The Eternal Priesthood/Chapter 18

by Henry Edward Manning

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CHAPTER XVIII.

 

THE PRIEST'S HOUSE.

 

The Fourth Provincial Council of Westminster decreed as follows:

1. "Let presbyteries be the true homes of peace and of charity, of sobriety and of modesty; a notable example in all things to the faithful, 'that the adversary may have no evil to say of us.'^[1] Let simplicity be their adornment; nor let anything there be found, in furniture or decoration, that ministers to luxury or to worldly desires. Let there be no ludicrous or foolish pictures, or any others unfitting the eyes of priests; but in every room let there be the crucifix, or the image of the most Holy Mother of God, or of the Saints, or pictures representing the life of our Saviour or sacred history."

The furniture of a priest's house ought to be plain and solid—plain, that is, unlike the fanciful and costly furniture of domestic houses; and solid, because it ought to last for generations of priests succeeding one another. As far as possible it ought to be alike in all rooms. Equality is a part of brotherly charity. S. Paul warns the Corinthians, who had "houses to eat and drink in," not to "put to shame those who had none."^[2] If one priest has money and another has none, it is a part of charity in the richer to be as the poorer in all such accidents as furniture and the like. Contrasts are wounding, and a temptation to those who have money.

The exclusion of foolish and unseemly pictures needs no comment. The presence everywhere of the crucifix and sacred pictures is most wholesome as a mental discipline for ourselves, and as a silent witness to the world. A priest's house cannot be like the house of a layman without our seeming at least to be ashamed of our Master.

The Council of Carthage says: "Let the Bishop have furniture, table, and food cheap and poor, and let him seek the authority of his dignity in the merit of his faith and life."^[3] If this be so for Bishops, then also for priests.

2. "Let regularity be observed in all things. Let the priest say Mass at the hour fixed. And though he ought to be always ready to hear confessions, let him be found especially punctual in the confessional, or at least in the church, on the appointed days and hours, lest, from want of order and method, there arise scandal and injury to souls. Keep order, and order will keep you."

Want of punctuality, especially on weekdays, is a common fault, and a constant complaint from the faithful, above all from men in professions or in commerce, who are either deprived thereby of Mass, or involved in serious damage. The loss of souls through irregular attendance in the confessional, or refusing to hear a confession out of hours, or at dinner-time, or recreation, or supper-time, will never be known in this world. We ought to be afraid of failing to hear a confession when asked, unless we know by previous and certain knowledge that there is no need. But who can be sure of this?

3. "Let no women reside in the priest's house without leave of the Ordinary. Schoolmistresses and their pupil-teachers, as being more refined in intelligence and character, and therefore more exposed to the tongues of calumniators, are altogether forbidden ever to reside in the presbytery with the clergy, unless for some reason known to the Bishop, and approved by him in writing. 'Let the servants who attend on the priests be of an advanced age, modest, prudent, and of a blameless life, ascertained by experience, that the injunctions of the Canons be obeyed.'^[4] Therefore let priests by all means beware of certain women, who, by domineering and despising the poor of Christ, and sowing discords by whispering, become truly the pests of the mission. Furthermore, we forbid the clergy to allow the schoolmistresses or their pupil-teachers, or the women-servants of the house, to sit at table with them."

This paragraph would be obscured by any comment.

4. "Let no priest reside in a hired or private house without the previous consent of the Bishop."^[5]

5. "Whosoever is set over a church, whether he be simple missionary, or be entitled missionary rector, is held to be the steward of God, to whom is intrusted a part of the Lord's vineyard. Let him, therefore, be useful and faithful, in everything laborious, remembering that the safety or the danger of the commander of the ship and of those who are on board is the same. Where, then, there are two or more priests in a mission, let one only, independently of all except the Ordinary, exercise the office committed to him, and all others dependency from him. The assistant priests receive faculties from the Bishop; but to preserve order we enjoin them that they do not use those faculties except under the government of the rector of the church, for which cause let the following or like words be inserted in the formula of faculties: 'In dependence on the rector of the church to which you are attached.'"^[6] The head priest of each church has the sole stewardship and administration. He depends only on the Bishop, and his assistants depend on him. This is expressed in the faculties held by each. To the head priests, therefore, belongs the decision of every question; and the Council orders and commands (præcipimus) the assistant priests to use even their faculties in dependence—that is, obedience—to him.

