In my conferences for this formation term, I am focusing on the “best practices” for priestly formation. In today’s conference, I would like to spend some time offering a rather extended reflection on the “best practices” of human formation. Human formation is certainly a basic of what we do here. At Saint Meinrad, I would say that we have given this dimension of priestly formation particular emphasis and not without just cause.
Often we have heard the injunction of our late Holy Father, Blessed John Paul II, that the personality of the priest forms an effective bridge to the possibility of ministry. The pope’s words in Pastores Dabo Vobis give us insight into how we must initially proceed in seminary formation. “The priest, who is called to be a ‘living image’ of Jesus Christ, head and shepherd of the Church, should seek to reflect in himself, as far as possible, the human perfection which shines forth in the incarnate Son of God.” (Pastores Dabo Vobis, 43)
As a bridge, the priest must understand the dynamics of his own life and personality as well as any man can. He must know what motivates him and what he finds life-giving. These insights are not always at the surface of the human personality and are not always evident in a pronounced way in the daily engagements of seminary and priestly life.
In my reflections today, reflections that I hope will take us back to the basics of priestly formation and give us some new insights in doing so, I would like to focus on the qualities of the human personality that I see as essential for quality formation to take place. All authentic human persons display these qualities, even if they may need to be engaged more explicitly in the work of seminary formation.
St. Ireneaus famously commented that the glory of God was the human person fully alive. This certainly seems to be an insight in keeping with the message of Blessed John Paul II. We might paraphrase by saying that the work of evangelization is accomplished readily, even passively, through the expression of authentic human living. Is the new evangelization, that is the re-evangelization of the Holy Church, dependent in our age on reclaiming authentic humanity? I would say that undoubtedly it is.
What are the essential qualities of authentic human being? First, I would say a kind of groundedness; second, an authentic generativity; and finally, a sense of gratitude.
First, I would say that the well-formed human personality is grounded. This groundedness is related to the spiritual practice of humility. Humility is a virtue often misread in the life of the Church, and even more so in the world. Our social climate promotes pride, even a false pride, in one’s accomplishments. The social order tells us to do what it takes, even to the point of lying about ourselves, in order to achieve the ends which that same social order has established as the authentic markers of success: wealth, power and popularity.
The great teachers of our spiritual tradition, however, speak of a need to cultivate the virtue of humility as the antidote to the ills of the age. In the words of St. Therese of Avila, “We shall never learn to know ourselves except by endeavoring to know God; for, beholding His greatness, we realize our own littleness; His purity shows us our foulness; and by meditating upon His humility we find how very far we are from being humble.”
Our Holy Father Pope Benedict has remarked:
Do not follow the path of pride, rather, follow the path of humility. Go against the current trend: do not listen to the persuasive and biased chorus of voices that today form much of the propaganda of life, drenched in arrogance and violence, in dominance and success at all costs, where appearance and possession to the detriment of others is openly promoted.
What is this humility to which our Tradition testifies? It is simply telling the Truth about oneself. Humility is being grounded in the Truth. When we speak of the new evangelization as a re-evangelization, we must speak the Truth about the Church, about its condition in our local communities, about its condition in my heart and soul. Humility requires that I tell the Truth about myself to myself, that I stop presenting false images about my piety, my holiness, my worth to myself, whether those images are inflated or whether they are detracting.
Spiritual pride is expressed in hypocrisy, that is, trying to convince myself and others that I am better than I am. Spiritual pride is also expressed in lies about my self-worth, my failures and my lack of virtue. Humility is telling the Truth for good or ill. And when we know the Truth, it will set us free. When we acknowledge the Truth, we are already expressing a new evangelization in our lives. Ultimately, this Truth reveals to us that we cannot effectively preach to the nations what we ourselves are unwilling to admit and ultimately believe.
Knowledge of self is therefore essential to fulfilling the evangelical commission. We can hardly expect the nations to listen when we ourselves have become confounded internally by the cacophony of false messages presented by culture, social conditioning and the persistent voice of false ego.
