for us. He wills "all men to be saved."[5] He wills our sanctification.[6] He wills that we trust Him altogether; that we not only say, but mean in all things, "Not my will, but Thine be done."
He wills also our happiness, and that with a divine longing, which exceeds all our inordinate cravings. The chief and governing desire of all men is to be happy. All their efforts are aimed at happiness, or rather at what they mistake for it, thinking that it will make them happy. But most men fail to obtain it, because they cannot discern the true from the false. Happiness is holiness. There is but one way to this one end; all other desires are deviations from happiness. He desires our happiness in the only true form and way. If we desire the same, then in this also we are of one will with Him. And this union being founded on a divine reality is eternal.
2. Friendship is not only unity of will, but a mutual goodwill each to each. Amicus alter ego. Sacerdos alter Christus. The will of a friend is not only an austere goodwill, severely just. It is also a kindly will. Sometimes the truest friend is too high and exacting in his wisdom and conduct towards us. We trust him, but shrink from him. Not so our Divine Friend. He is kindly and pitiful; He knows our infirmities, and He meets them with the tenderness of compassion. We know that we are in His hands, and our whole life is ordered by Him. If He chastise us, it is because He loves us. He does not willingly afflict. It is only because affliction is necessary that He wills it for us. If it were not necessary it would not come. No unnecessary pain can come except by and from ourselves. When it comes He grieves over it. Without taking from us our freedom, and thereby reducing us from man to a machine, He could not protect us from ourselves. But all the discipline of sorrow and suffering which He wills for us, He wills in measure and proportion to our need. Less would not sanctify or save us. More than is needful will never come. We do not see as yet the end for which He is working, or the purpose of what He does. But His words to Peter were spoken also for our sakes: "What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter."[7]
We know, too, that He wills for us all necessary good; that nothing in Providence or in grace will be wanting for our welfare in this life or for our eternal salvation. We are always exacting from Him the signs of His goodwill before we trust Him. But when we see proofs there is no room left for confidence. When we are in straits and anxieties and see no human help, then is the time to trust Him. We read of those who in the depth of their need have knocked on the door of the tabernacle, asking for bread. A priest has this ready access to his Master in every time of need. He is the guardian of his Lord, who dwells under his roof or hard by in the sanctuary; and to Him he carries the account of all his troubles and cares personal and pastoral. All that befalls him, all his perplexities and perils and wants, he pours out to Him. The priesthood assures him that he is predestinated to be made conformable to the image of the Son, and therefore that all things will work together for his good under the guidance of a divine and loving will.
3. Once more, in friendship there is mutual service: not mercenary, nor stipulated, nor self-seeking; but generous, glad, and grateful. "Ye have not chosen Me; but I have chosen you, and have appointed you, that you should go and should bring forth fruit."[8] He was our Master before we were His servants; and He knew what He would do with us and by us. We are not our own, but already bought with a price. All we are is His. All faculties and powers of nature, all graces and gifts of the Holy Ghost, are His. A priest's whole life, if he be faithful to his priesthood and to himself, is, or may be, and therefore ought to be, a service to his Master. Even the common actions of our daily life are consecrated to Him, for we are wholly His. "Whether you eat or drink, or whatsoever else you do, do all to the glory of God."[9] "All whatsoever you do, in word or in work, all things do ye in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ; giving thanks unto God and the Father by Him."[10] This pervading motive, actual, virtual, or at least habitual, renewed morning by morning in Mass and after Mass, and through the day, especially in times of anxiety, danger, or temptation, is a continual service done for love and loyalty to our Divine Friend. How much more the sacred actions of our priesthood. The daily commemoration of Him with which the day begins; the oblation of His Sacred Heart, with all its adoration, for the glory of the ever-blessed Trinity; the offering of His precious Body and Blood, which redeemed the world and makes propitiation continually for the ever-multiplying sins of men, hastening the ascent of souls that are in expiation to the vision of peace; the feeding of the multitude with the Bread from heaven—all these acts of divine service to Him are fulfilled in every Mass we say. A day so begun can hardly end in waste and cold and the dim lights of this world. Why does not the fragrance and the fervour of our Mass sustain us through the day? It is the keynote, and all our hours ought to move in harmony. Every word spoken in God's name; every act, however small, done for our Lord's sake, consciously or in the habitual exercise of the priestly or pastoral office; every Sacrament administered, every declaration of the word of God, every soul sought and found, every sinner converted, every penitent sustained—all this is direct personal service rendered to our Divine Friend. Into this service, too, may be counted the conscientious use of time, patience under sorrows, humility under false accusation which no faithful priest will ever escape. And while our day is full of this service to Him, He is always serving us with more than a mutual fidelity. We little know how He guides and guards and compasses us about, and lays His hand upon our head when the fiery shafts of the wicked one fly thick around us. The dangers that we know are many; but many more those that are unknown. We pray God to deliver us from our secret sins; we have need to pray that He may deliver us from our secret dangers. There is a shield over us which is turned every way, as the assault comes upon us from all sides when we least know it to be near. Surrounded all day long by the world, good and bad, men and women, upright and designing, open and false, happy is the priest who can return at night to the presence of his Master needing only to wash his feet. How many who go out a latere Jesu in the morning bright and peaceful have come back at night downcast and sad, with many memories unworthy of a servant and a friend. Still He is always the same. We vary and change and are overcast and lose our morning light. A blight and a tarnish fall upon us. But He is unchangeable in love, pity, and forgiveness. Before we lie down to rest He will absolve us from the failures and inconsistencies of the day. This sense of mutual service knits the bond which unites friends together.