6. "To the rector or head priest are intrusted the church and people, the schools and presbytery, all goods of the mission, and, lastly, even the clergy who serve the church; therefore the account of all these is to be rendered to the Bishop by him alone and exclusively. Further, by law or custom, all rectors and their assistants are wont to inhabit the same presbytery; but the presbytery is the house of the rector so long as he discharges the office of rector and holds the diocesan faculties. To him alone belongs the right of administering and ruling the same; neither is it a right only, but an obligation; 'but if any man knows not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the Church of God?'^[7] Let him know of what spirit he is himself, and how among priests mutual charity and reverence of heart ought constantly to be seen from one to another. Let him, therefore, be as the elder among his assistants, not as lording it over the clergy, but as their father, or rather as their eldest brother. For they ought to be trained and taught as the servants of the Good Shepherd, who in their time shall themselves be worthy and capable of ruling missions. Moreover, from the fact that the cure of souls is committed in chief to the rectors of the missions, the assistants must not think that they are free from so great a burden; for it is their part in dependence on the rector to help him, that is, in preaching, in hearing confessions, in teaching Catechism to children, in visiting the sick, and in administering to them the Sacraments, and in fulfilling the other offices of missionaries."

In this paragraph are laid down the following principles:

(1) That the rector or head priest is trustee of the whole mission, church, people, school, presbytery, goods, and clergy. The last is the only point we need now to notice. The rector is responsible for his brother priests, for their personal, priestly, and pastoral life. He is answerable to the Bishop for them. And they are bound to recognise that responsibility. As they bear themselves to him, so some day their assistants will bear themselves in turn to them.

(2) That they ought all to live together under one roof. Priests dwelling alone are in an abnormal, unecclesiastical, unsacerdotal state, which often has grave dangers, and is never free from many disadvantages. The liberty of living alone is not wholesome; and the loss of the daily discipline of self-abnegation in living with others is a privation of much good.

(3) That the rector is bound by the highest obligations of charity and consideration towards those under him, and they also are bound by the duty of obedience, brotherly love, and mutual respect as king's sons to each other, and above all to him.

(4) That a presbytery ought to be a pastoral seminary, to keep alive the training of their youth, and to perfect it in the maturity of their manhood and of their priesthood, that they also may one day, as elders and superiors, train and teach the young priests who shall be intrusted to them.

(5) That, though the rector has the cure of souls in chief, they also are responsible, but in dependence on the rector, for all the work, for all the failures, and for all the omissions of work in the mission.

7. "The mensa or common table in a presbytery is the token and pledge of brotherly charity, which is lessened by absence. If absence happens often, it altogether undoes charity. Therefore let them seldom go abroad to the tables of others, much less let them frequent them; having food and wherewith to be covered, with these we are content."^[8]

In the measure in which we have brotherly charity we shall understand the meaning and the power of the mensa communis. In the measure in which we disregard the admonitions of the common table we may suspect, or rather we may be sure, that our brotherly love is low in fervour and dim of sight. The wholesome equality of Christian brotherhood is recognised and sustained by the contentment and abnegation of self, by which they who have money, or rich relations, or many friends, deny themselves for the sake of those who have not. It is a danger to a priest to have many "houses to eat and drink in," and it is a grace to others to have none.

Those mission-houses are the happiest in which all things are, as far as possible, in common, where each is content with his honorarium, and his share of the Easter offerings, and of all oblations thrown into one sum, so as to exclude the unwise partialities of the people, and sometimes the temptations of priests.

8. "It is to be desired that the common recreation of priests should be made, as a rule, one with another at home rather than abroad. 'How good and how pleasant it is that brethren dwell in unity.' For to be present at the recreation in common confirms and strengthens charity, and gives day by day occasions of exercising it in word and deed."

Men are hardly known until they unbend themselves. Official relations are distant and artificial. In recreation the man comes out through the priest. There is no greater or surer test of humility, charity, and human kindliness. Pride, haughty manners, high looks, fastidiousness, contempt of what they think below them, criticism, and the habit of slighting inferiors in birth, culture, or refinement, are detected as by a chemical test in recreation—that is, in the easy talk at the common table or after it. Recreation is the pillory of pride. It proclaims the offender, and holds him up to be pelted.

