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June 5,1980
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A Solitary Vocation
BY FATHER ADRIAN VAN KAAM
People often are touched by the
loneliness of priests. They may ask: Is
loneliness a terrible condition to live with?
Doesn’t it separate priests from the pleasures
and consolations of family life? Why are
priests asked to choose such a life?
Yet loneliness is not necessarily a bad
condition. Loneliness can become rich and
beautiful if it can be turned into solitude.
Living alone outwardly can help a priest live
in solitude inwardly. Inner solitude helps
him to go beyond mere loneliness and
enables him to feel at home with himself.
This in turn readies him for a deeper
intimacy with God and people. Solitude
facilitates communion with God and with
the best aspirations of people everywhere.
Communication with God makes a
priest’s time alone meaningful. In his rectory
he finds a place of silence in which he can be
by himself. Through prayer and daily
relfection he prepares for his priestly
ministry. At such moments the priest can
find in himself the sufferings, needs and
longings he has in common with all people.
He then becomes able to speak meaningfully
of the common experiences of life which all
people go through — about birth and death,
suffering and joy, consolation and
desolation.
Inner solitude can foster remarkable
growth. It helps people awaken as spiritual
persons and hear the Holy Spirit in the
innermost regions of their being. In solitude
the priest discovers how his life, with its
unique calling, originates in God.
At the same time he becomes aware of
how others are called from within by God.
And his life makes others aware of their own
call to solitude before the Lord.
As they respond to this call, people begin
to see their lives in a new light. They notice
what can foster or impede faithfulness.
People may find time, like priests, for prayer
and meditative reading of Holy Scripture
and the spiritual masters. Such practices,
which may fill many hours of the celibate’s
life, provide a deep sense that one belongs to
the tradition of Christian formation. They
THIS WEEK
Priests in the Catholic Church hold
many positions of influence and authority.
Know Your Faith this week presents
articles highlighting the role of the parish
priest and the nature of the
priest-parishioner relationship.
Father Richard Byrne discusses the joint
pastoral ministry of the priest and the
parish community. He explains that this is
a two-way street in which the pastor cares
for his community and the people are
concerned about their pastor. Father Byrne
is a lecturer at the Institute of Formative
Spirituality, Duquesne University in
Pittsburgh.
The role of solitude in spiritual growth
for priests and lay persons is the central
theme addressed by Father van Kaam. The
founder and director of the Institute of
Formative Spirituality, Father van Kaam
talks about the vocation of the priest.
Father Castelot writes on St. Paul's
interaction as a pastor with his family, the
communities he founded. He shows Paul’s
love for his communities and also some of
his problems.
enable the priest to communicate this sense
of belonging to others.
People can deepen that communication
by meditative reading. In this sense the
priest is ministered to by the word just as he
ministers for the word. The word cares for
him as he cares for the word.
To discover their deepest spiritual bond
with others, people must from time to time
find some solitude. The more people avoid
solitude, the more removed they will be
from others in their deepest reality. Then
people interact on a superficial level, perhaps
merely as smooth socializes, as religious or
social do-gooders, as quasi-apostolic
busybodies.
At the same time, the solitary life
protects priests from becoming totally
absorbed in the common activities and
collective structures which constantly
threaten to overwhelm people. This is true
even of the loftiest endeavors. Social work,
academic pursuits, apostolic actions, the
struggle for peace and justice — these are
excellent communal enterprises. They
necessarily call for efficient organization.
However, these communal enterprises can
take precedence to an unhealthy degree.
They can even be dehumanizing if they
block out human and spiritual concerns.
People may forget what inspired them in the
first place. Real togetherness with others is
threatened constantly by spiritual
forgetfulness.
The life of the priest is not immune to
such problems. His solitude helps restore his
inspiration. The solitude of the priestly life
in turn calls other people back from total
absorption in daily labors. His vocation is a
reminder that the appeals of the Holy Spirit
are heard by the Christian in solitude.
People need to distance themselves
periodically from the emotional and
organizational aspects of their lives with
family, church, other people and charitable
associations. The priest is a witness to this
need. Solitude restores to him and to others
the spiritual dimension of their lives with
God.
Prayerful recollection in moments of
silence and solitude is the best way to
become present to God in the midst of daily
activity.
A Priest’s Vulnerability
BY FATHER RICHARD BYRNE
i ne vocation oi me priest, is oiten
described in terms of pastoral care. The
priest cares for his people by speaking the
word of God and by celebrating the most
sacred rhythms of life in sacramental
mysteries, he cares by helping to shape a
group of individuals into a community
which is alive with the spirit of Christ.
This is a beautiful, challenging ideal. The
newly-ordained priest has great expectations.
As time passes, however, his enthusiasm may
begin to fade. Idealism ebbs away. Some
fellow priests leave the ministry. Others are
beset with problems and loneliness. He may
find himself buckling under criticism, worn
out and discouraged.
A priest may resign himself to making the
best of the situation. He may lose himself in
organizational activism. Or he may gradually
withdraw from people and become a rectory
priest, fulfilling only the minimal demands
of his service.
What has happened? The answer may lie
in the mystery of human suffering and
diminishment. The only way out is through
participation in the mystery of Christ whose
ministry was fulfilled in suffering, death, and
resurrection.
Both priest and community need to
remember that pastoral care is a two-way
street. The pastor is certainly called to care
for his people. But pastoral care involves
caring for the pastor as well. Priest and
congregation live and function well only in a
co-ministry of mutual communion and
reciprocity. They live a mystery of
interformation: priest forming people,
people forming their priest.
For the priest, this means living as a
vulnerable servant of the community.
Vulnerability bears a question: “Are you
with me?” The servant is not above his
master. The priest is not above or apart from
his people with a kind of privileged access to
divine mysteries that he dispenses to those
below.
