The Eternal Priesthood/Chapter 17
CHAPTER XVII.
THE PRIEST'S REWARDS.
The Prophet Isaias foretold of the Man of Sorrows that He should have His consolation in the midst of suffering: "Because His soul hath laboured, He shall see and be filled;"[1] that is, He shall see the fruit of His toils and tears even upon earth. So with His servants. In the midst of all his sorrows and labours, anxieties and disappointments, a priest has a multitude of consolations; even in this life he has a great recompense of reward. God will not be outdone in generosity. Whosoever forsakes anything for His sake, He will repay a hundredfold. What S. Paul said to all the faithful is emphatically true of priests. They who strip themselves of all things for Christ's sake, in the measure in which they are poor thereby become rich: nihil habentes, omnia possidentes.[2] Again he says, "All are yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's."[3] The legal earthly rights of the rich in this world in no way bar the enjoyment of the faithful. The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof.[4] And through "the Heir of all things" we inherit all things. The earth, sea, and sky were made before the human laws of property existed. A priest who has nothing but his bare sustenance enjoys without burden or responsibility all the works of Nature in all their brightness and sweetness, and that in a higher degree, perhaps, than the lord of the soil. The beauty of the world is a common inheritance, and none enjoy it so keenly as those who by the donum scientiæ see God in everything, and everything in God.[5] The whole world to them is like the bush that burned on Mount Horeb. The presence and glory of God are everywhere. "All things" are theirs; and this includes the whole revelation of God, and the whole regeneration of mankind. A priest begins the day at the altar within the veil, encompassed by the Divine Presence and the heavenly court. The vision of faith, conscious and unconscious, becomes a second nature. He sees always the world that is invisible. Its beauty, its sweetness, and its fragrance are perceptible to an inward sense. The incense of the Holy Mass in the morning, and of the Benediction of the evening, is as an odour from the eternal hills. A priest whose mind is full of this world must be often, if not always, spiritless and saddened. A priest whose mind is filled with the eternal world will be always—habitually and virtually, and very often actually—filled with its light, peace, and gladness. The promise of God by the prophet is fulfilled in him: "The Lord will give thee rest continually," even in the disorders of this tumultuous world, "and will fill thy soul with brightness," implebit splendoribus animam tuam; in the darkness without, his soul will be filled with the splendours of the world of light. "And thou shalt be like a watered garden," a garden for order and beauty, which is dressed by God Himself, and watered with continual streams: "and like a fountain of water, whose waters shall not fail."[6] He shall not alone receive the streams from "the Fountain of living water," which is God Himself, but he shall in himself be a fountain of perennial water, from which streams shall flow, not only into his own inward being, but outwardly upon all around him—streams of light, of charity, of consolation, and of saving health; for the sacramental grace of his priesthood and the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost will be always and everywhere, and in all needs and trials Fons aquæ salientis in vitam æternam.[7]
This alone would be an abundant reward to the most fervent priest who had spent himself through a long life for the elect's sake. But there are also other rewards.
1. And first is the joy of a pastor over the souls of his flock. The relation of pastor and flock is threefold—mutual knowledge, mutual love, mutual charity. The mutual knowledge is to know the number, the name, and the needs of his flock one by one, and to be known by them as their father, friend, and guide: the mutual charity is that he loves them for our Lord's sake, for their own sake, as heirs of eternal life, and as his spiritual children in Jesus Christ: and the mutual service is that he bestows upon them his care, labour, time, strength, health, and, if need be, life itself; and that they render to him the service of filial charity, generosity, and obedience. When pastor and flock are so united, then the words of S. John are fulfilled: "I have no greater grace than this, to hear that my children walk in truth."[8] In the measure in which the love of souls reigns in a priest's heart he will understand this joy, and his joy will be in measure equal to his love. But the love of souls is a sixth sense. Some men have so little of it as to seem to have none: some so much that it controls all their life. Some priests have, indeed, a love of souls, and yet so unconstraining and so tame that they have little joy and little recompense in their work. But to those in whom the fire is kindled there are three distinct joys, so diverse that they cannot be compared, and yet so alike that they spring from one motive.