When we learn to tell the Truth about ourselves, one thing is revealed. We are not alone. We are not only in the presence of others, we need others. Blessed John Paul II said:
Of special importance is the capacity to relate to others. This is truly fundamental for a person who is called to be responsible for a community and to be a “man of communion.” This demands that the priest not be arrogant, or quarrelsome, but affable, hospitable, sincere in his words and heart, prudent and discreet, generous and ready to serve, capable of opening himself to clear and brotherly relationships and of encouraging the same in others, and quick to understand, forgive and console.” (Pastores Dabo Vobis, 43)
An essential aspect of the new evangelization, both internal and external, is the reawakening of the need for reference to the other. The human person is a social being. We have lost this insight by too close attention to the ranting of the false philosophers of individualism and atomism. To quote the poet John Donne: “No man is an island, entire of himself.” We know this when we are humble enough to be honest. We desire to reach out to others when we realize that those embracing arms are also embracing our truest selves.
When Blessed John Paul II speaks about the nuptial meaning of the body and affective maturity, he is proposing, to an age inebriated with false messages of isolation, the essential truth that lies in the heart of each one, the truth of our need for one another. The maturity we seek to authentically exercise the holy priesthood is affective maturity and that affect cannot be directed toward the contemplation of self. Affect that only loves the self as an object is narcissism. True love always considers the other. We only penetrate the truth of the human mystery in the presence of others. Our brothers and sisters are an essential part of our mystery. This is the new evangelization and an insight as ancient as the seventh day of creation.
Grounded means knowing who I am and how I am; that is, I am always in the presence of others. Going back now to the business model proposed at the onset of these reflections: What are the best practices for human formation? Practically speaking, how can we achieve our goals in making the priest an authentic bridge through his human personality?
We might begin with the acknowledgement and cultivation of true friendships. Many of us have experienced a new awakening of friendship in the life of the seminary. I have made lifelong friends among my former classmates and now fellow priests. Many of us learn in a very different way the true meaning of friendship here that is grounded not only in common interests and fellow feelings, but in an authentic spiritual bond that we often gain only in the context of formation.
Friendships often become deeper and more profound in seminary and priestly life. We depend upon our friends as authentic markers of our ability to reach out to others and as true barometers of authenticity in ourselves. Friends confide in each other. They challenge each other. They support each other, often through common activities and pursuits and often by being authentic mirrors to the reality of the pursuit of vocation. Friends help me in discernment. They do this because they know me deeply. They know me deeply because I have shared deeply with them. Friends pray together and are not embarrassed about the spiritual aspects of their relationship. Friends put up with one another, as St. Benedict says, by bearing their weaknesses of body and spirit and personality.
Authentic friendship is a true act of humility and therefore a truly divine act. The ability to make and maintain authentic friendships is a sign of the seminarian’s ability to be true to the vocation of being configured in Christ, who said to His disciples, “I know longer call you servants for a servant does not know the mind of his master. I call you friends.” (John 15:15). Friends learn from one another. They lean on one another. Friends love one another in affective maturity. In the context of a celibate house of formation, friendship is a true and authentic expression of sexual integration. As Pope John Paul has mentioned:
We are speaking of a love that involves the entire person, in all his or her aspects - physical, psychic and spiritual - and which is expressed in the “nuptial meaning” of the human body, thanks to which a person gives oneself to another and takes the other to oneself. (Pastores Dabo Vobis, 44)
Because the friendships that we develop here are true and deep, we feel their loss more keenly when a friend decides that formation as a priest is no longer his calling. There is great sadness in this loss of daily society and the support we feel in our meaningful friendships. The sense of loss is real, however. It is a sign, indeed a sacrament, of the gap formed in the life of every celibate person. Our keen experience of that loss is also a blessing. It demonstrates to us that we have gained the ability to cultivate loving friendships and thus we can do it again and again. In the old days, we often spoke in religious communities of particular friendships, that is, intimate relationships that were exclusive. Obviously, this can be detrimental not only to the individuals, but also to the life of the community. However, the ability to make deeply committed friends is positive so I say: have particular friends, only have many of them.