9. "Let priests abstain from exhibitions unworthy of ecclesiastics, from the clamours of hunting with horse and hounds, from public dancing and unlawful games, and from feastings which are protracted to unseasonable hours of night."^[9] "We strictly forbid, moreover, all ecclesiastics in sacred Orders to be present at scenic representations in public theatres, or in places which serve for the time as a public theatre, imposing upon the transgressors the pain of suspension incurred thereby ipso facto, hitherto in force in England, and reserved to the Ordinaries respectively."

May this wise and wholesome tradition of our forefathers never be relaxed. The theatre in their days was high, intellectual, and pure compared with the modern stage and its moral fall.

In his epistle to Donatus, S. Cyprian denounces theatres: pœnitenda contagia. … Adulterium discitur dum videtur, et lenocinante ad vitia publicæ auctoritatis malo.^[10] S. John Chrysostom calls fathers who took their sons to theatres παιδοκτόνους.^[11] But we may be told that this refers to the heathen stage. In the year 1596 the Council of Aquileia decreed: Ad spectacula comædiorum, sive ad bancos circulatorum et bufforum in plateis, qui alias exemplum esse debent maturitatis et prudentiæ accedere et assistere clericos non decet.^[12] The Council of Trent decrees as follows: "The Holy Synod ordains that those things which at other times have been decreed by Pontiffs and sacred Councils concerning the life, the dignity, the cultivation, the instruction of clerics are to be retained; as also the decrees concerning gaming, feasting, dances, dice, and sports and offences of all kinds; also as to the avoiding of secular business."^[13]

10. "Having before our eyes the golden axiom of the sacerdotal life given by the Apostle, 'All things are lawful to me, but all things are not expedient;'^[14] and again, 'All things are lawful to me, but all things do not edify:'^[15] let priests direct all things to the good of others, and to the gaining of greater graces. Let them not too easily or too often go to places of public concourse and recreation, even though they be reputable, lest by wasting time they be suspected of an unsacerdotal spirit. Unless for duties of necessity or charity, let them return early at nightfall to the presbytery. To abstain from unlawful things is little, unless, being zealous for the better gifts, we know how to use lawful things sparingly and to edification.^[16] We therefore lovingly in the Lord beseech our beloved clergy to observe the aforesaid prohibitions not only in the letter, but also in the spirit, interpreting them with piety."

On these little comment can be made without weakening their searching force. There is only one point which may be noted. We are exhorted to observe these prohibitions secundum spiritum—as those who are even now being judged before your Divine Master by the "law of liberty;" and not this only, but pie interpretantes, reading their inmost meaning with a loving desire to fulfil, and even if we can to go beyond, what they literally require. The slothful servant and the mistrustful, the grudging and the cold-hearted, go by the letter, and search for probable opinions to evade the letter, littera occidet. And thus our generous Master is ungenerously served.

11. "A hard and morose spirit is unbecoming in a priest who labours in the midst of the people; a modest cheerfulness, if only in season, is not to be reproved, but is worthy of praise. We praise therefore those missionaries who, following the example of Saints, strive to draw the youth committed to their charge from dangerous representations by innocent recreations. In doing which let them always take care to refresh and not to relax their minds; and while they give pleasure to others not to hurt themselves. Which is at once to be observed in treating of sodalities of women. Let the priest as far as possible preside over their recreations by other women rather than in person, lest he give a handle to the tongues of detractors. But let priests suppress the abuse which has grown up in some places of holding balls to raise money for the schools and other pious works.

"As to the public recreations which are called excursions, we have with sorrow heard very many evils thence resulting. We judge therefore that they are rather to be repressed than promoted. However, lest we should seem to be hard in matters lawful in themselves, we exhort the pastors of souls to abstain from promoting excursions unless they have leave for them from the Vicar-General."

12. "The dress of ecclesiastics ought to be such as to distinguish them altogether from laymen, and yet not to confound them with heterodox ministers. Let it, therefore, be of a black or dark colour; and let them never, under the pretext of travelling, return to the ignominy of the secular dress, from which they have been set free. We commend the kind of dress which, a few years ago, the secular clergy began to wear. At home, however, it is above all fitting that they should wear the cassock, or, if they will, what is called the zimarra and biretta.