4. Moreover, friendship is patient; but here is no reciprocity with our Divine Friend. Patience is all on His side. And His patience is inexhaustible. His countenance never changes. His Heart is always full of love. When we come back to Him He is as we left Him, for in Him there is neither variableness nor shadow of alteration. The Eternal Love is immutable, and the deified human heart can never change. As He bore with the contentions, and rivalries, and ambitions, and slowness to believe in His first disciples, so He bears with us. Only they were not priests then, and we are. After their ordination they were soon restored to strength, and lifted above themselves. We begin with our priesthood and pastoral care, and we have still many of the faults which they had before they received their supernatural powers. And yet He dwells in the midst of us, silent and calm, seeing all our faults, yet blind to them; forgiving them, as He forgave Peter, with renewed commands to feed His sheep. His patience, too, is generous. He is easily satisfied. One word of self-accusation, of self-rebuke, of self-reproach, and all is past. We cannot and ought not to forget our unworthy words and actions, but He puts them behind His back. "He will not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax."[11] He waits in patience and in hope for our growth in perfection. And it is He that is the first to draw us to Himself before we have resolved to come. We fear and hesitate from conscious unworthiness, till an impulse of the will overcomes reluctance. It needs a firm conscience to examine itself truly. We see our faults without looking at them. To look is disquieting and humbling. It breaks our peace where there ought to be no peace till we have been open and honest with our good Master, who will easily forgive us if we do not so easily forgive ourselves.
5. Lastly, in friendship there is mutual society. When friends are united in love they are in union even though they be as far as sunrise and sunset apart. The consciousness of united wills and mutual kindliness and mutual service and loving patience, with the memories of past days of affection and of happiness, makes the absent to be present, and those that are unseen to be all but visibly with us. Letters come and go and messages are interchanged, and we feel to share in all they desire, and we know that they share in all that belongs to us. Such is the society of human friendship, even when friends are parted far asunder. It is more sensible and active the nearer they are. In a household all are not always together, but all are conscious that all are under the same roof, and that they are one in heart and will. The friendship of a priest with his Lord is beyond all this in conscious nearness and conscious intimacy. We may go to Him at any hour. If He be silent, we know His meaning and His mind. He always welcomes us when we come to Him. He listens to all we say, and He consoles us by listening to our voice; for it is a relief to unburden our soul to a friend, though he answers not a word. We know that we have His sympathy; that He feels with us and for us; that all we say is noted and remembered; and that if He be silent now, the day is not far off when we shall hear Him say, "Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."
No priest, then, is friendless. There is always one Friend in whom we may find perfect and changeless rest. Other friends often grieve and disappoint us. One only Divine Friend never fails. But our perception of His friendship will vary in the measure in which we maintain our liberty from all unbalanced human attachments. We owe our whole heart to Him from the hour of our ordination, and if we abide in this equilibrium we shall find His friendship alone enough. It is this craving for human sympathy that hinders our sense of the divine. S. Paul could say, Cupio dissolvi et esse cum Christo. Some of the servants of our Lord have prayed Him to stay His consolations as too great for them. They were detached from all creatures who so prayed. But in the measure in which we keep ourselves from all importunate and intrusive human friendships, which, being sensible, and visible, and always at hand, so easily steal away what is due to our Divine Friend, in that measure we shall find rest, and sweetness, and sufficiency in Him.
If we be weak and wander to human friendships, we shall soon find that there is no rest anywhere else. Everything else is too narrow for a soul to rest on; too changeful to be trusted; too full of self to give room for us. The priest who leans upon any human friendships, how holy soever they be, will soon find that instead of rest he has disquiet, instead of consolation a wearing and multiplying anxiety. Quid enim mihi est in cœlo, et a te quid volui super terram? Defecit caro mea, et cor meum; Deus cordis mei, et pars mea Deus in æternum.[12]
Do not let any one think that a priest who has one Divine Friend will be cold or heartless, or careless of flock and friends, of the lonely and the forsaken. The more united to his Master the more like Him he becomes. None are so warm of heart, so tender, so pitiful, so unselfish, so compassionate, as the priest whose heart is sustained in its poise and balance of supreme friendship with Jesus and in absolute independence of all human attachments. His soul is more open and more enlarged for the influx of the charity of God. We are straitened not in Him, but in ourselves. As our hearts are so shall be the descent of the love of God. We shall be replenished as we can receive it. What S. Paul asked for all Christians at Ephesus is above all true of priests and pastors, "That you may be able to comprehend with all the Saints what is the breadth, and length, and height, and depth: to know also the charity of Christ, which surpasseth all knowledge, that you maybe filled unto all the fulness of God."[13] No man will be so like Jesus in the three-and-thirty years of mental sorrow and human compassion as the priest in whose heart his Divine Master reigns alone.