Another best practice in human formation in a seminary is counseling. I am a firm believer in the power of counseling to make a profound difference in the life of the seminarian and the future priest. In my seminary formation, I frequently had recourse to our counseling center. It is a productive way of carrying out one’s formation. Even today, I occasionally see the need to visit with one of the sisters. Even the rector cannot always be right. Even the rector needs another head, another opinion, another voice. Counseling is a relationship that assists us in asking the right questions and seeking the right answers in areas such as relationships, sexual identity, public personality, addictive and compulsive behaviors, etc.
Often, new seminarians are referred to see one of our counselors. This does not mean that something is wrong; it means that something could be better. That holds true for everyone in this room today. Every seminarian, indeed every faculty member and administrator, can benefit from the periodic use of our counseling center. We are truly blessed at Saint Meinrad by our dedicated and professional sisters. They have devoted their lives to our service here. They have taught us the central place that counseling has in the world of modern seminary formation, as was evidenced by the John Jay Report that appeared this past summer.
Seeking counseling is not weak; it is responsible. It is responsible to do everything in our power to make ourselves the best men and the best priests we can be. I know that there is also some cultural bias against mental health care. While understandable within particular cultural contexts, it is necessary for priests working in this country to be comfortable with the process of counseling, not only for themselves, but for those whom they will serve.
Another best practice in being a grounded person is acquiring appropriate manners and etiquette skills. My grandmother was a great lady of manners and she had a saying which, in the innocence of my youth, I never quite understood. She said, “Anyone who would put a fork into a piece of bread would kill a man.” At first, I considered her observations about correct behavior to be a bit over the top. I have come to realize, however, that, first and foremost, the priest is a gentleman and there are two tried-and-true rules for a gentleman’s behavior. One is that he behaves like a gentleman at all times, even when no one is around to see him. Two is that he presumes that everyone he meets is a lady or a gentleman as well and he treats them as such.
G.K. Chesterton once said of Charles Dickens that he was a great man because the mark of a great man is that he makes other men feel great. Truer words were never spoken. Being a gentleman requires consideration, consideration of my own behavior and words and their impact upon those around me and consideration of others. This also requires a good bit of forethought. Being a gentleman is not an act; it is a habit and as such comes second nature to us. For priests, we might say that being a gentleman is pastoral. Correct manners involve who we are as priests. Far from being unmanly, the rules of etiquette teach us how to be real men.
Another best practice for groundedness is what I might call a functional extroversion. All of us have different personalities. Statistics show that many who are attracted to various forms of religious life are introverts by nature. Natural introspection is a gift that helps nourish our lives of prayer. Being a public minister in the Church, however, requires an extension of my social skills. I cannot be an effective priest if I cannot talk to people. I cannot be a good priest if I have to run to my room every five minutes because I am too shy to meet the public. I cannot be a priest if I cannot mingle in a crowd. Do I always like to do it? Perhaps not, but you must learn to do it, often at the expense of great energy and personal cost. This is essential. When we meet one another in the corridor, there must be an acknowledgement of the other person even if it is only a simple, “Good morning” or a nod of the head.
If I routinely meet others without greeting them, I cannot function as a priest who is called to be an agent of unity. Simple social interactions such as carrying on a meaningful table conversation, anticipating the needs of one another at table, looking attentive in class or in presentations are basic human skills. If it costs you something to practice these basic human skills, then offer it up. They must be mastered. Nonchalance in simple social engagements leads to others thinking that you simply do not care. Here, we may know how odd you are and give you a pass. In the parish, your lack of proper social engagement will be read as callousness or worse. You never have a second chance to make a first impression. Make the most of it by practicing here. I will conclude this section with the words of Pope John Paul II:
Human maturity, and in particular affective maturity, requires a clear and strong training in freedom, which expresses itself in convinced and heartfelt obedience to the “truth of one’s own being,” to the “meaning” of one’s own existence, that is to the “sincere gift of self” as the way and fundamental content of the authentic realization of self.