"But inasmuch as the peculiar (proper) mark of the Catholic clergy in all the world is what is commonly called the Roman collar, which already among us is recognised as such by Protestants, without provoking contumely or offence, we will that all priests should wear it in the exercise of their sacred ministry, unless, perchance, for a time, at the discretion of the Bishops, by reason of circumstances, it be otherwise ordered."

13. "To these decrees, this Fourth Synod judges it expedient in the Lord that certain additions be made. We order, therefore, that every priest shall wear the Roman collar not only when he exercises the sacred ministry, but at all times, so that he may be known by all to be a priest. We decree also that the usage of Rome be observed by all ecclesiastics—that is, of not wearing the hair either on the cheeks nor as a beard."

14. "And if any priest shall wear the clerical dress so changed—save in the rarest case to be approved by the Ordinary—that he cannot be known by all to be a priest belonging to the clergy of this Province, or so as to fall under the suspicion of the faithful or notoriously to give them scandal, let them not be admitted to say Mass, nor in assisting at the divine offices, into the sanctuary.

15. "Our forefathers, assembled in the Council of London in the year 1248, declared that to put off the clerical dress is a very grave and wanton abuse, by which God is said to be mocked, the honour of the Church obscured, the dignity of the clerical order degraded; Christ, when His soldiers wear other uniforms, is deserted; the honour and dignity of the Church is stained when the beholder cannot distinguish a cleric from a laic at a glance, and so the priest becomes a scandal and despised by all who are truly faithful."

16. "The Bishop of Chalcedon, the second Ordinary for England and Scotland after the overthrow of the Hierarchy in these kingdoms, exhorted our predecessors, the companions of martyrs, and themselves true confessors for the faith, in these words:

'Let missionaries be content with the food set before them. Let them ask for nothing unusual unless health requires it. In their dress let them wear nothing which savours of vanity or expense; let them abstain from loud laughing, and from every gesture of body which savours of levity; knowing of a certainty, as Ecclesiasticus says, that the clothing of the body, and the laughter of the teeth, and the gait of a man tell what he is.

'Let them avoid idleness as the surest root of temptations to evil; and for that cause let them have with them at least the sacred Scriptures, on which let them perpetually meditate.

'Let them not contend with any priest, above all with their elders, to whom let them show all reverence and honour, that by their example they may show the laity how they should bear themselves towards priests.

'Let them beware of the habit of objecting or of opposing themselves to what others say, as they used in the schools by way of exercise, because in the familiar intercourse among men it is highly odious.

'Let them not easily believe any ill of their fellow priests and brethren, nor by any means publish it, or lend an ear to those who do so.'"

On all this wise and weighty teaching, so high in aspiration and so minute in direction, only one word need be said. Good will it be for us if we, too, have at least the sacred Scripture and perpetually meditate upon it. S. Charles called the Holy Scripture the Bishop's garden. Few walk in it, and fewer dress it. And for that cause so much of the word of man, and so little of the Word of God, is preached to the people. S. Teresa said that one chief cause of the evils of her day was ignorance of the Holy Scripture. "Sal etenim terræ non sumus si corda audientium non condimus. Quia dum nos ab orationis et eruditionis sanctæ usu cessamus sal infatuatum est."^[17] By whose fault is this, but of priests who do not study, and therefore do not teach, the Word of God to the people? Have we not reason to ask, "Lord, is it I?"

 

1. S. Tit. ii. 8.
2. 1 Cor. xi. 22.
3. Conc. Carthag. See Conc. Trid. sess. xxv. c. i. De Ref.
4. I. Conc. Westm. Dec. xxiv. 4.
5. Synod. Thurles. De Vita et Hon. Clericorum, n. 16, p. 33.
6. I. Conc. Westm. Dec. xxv.
7. 1 S. Tim. iii. 5.
8. 1 S. Tim. vi. 8.
9. Conc. Westm. Dec. xiiv. 1.
10. S. Cypr. Ep. i. p. 4, ed. Bigalt.
11. Homily against Games and Theatres, Opp. tom. vi. p. 274.
12. Conc. Aquil. cap. xi.
13. Sess. xxii. c. i.
14. 1 Cor. vi. 12.
15. Ibid. x. 23.
16. "Habent sancti viri hoc proprium ut quo semper ab illicitis Jonge sint a se pleramque etiam licita abscindant."—S. Greg. M. Dialog. lib. iv. c. xi.
17. S. Greg. M. in Evang. tom. i. pp. 1396-1399.