The first is joy over the innocent—that is, over the children who as yet are fresh in their baptismal grace; still more over those who have grown up to youth, to manhood, and to womanhood with the innocence of childhood. There can be no more beautiful sight in this world than a soul in grace. In the kingdom of their Father they shall shine as the sun:[9] already in this world in the sight of God they so bear His image and likeness that its brightness is not overcast by any cloud of wilful sin. They are the clean in heart who see God, and the peacemakers who are the sons of God. The humility, purity, sincerity, and charity of such souls in all their relations in life, and not least to him who has been the guide of their youth and both father and friend in God, is to a priest the seal and sign that his work is accepted by our Divine Master.
But another and distinct recompense of all cares, anxieties, and labours is to be found in the conversion of sinners and the return of souls to God. The joy of the Good Shepherd over the lost sheep will be measured by two things—the danger of the soul and the labour of the search. Sometimes one who has long persevered in innocence falls like lightning from heaven. Yesterday he was in union with God; to-day he is cut off and dead. All the grace of childhood and youth is gone, and the brightness is turned into death. And a dead soul, like a dead body, soon decays. One sin opens the floodgate, and the rapidity of the stream is preternatural. Once fallen, the facility is acquired, not by habit, but by a new and strange impulse unknown before. Then comes reckless continuance in sin, and then despair; and despair makes the soul blind and deaf. Every priest has had, or sooner or later will have, this sorrow; and he will remember the prayers and efforts, and hopes and disappointments, it may be of years, before the lost soul was found and brought back to God. S. Augustine gives the example of three who were dead brought back to life again. The daughter of Jairus, only just dead, before decay began: the widow's son, dead and carried out to burial, dead and under the dominion of decay: and Lazarus, dead and four days in the grave, bound by the winding-sheet and blindfold with the napkin, like the sin that is deadly, habitual, and blinding. The joy over such resurrections from the dead none can measure but the priest who has received back his "dead to life again."[10]
Lastly, there is the consolation, still full of sadness and anxiety, when those who have fallen again and again, again and again return, and are received back once more. It is a joy with trembling. For those on whom we "have mercy in fear," "pulling them out of the fire,"[11] continue for a long time, perhaps for ever, a cause of constant fear. Nevertheless, when the pastor has done all he can for them, he may rest in hope. If souls will not be redeemed he cannot save them. God Himself respects the freedom He created and gave to them. They can destroy themselves. As life draws on, and the work of a priest in the midst of his flock has brought him into contact with the good and the evil, the innocent and the penitent, he can look round upon it as the sower in the lingering summer when the corn is ripening, looks upon the harvest-field. He sees the mildew and the blight, and here and there many a stalk laid by the rain and wind, pale and sickly; but the field is full of life, and the sun is upon the reddening ears, in a little while to be reaped for the great harvesthome. And in the midst of many sorrows he can rejoice as in the joy of harvest: lætabuntur coram te, sicut qui lætantur in messe."[12]
2. Another reward of a fervent priest is the gratitude of his flock. He may say, "Therefore, my dearly beloved brethren, and most desired, my joy and my crown."[13] "If I be made a victim upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy and rejoice with you all. In the self-same thing do you also joy and rejoice with me."[14] "Ye have known us in part that we are your glory, even as ye also are ours in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ."[15] "For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of glory? Are not you in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming?"[16] "Because now we live, if you stand in the Lord. For what thanks can we return to God for you, in all the joy wherewith we rejoice for you before our God?"[17] When he counts up his sheep, he may be ever saying, Corona mea et gaudium meum. When he numbers up the sinners and impenitent, and the wrecked homes which he has laboured to save, he will remember how be has striven and prayed, how for their salvation he has "toiled all night" in the dark, with hardly a ray of hope, "and taken nothing," ready again to let down the nets at our Lord's bidding, and again to launch out into the deep, out of which all his striving and all his prayers have not yet saved them. This must meet us, as it met our Divine Master, in our daily labour. When we look upon them, we share the mental sorrows of our Lord on earth; when from them we turn to the field white for the harvest, He gives us a share of His joy in heaven.
There are five companies among his people who reward a priest in this life. First, every penitent soul has a history full of the sin of man and the love of God. Some were all but drowned in sin, and some were plucked from the fire. We did not know them before; they were brought to us as by chance. They were, as they thought, avoiding our confessional when they came into it; they thought to escape from us, when unconsciously they took themselves in the snare which was laid for them, not by us, who knew nothing of them, but by the hand of God. To bring back souls to God, and to see the likeness of God once more shine out from the darkness of their past, and to watch over their steadfast perseverance in the way of life, is a recompense beyond all labours.