A second quality of the human person that the seminary calls us to perfect is that of generativity. A fully alive human being is not only grounded; he or she is also generative. A great deal of ink has been spilled in recent years concerning the generative aspect of priestly ministry. There can be little doubt that there is a quality of generativity that must be a part of who we are as priests. In the words of Archbishop Sheen, “‘Increase and multiply’ is a law of sacerdotal life no less than biological life.” (The Priest is not his Own, 57)
That generativity does not begin in some distant time; rather, it must begin now. You aspire to be called “father.” What kind of life are you going to offer the community now? Archbishop Sheen goes on to enumerate several ways in which the priest demonstrates generativity in his life and ministry. One is convert making. Another is fostering vocations. Obviously, convert making touches directly on the quest of the new evangelization. Perhaps it would be a fruitful discussion for a later conference, because I believe we shortchange the task of convert making in the Church today.
In this conference, I would like to focus on fostering vocations. Certainly, we have heard enough of this in our dioceses and religious communities. We know how to speak about vocations. All of us here, I am sure, could offer eloquent testimony to the action of God in our vocational lives, unique as they are. We know how to attract young people to the priesthood and religious life. We know, to some extent, what motivates them. I would like to take a bit of a different angle on this question, however, and talk about the way in which we foster vocations here in the seminary, among ourselves. How does each of you foster the vocations of his brothers here? How do we all purposefully help sustain the call that has been given to each and that has brought us to this crucial juncture in discerning God’s will in our lives? How do we act as spiritual fathers and nurturers of one another’s vocational journey?
I would say we must first begin by fostering a life in community that is life-giving and not desiccating. What is this community of formation about? It is about prayer. It is about study. It is about cultural challenge. It is about service. Vocations can only be fostered here when we are authentic about the nature of the community. I cannot be generative in fostering vocations if I never challenge the cultural expectations of the larger society. I cannot foster vocations if I denigrate the importance of prayer through my idle talk and bad example. I cannot be generative about vocational life if I never offer any example of service or even meaningful conversation to those who live with me in this community. Let us all ask ourselves these important questions concerning the generativity of our lives together.
1. Do I frequently ask my brothers to pray with me outside the established times of prayer in the community?
2. Is my table conversation at each meal edifying or do I engage in silly banter for the purpose of amusing others?
3. Is my recreational activity life-giving or do I often succumb to the popular culture?
4. How much time do I spend isolated in my room using the internet or watching television?
5. Am I quick to volunteer my services for house or class projects?
6. Do I do the least I need to do to get by?
7. Do I murmur and criticize the faculty, administration and my fellow students behind their backs?
These are a few questions. There might be many more. Are we asking these kinds of questions? Are we bringing concerns we have about the generative quality of the seminary to the rector or the vice rector? If we aspire to be called “father,” which we do, what kind of father do you want to be? Do you desire to be a father who is honest and open, who gives himself freely to prayer, who is willing to listen? Or do you desire to be a father who is backbiting, deceptive, critical and engages in unmanly gossip and idle talk? If we focus on the quality of generativity in our priestly formation, which we must, let us resolve to continually be fine-tuning our means of attaining this essential quality. Then we are fostering vocations here. Nothing can kill the tender vocation faster than a barbed word or a misplaced criticism.
When looking for some best practices for generativity, I will consider three: Cultural enrichment, an open door policy and listening. First, cultural enrichment. In your time at Saint Meinrad, you will undoubtedly hear two things from the rector. Every rector, after all, has his little catchphrases. The first is the need for a spirit of arête to penetrate the life of the community. Arête, in Greek, means habitual excellence. As seminarians and as priests, we should be striving to express this excellence in everything we do. Excellence means never settling for the mediocre in ourselves or in our communities. It means constantly challenging what is here. It means practically implementing a strategic vision for how things can be better. It means communal conversion in the most concrete sense.
The other expression you will hear from me is “raise your gaze.” The poet T.S. Eliot wrote these words describing the condition of modern culture in The Wasteland:
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
Eliot’s point is this. The cultural point of reference of modern humanity is decidedly in the dust, focused on what Blessed John Henry Newman called the fanciful or the popular. Our cultural icons today are earthbound. The music, the literature, the art we engage in drag our consciousness into the dust, where fear reigns. We are caught in a quagmire of sexualized, materialized images of what is supposed to be important in life. We have lost sight of the transcendent in an eternal contemplation of ourselves.