The servant needs his master’s affirmation
and care if his service is to be loving and
creative. The priest as servant can joyfully
accept his vulnerability in this regard,
knowing that he cannot live by the power of
ordination alone. The priest needs the power
of the communty’s love. This love is
necessary daily bread for the priest; it
sustains him.
For the congregation this dimension of
pastoral care means that they help form
their pastor. They give shape and direction
to his life. Their response in many ways
determines the quality of his
servant-leadership. Sensitivity to this will
lead to spontaneous and concrete
expressions of congregational pastoral care,
moments when the people truly show their
care for the priest.
Discussion
Points And Questions
1. Father Byrne's central concept maintains that pastoral ministry is
shared by priest and congregation. What does he mean by this?
2. Why does Father Byrne say a priest is a vulnerable servant of the
community?
3. What problems do priests sometimes encounter during their
ministry?
4. Several authors discuss loneliness in connection with the vocation
of priests. Why do you think this happens?
5. What is the value of solitude according to Father van Kaam?
6. Is solitude important only for priests? Discuss this.
7. Father Castelot describes St. Paul’s relationship with his
communities. Why does he call these communities Paul's family?
8. Having read the articles, do you think loneliness is inevitable for
priests?
9. How can lay persons help their priests and pastors?
A priest can be nourished by his people
on many levels. It may be as simple as a
word of appreciation on a Christmas card or
a surprise birthday .celebration. It may be a
receptive face or an affirming nod during a
homily, or an honest word of criticism about
the same homily. Care for the pastor may
include a voluntary, “Is there anything I can
do to help in the parish?”
This care may extend from the warmth of
a handshake after Mass to generous service
on a parish council. The pastor who is a
vulnerable servant will experience all this as
an expression of the congregation’s care. He
hears in such expressions the voice of the
people saying, “Amen, pastor, go on!”
The most important foundation of a
community’s pastoral care, however, lies
beyond these instances. It lies in the overall
Christian life of the community which the
pastor sees gradually but visibly growing
toward the fullness of stature in Christ. Time
and again St. Paul was moved to praise and
to thank God for the growth of the
congregations he founded and nourished. “I
give thanks to my God every time I think of
you,” he wrote to the Philippians. Paul kept
going amidst opposition and suffering of
every kind because his congregations kept
responding to the Gospel. Their response to
Christ was their finest gift to him. It was
their fundamental mode of pastoral care.
Today’s priest needs the same response, a
growing commitment of his people to a full
Christian life.
THOUGH A PRIEST’S day might
be filled with people, his life still can
remain a lonely one. (NC Photo)
KNOW
YOUR FAITH
(All Articles on this page Coprighted 1980 by N. C. News Service)
Ministry And St. Paul
BY FATHER JOHN J. CASTELOT
In his Epistles, St. Paul discussed his
ministry in some detail. Much of this is still
relevant today. His mission was an apostolic
one, as is that of the modern pastor.
St. Paul was intent on forming Christian
communities: communities of people
conscious of their unity with Christ and with
each other, eager for the truth, fired by love
and expressing this love in mutual service. In
an intensely personal way he was dedicated
to those he had formed in Christ. They were
his family, the only family he could really
call his own.
Expressions of Paul’s affection for his
family are scattered throughout his letters:
“ . . . while we were among you we were as
gentle as any nursing mother fondling her
little ones. So well disposed were we to you,
in fact, that we wanted to share with you
not only God’s tidings but our very lives, so
dear had you become to us. . . You,
likewise, know how we exhorted every one
of you, as a father does his children . . .
when we were orphaned from you for a time
— in sight, not in mind — we were seized
with the greatest longing to see you” (1
Thessalonians 2: 7b-8, 11,17).
After telling the Corinthians all he has
suffered for the sake of Christ, Paul
continues: “Leaving other sufferings
unmentioned, there is that daily tension
pressing on me, my anxiety for all the
churches. Who is weak that I am not
affected by it? Who is scandalized that I am
not aflame with indignation? . . . This is the
third time I am coming to you, and I am not
going to burden you; for I do not want what
you have. 1 only want you. I will gladly
spend myself and be spent for yoursakes. If
I love you too much, will I be loved the less
for that?’’ (2 Corinthians 11:28-29;
12:14-15).
The Church at Corinth had given Paul no
little trouble. It had been riddled by cliques,
with some professing allegiance to Paul,
another to the spellbinding preacher,
Apollos, yet others to Cephas (Peter). In
countering this, Paul reminds them of the
function of apostolic ministers: “After all,
who is Apollos? and who is Paul? simply
ministers through whom you became
believers, each of them doing only what the
Lord assigned him. I planted the seed and
Apollos watered it, but God made it grow.
This means that neither he who plants nor
he who waters is of any special account.
only God, who gives the growth’
Corinthians 3: 5-7).
(1
Here Paul touches on one of the peculiar
difficulties of the priestly ministry. Only
rarely do priests see the results of their work
and prayer. Priests have to be content to
leave the outcome to God, in his own good
time. This can be frustrating over a period of
years, especially when priests have to accept
so many apparent failures.
This can aggravate priests’ inescapable
loneliness. Fathers of families can come
home and share with their wives and
children; priests have no one waiting at
home for them. Often enough, no one seems
to care one way or the other. Yet priests do
not usually go around crying for sympathy.
They accept loneliness as an inevitable result
of their chosen lives.
But if parishes are to be families in more
than name alone, it might help if people
were at least aware of their parish father’s
basic loneliness, fatigue, frustration, and
very human need for understanding and
support. It is simply a matter of being
sensitive to his situation and responding in
kind to his love and concern.