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> Vocation: Calling > Priesthood
> Spirituality of the Diocesan Priest
One Pastor's Perspective  This past year, thanks to the generosity of Archbishop Mallon and of the Parishes that I serve, I had the privilege of taking a six month sabbatical. It was a wonderful time and a wonderful experience. I spent some time vacationing, some time at St. Michael's Retreat, Lumsden, and attended a one semester sabbatical program for priests offered at St. Patrick's Seminary, San Francisco. It was a time of grace for me. I was able to study, to read and to pray, to nourish my body and my soul. What was so wonderful about this sabbatical experience was that I was able to just be with the Lord. I had no other responsibilities, no pressing engagements, no talks or homilies to prepare, no other places I had to be. The Lord really did touch my life during this time. It was a kind of Mountaintop/Transfiguration experience for me. What I became aware of was that, as much as I was enjoying this time, the Lord was telling me that I needed to go back down the mountain. He was telling me that I had been given new life to share with my people at home. As much as I enjoyed this focused time with the Lord, and knowing that my life at home would not afford me the opportunity to remain so God-centered, I knew that I wanted and needed to be with my people.The spirituality of the Diocesan Priest is the spirituality of availability. The diocesan priest needs to be able to find the Lord in the unexpected. When my telephone or doorbell rings, I have no clue as to what is about to be put upon my plate. It could have to do with a birth or a death, a marriage or a divorce. It could have to do with church finances or the church vacuum cleaner. It could have to do with church policies, or with parishioners in conflict. The only thing that I am sure of, when I reach for the phone or answer the door, is that the person I am about to engage wants to talk about something important enough to them that they want to bring it to me. They need me to be present to them. They need me to bring God-sense (my word - sort of like common-sense, but different) to them in their situation. The spirituality of availability can be a real challenge in that the life of a pastor can become very fragmented. In fact, that is the life of the pastor: fragmented, distracted. When I was returning from my sabbatical I was well aware that it would be a challenge to keep my focus on Christ. There were just so many responsibilities, so many unknowns, so many unpredictables, so many distractions. I was also aware that the Lord wants me to find my way to Him in and through these very things that seem to pull me away from Him. By its very nature the life of the diocesan priest is like that of the faithful, his people. He shares their concerns, their joys and sorrows, their economic upturns and downturns, their community victories and losses, their inner conflicts and relationship stresses. For the diocesan priest to be juggling several balls at the same time is for him to be one with his people who are themselves juggling several balls at the same time. If life is anything at all in our time it is this: fragmented. There are so many demands on the time and energy of our people. How do they keep their eyes fixed on Christ? As diocesan priests we can identify with their struggle to keep their eyes fixed on Christ not just from the outside but because we live it too. My struggle, and my call, as a parish priest and as a fellow Christian with my people, is to keep my focus on Christ in the midst of all the distractions and fragmentation of my own life and ministry and to help my people to find God in the midst of all their distractions and the fragmentation in their lives. Living in the world is a good thing. It is, in the words of Genesis 1:31, "very good", as long as we do not seek to possess the world or to be possessed by it. In his book, Quickening the Fire in Our Midst, the Challenge of Diocesan Priestly Spirituality", George Aschenbrenner speaks of what he calls "monasticism of the heart". What he means by monasticism of the heart is a "fundamental reannouncement of identity in faith... Baptism, as it initiates in our hearts this monastic experience of God alone, involves in some careful, real way a renunciation of this world, with all its goodness and all its allurements-precisely a renunciation of the world as our identity center (italics mine). As baptized we stand in Christ, identified finally and fully in God alone... Diocesan priestly spirituality builds on this radical reannouncement of identity. In its own distinctive way it involves a renunciation of this world as the center of identity. Through an ongoing, graced, expansive experience of God's love, a whole shift of an individual's center of gravity occurs. Gradually more and more identified in God's love alone, the priest experiences a certain disengagement from the world as an identity center-precisely because he is so fully engaged with the fire of God's love". That I am centered on God in all things and at all times in my own life is an ongoing challenge. It is, I believe, the challenge of every diocesan priest. Yet it is the challenge that most unites us with our people, the people we are called to serve. This world, with all the demands it puts on us, with all its responsibilities, with all its distractions, is holy ground. Pray God that I can be attuned to the divine in every event, in every moment, in every phone call. Pray God that I can help my brothers and sisters to touch the divine as I journey with them on our daily trek to Emmaus. Father Rick Krofchek Esterhazy Pastoral Region | |||||||||||||
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