We cannot think ourselves immune to this contagion here. We are all products of our commercialized culture. Where do you spend your time? How do you enrich yourself culturally? Are your cultural imaginations buried in the stony rubbish of our modern prejudices? An example of this is Facebook, Twitter and other social networking tools. Who cares what people are having for lunch? How much time do we spend following the inane daily activities and incidental musings of our hundreds of friends, when our minds and imaginations might be better engaged?
Raising our gaze means looking up from the immediacy of a navel-gazing popular culture and seeing our true citizenship in heaven. As priests, our lives are supposed to point toward the transcendent and the meaningful in the material, not to the material as an end in itself. Raising our gaze means trying to find cultural expressions that are generative: music, literature, theater, and art that are engaging for the long run and not merely satisfying for the length of a reign in the top 40 or until the final bell is sounded in the wrestling match. Engaging a more generative culture is not snobbish or elitist. It is human. Just because you do not understand something does not mean that it is worthless. It merely means that there is an invitation.
A second generative best practice is the open door policy. The open door is an invitation for others to come in. While it is true that we must, at times, have some privacy in order to pray, in order to focus on study and complete projects, we also need to invite others in. This is perhaps related to the functional extroversion I spoke of earlier. A good practice is to have your door open for about one hour a couple of nights per week. An open door policy encourages all of us to be more open to hospitality. Needless to say, the hospitality offered need only be our company, but we need to be willing to offer our company without reserve on occasion. It is good practice for becoming the public person that the priest must necessarily be.
An open door policy also encourages another good priestly (and human) value: cleanliness. Brothers, there is little to no excuse for living in a room that is not ready for visits almost at a moment’s notice. Dirty or extremely cluttered living spaces indicate two things: one, a lack of personal care and perhaps even good hygiene. Second, a lack of stewardship and care for the property of others. For the most part, all of us will spend the rest of our lives in borrowed living spaces. Keeping those spaces habitable for the next occupant is an essential formation question.
Connected to the open door policy is the final generative best practice: listening. In a culture inundated with aural clutter, listening is often the most important aspect of what we do as priests. As all of you are aware, one of the first charges I give to our new seminarians is “being here.” Attention is a key aspect of seminary formation. It is also the first step of obedience. Obedience begins with quality listening and that must be practiced early in our lives of formation. The practice of good listening begins with a willingness to listen, an open ear and an equally open heart. After ordination, many of you will realize that good confessions, good counseling and often good teaching depend upon the ability that people have to tell their stories and the willingness of the priest to listen to those stories. Sometimes that is all they need.
Listening is a sign of respect and active listening indicates a real interest in the lives of others. Listening is also the first stage of empathy and compassion. St. Benedict, in the prologue to the holy Rule, encourages his disciples not only to listen but to incline the ear of their hearts. Listening opens our hearts to the needs of our brothers here. It makes us worthy to be called brothers to one another. If we aspire to that spiritual fatherhood of which we hear so much, then the first quality of a good father is to pay attention, to carefully listen to those for whom he has spiritual care.
The final quality for human formation that I would like to focus on today is gratitude. Our sense of gratitude for our lives, our vocations, our education, our formation, our friends, indeed for everything, draws its energy and power from one source, Jesus Christ. When I was growing up as a Baptist child in the South, in Sunday School we had a song, “O How I Love Jesus.” The words are not difficult to remember.
O how I love Jesus! O how I love Jesus! O how I love Jesus! Because he first loved me!