Next come the mourners.
S. Barnabas had a title brighter than a crown. He was Filius Consolationis, a son of the consolation of Israel, and a messenger of the glad tidings of good; and that because he was "full of the Holy Ghost," a disciple of the Paraclete, the Divine Comforter. A priest's ministry is twofold. He is a physician to heal both sin and sorrow: these are distinct but inseparable, and each needs a distinct treatment. Many who can deal with sin are unskilful in dealing with sorrow. To deal with sinners sometimes makes us hard, as if sorrows were imaginary. But no man can be a son of consolation who has not known sorrow for his own sin, sorrow in penance, sorrow for the sins of others, sorrow for the wreck which death has wreaked upon the world. The beatitude, "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted," is a promise that God will console them, not only by the Paraclete, but by those who are consecrated to be "sons of consolation"—the priests and pastors who share the office, the tenderness, and the sympathies of our great High Priest, the Man of Sorrows, and the fountain of all consolation.
And after the mourners come a multitude of little children.
Among the many rewards of a faithful priest come the love and the joy of children. By the faith infused in Baptism, they recognise in the priest a spiritual fatherhood. Children come round a priest not only by a natural instinct, drawn by kindness, but by a supernatural instinct as to one who belongs to them by right. The love of children for a priest is the most unselfish love on earth, and so long as they are innocent it binds them to him by a confidence which casts out fear. The most timid and shrinking come to him as a relief and protection. They tell him everything—their hopes and fears, their troubles and their faults—with an undoubting confidence in his love and care. No priest has greater joy than the priest who loves his schools, and trains with his own eye and care the boys who surround his altar. It is one of the signs of his conformity to his Divine Master.
Next after them come the poor. A priest is God's almoner. If he has nothing of his own, he receives in alms from the hand of His Master, and he distributes it again to the poor. The old, the helpless, and the destitute turn to him as their last hope. What Job in his profound humility said no priest will dare to say; yet every true priest would desire to be said of him when he is dead: "The ear that heard me blessed me, and the eye that saw me gave witness to me. Because I had delivered the poor man that cried out, and the fatherless that had no helper, the blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me, and I comforted the heart of the widow. I was an eye to the blind and a foot to the lame; I was the father of the poor, and the cause which I knew not I searched out diligently."[18] The poorest man ought to have no fear of coming to a priest, for a priest is not his own—he belongs to his flock, and every one has a right to him and to his service in the charity of Jesus Christ. To be loved by the poor is the surest sign a priest can have that he is not unlike his Master. For the people heard Him gladly. Their love is a great reward. When the world is dark and hostile, a priest takes sanctuary among his poor. Almost all the great in Church or State were against S. Thomas of Canterbury, but the poor priests and the poor people were always with him.
Lastly, there is a company who cannot come about the priest day by day like the others—that is, the sick and the dying. The two chief works of a pastor are the preparing of children for their warfare in life, and the preparing of the sick for the last conflict in death. The school and the sick-room are the two chief fields of a priest's charity and fervour. Sickness weighs heavily upon heart and mind. The sick are often sad and oppressed by the consciousness of sins, both of evil done and good undone, and through weakness they are unable to throw the burden off. They often say that they cannot pray, and that they cannot think: they can only lie and suffer. It is at such a time that a priest can think for them, and call their thoughts into activity. If he be a "fountain of water whose waters shall not fail," then he will refresh the soul that is dry through suffering and parched by mental anxiety. What is true of the sick is still more true of the dying. In the last hours the voice of a good priest is as the voice of a messenger from God—that is, of God Himself. The whispered name of Jesus, and the acts of faith, hope, charity, and contrition breathed into the ear that will soon hear no more, are the end of his pastoral care. The sanctified sufferings of the sick and the saint-like transit of the dying; the thanks of the sick and passing soul even in broken words, or by the last transient gleam of a peaceful and grateful look, are a reward beyond all earthly recompense.
When the penitents and mourners and children and the poor love and surround a priest, he has the surest countersigns of his Master's love. The special friends of Jesus are his friends, and in him they see both the servant and the Lord.