Our sense of gratitude comes from our acknowledgement of who we are, the enlightenment we have received in a true spirit of humility. We are sons and daughters of God. We are a people picked up by the Good Samaritan, the Lord. We are those who have received, completely without merit and without cost to ourselves, the love of God who cared so much for the world that He gave His only Son to be our savior. As St. Paul reminds us in the Letter to the Romans:
While we were still helpless, yet died at the appointed time for the ungodly. Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person, though perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. How much more then, since we are now justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath. (Romans 5:6-9)
Gratitude for so great a love spills over for us in the perpetual sacrifice that makes present this divine gift in a never-ending way, the Holy Eucharist. Eucharistia, thanksgiving, is the source and summit of our lives as Christians. Our appreciation and celebration of the Eucharist tells us how to live. Just as Christ Jesus mandated that we love God and love our neighbors, so our appreciation of the gift of redemption and the gift of the Holy Mass must inform our daily lives. Brothers and sisters, this is not rocket science. Saying “thank you” is easy if our hearts are truly attuned to what we have received.
What are the best practices for gratitude? Simply saying the words, for a start. Writing thank you notes is another important best practice. I do not mean thank you e-mails. I mean notes sent through the mail or placed in our community mailboxes. Every year, I receive dozens of notes from thoughtful seminarians who want to express their gratitude for what they have received in formation or in a class. This is so important. How could we go through four to six years of formation without ever acknowledging with sincere gratitude what we have received here? I keep every thank you note I receive, because each one is a testament to what we are doing here: instilling a sense of purposeful thankfulness for the gifts God has given us.
Another best practice is a purposeful meal prayer. When we pray the meal blessing privately, let it not be perfunctory or trite. Let it be heartfelt and meaningful, even if it’s only for grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. Even the base animals offer signs of gratitude for what they have received at the hand of others. Our failure to do so places us on a lower level. Only lives steeped in sin could be as base as that.
Brothers and sisters, today I have presented some values and attitudes for our common life that touch on the qualities of a well-developed human person. I began this conference with a brief discussion of the new evangelization as a re-evangelization. When we dare to become better people, we proclaim the Good News to a world often drowning in mediocrity. As we gather insight on the issue, we can do no better than to turn to the insight from St. Paul in his Letter to the Ephesians:
He gave some as apostles, others as prophets, others as evangelists, others as pastors and teachers, to equip the holy ones for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the extent of the full stature of Christ, so that we may no longer be infants, tossed by waves and swept along by every wind of teaching arising from human trickery, from their cunning in the interests of deceitful scheming. Rather, living the truth in love, we should grow in every way into him who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, with the proper functioning of each part, brings about the body’s growth and builds itself up in love. (Ephesians 4:11-16)
In our pursuit of these lofty goals, we must turn to the aid of the saints, and in particular Our Lady.

In my rector’s conferences for this formation year, I would like to focus on the gift of vocation, or rather the idea of vocation as a gift. In his very interesting book on the Catholic priesthood, Matthew Leavering focuses on the centrality of giftedness and receptivity in the exercise of God’s salvific power. All that we have comes from God whether we acknowledge that central truth or not. All that we need to do is to offer a proper thanksgiving for His manifold gifts. Our lives become confused when we fail to seriously recognize this giftedness, when we fail to acknowledge that we are nothing without Him? And yet, our dilemma must be that of the psalmist who asked: “How can I make a return to the Lord for all the good He has given me?” How do we respond to God’s singular invitation to intimacy? Obviously the answer is first and foremost in prayer.
What is prayer? Prayer is the activity of cultivating a relationship with God. Theologically speaking, it is “raising one’s mind and heart to God” according to St. John Damascene. Or perhaps we prefer St. Therese of Lisieux: “For me prayer is an upward leap of the heart, an untroubled glance toward heaven, a cry of gratitude and love which I utter from the depths of sorrow as well as from the heights of joy.” As the cultivation of that essential relationship, prayer is the foundation of our lives and work as disciples of Jesus and a forteriori as priests. There is no priestly life without prayer. In the last chapter of St. John’s Gospel Jesus confronts St. Peter after the events of the passion, events over which St. Peter had reason to be trebly ashamed. Our Lord asks St. Peter a series of questions: “Do you love me?” To St. Peter’s affirmative answer, Jesus then gives the commission to feed, tend, feed. The intention of this conditional question is clear: Ministry depends upon one thing, a firm and stable relationship with God in Christ. We may undertake the laudable tasks of counseling, teaching, guiding, and serving others in a context in which faith is not a part of the equation. These things are not ministry. Ministry demands that the Divine Persons be in the midst of the human activity and this is only accomplished through a relationship of love with those same Divine Persons. We do what we do as disciples of Christ when we make Christ the center of what we do. This centrality is cultivated in an active life of prayer. There are many ways to engage the life of prayer and all of these ways can be fruitful. I will speak more directly about these various ways below. First, however, I would like to point to the central reality of a life of prayer and the principle motivation for cultivating a life of prayer: It is simply the understanding that: You are not alone. This is the cornerstone of prayer. Jesus said: And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.