3. The last reward of a good priest is a happy death. A calm conscience in charity with all men is the witness of God's work in him. The priest may say, "Being confident of this very thing, that He who hath begun a good work in me will perfect the same until the day of Jesus Christ."[19] Ipse perficiet. "We know that we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren."[20] We not only believe and hope, but we know. We know that where there is a. stream there must be a fountain. We know that the love of brotherhood flows from the love of God. Whosoever loves God is united with Him, and the second death has no power over those that are His. A good priest will say, "I am not conscious to myself of anything, yet am I not hereby justified. He that justifieth me is the Lord."[21] His sentence I await. Nevertheless, "if our heart reprehendeth us not, then we have confidence towards God."[22]
And when his hour is come there will go up from every home, and from every heart in his flock, and from many who are his spiritual children scattered abroad, a multitude of unceasing prayers. None die so happily, or surrounded by such a wide and ardent charity, as a pastor. His life has been a life of charity to penitents, to mourners, to children, to the poor, and they cannot recompense him except by their prayers, and their prayers have great power with God. They will surround his home in his last hours. And the presence of Jesus will surround his dying bed. He has lived in close and constant relation with his Divine Master for many years; and now He is come to call him to his eternal rest and to the exceeding great reward, to the glory and the crown that shall be given to him.
In the state of waiting and expiation daily prayers and Masses will be offered for him. As he has done to others so now his flock will do for him. Then comes the transit to the essential glory, which will be measured by the merit laid up in this life; but the merit is measured by charity. As he has loved God in this life so will he see God with a greater intensity in the Beatific Vision: and as he has lived in charity with all men so will be his bliss in the Communion of Saints. Add to this the accidental glory, the ever-increasing bliss and joy over sinners that repent and souls that persevere, after his death, but through the labours of his life. Though dead he yet will speak; the inheritance of his labours will live on. The memory of his name will spread, and after many days, when he is in the eternal kingdom, the first seeds cast by him will be ever springing up. The evil we do lives after us and reproduces itself: so by God's mercy does the good. The seeds scattered in the furrow, and sown beside all waters, in the morning and in the evening will bear a harvest and be reaped by other hands, but the reward will yet be his.
If such be the priest's rewards springing up in this life, and ascending into the heavenly court, with how great a love ought we to love our work. The pastoral care is to be loved everywhere, because it is the test and proof of our love to our Divine Redeemer. It is also the most perfect discipline of charity, the most searching abnegation of self, the most generous sacrifice of all things and of ourselves also for the salvation of souls. It is moreover the fullest fountain of sanctification, and as we live in the exercise of charity, so every act may have its augmentation. If the pastoral office is to be loved everywhere, it is to be loved especially in England. We are pastors of the poor, and poor ourselves, separate from courts and honours, slighted and set aside in apostolic liberty, in faith and work independent of all human authority, closely and vitally united with the See of Peter and with the Church throughout the world: heirs of the Martyrs, Saints, Confessors of every age, from S. Augustine to this day. Their names and their memories are upon the cities and fields of England. As in the early times, when the Church at its first uprising began in the houses of the faithful, till it came forth from penal laws and hiding-places into the light of day, so has it been with us. All this binds together the pastors and people in England by a mutual dependence and with a primitive charity, on which as yet the world has not breathed its withering taint. Happy the priest who loves his pastor's lot and lives wholly in it, fulfilling day by day the slight and despised acts of charity to all who need his care, and laying up in heaven unconsciously the gold dust of a humble life, looking only for his eternal reward.
- ↑ Isaias liii, 11.
- ↑ 2 Cor. vi. 10.
- ↑ 1 Cor. iii. 23.
- ↑ Ps. xxiii. 1.
- ↑ "Fidelis homo cujus totus mundus divitiarum est, et quasi nihil haheus omnia possidet inhærendo tibi cui serviunt omnia."—S. Aug. Confess. lib. v. 4.
- ↑ Isaias lviii. 11.
- ↑ S. John iv. 14.
- ↑ 3 S. John 4.
- ↑ S. Matt. xiii. 43.
- ↑ Heb. xi. 35.
- ↑ S. Jude 23.
- ↑ Isaias ix. 3.
- ↑ Philip, iv. 1.
- ↑ Ibid. ii. 17, 18.
- ↑ 2 Cor. i. 14.
- ↑ 1 Thess. ii. 19, 20.
- ↑ Ibid. iii. 8, 9.
- ↑ Job xxix. 11-16.
- ↑ Phil. i. 6.
- ↑ 1 S. John iii. 14.
- ↑ 1 Cor. iv. 4.
- ↑ 1 S. John iii. 21.