This is, in effect, the essence of all prayer and all theology grounded in the Holy Trinity. It is the essence of God’s love for us, which is so great that he gave his only son. You are not alone. You do not have to be alone.

And of course, it is a message that, all of us, young and old, rich and poor alike long to hear, a message that so many in our world today are desperate to hear. That is why we pray. Our willingness to pray indicates that we are desperate to be connected, because loneliness is epidemic.
We see it in the empty eyes of the youthful victim of abuse, the victim of self-serving self sufficiency, the men and women who walk the streets of this city in search of a little dignity, a little relief from the harsh reality of the urban inferno.
Where do we experience the need for prayer?

We see it in the eyes of the aged and abandoned, the victim of the cult of youth, of isolation, desperation, fear, in those besieged by self-doubt, betrayal, loss. For them we must pray.
We hear it in the cries of the poor, the homeless, the marginalized, the outcast, the voices of those who cry for bread, for acceptance, for homeland. We hear it in the philosophy of libertarianism, of self-determination, of manifest destiny, self reference, in false and pernicious understandings of freedom, of choice. We know it in our culture’s insistence on rugged individualism, popularism, pioneerism, so-called prophecy. We know what loneliness is because we feel the pinch of its skeletal fingers in the very heart of our being, in the vacancy of the stare that confronts us daily in the mirrors of our self-perception. We know what loneliness is because we, though wounded, continue to wound by turning our back on the blankness of the other’s, our neighbor’s pleading. In spite of the endless rhetoric from the cult of self sufficiency, and individualism, we still long for love, long to feel it in the presence of others, the warm breath of human contact, human kindness. We long to know it in our care for our brothers and sisters, in the awkward gestures of friendship and fellow feeling, of fraternal care engendered by friends, by family, even by strangers. We long to be a part of something, to be accepted in spite of our awkwardness and so we pray to gain access to the throne of grace, the font of Love Himself.
And when we cannot find that place of belonging, we seek it in importune places or we hide our loneliness in mind and spirit numbing substances, in experiences cyberic, in the comfortability of sin. But try as we might we cannot escape the truth, the truth that is written in the very marrow of our being, we need to be in relationship, with God, with Christ and with the community. We yearn for company, for understanding, for love, for human affection, for warmth, for a gentle hand, a consoling smile. Prayer brings that. We long for love, respect, prayer is the source of that. In all of our efforts on behalf of building relationship we know the outcome of our prayer is a single insight. God is Love. God is here. God is relational, that is his nature, communion, and love. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, infinitely present to one another. We present to the Trinity in prayer. Through the Trinity present to one another. Prayer is involved in a gracious economic outreach to a needy humanity. Engaged in a endlessly varying polyphony. Entangled in the mystery of persons and habits. Entrenched in the life of the world and in the beatitude of heaven. In Touch with the longing of humanity. In contact with our deepest desires. Prayer makes God present to us. Prayer is Real presence. Catholicism is authentic humanism.

And we, who are created in his likeness may also be, can also be, must also be
Involved in the lives of others. Engaged in the messiness of the human condition
Entangled in the joys and sorrows, the hopes and despairs of our fellow pilgrims.
Entrenched in life, in the pure essence of living. In Touch with the misery of the world
In contact with the throbbing pulse of creation. This encounter with the Divine Reality which is also an encounter with our neighbor is an encounter with our deepest selves, our deepest desires, our most profound hopes expressed in a life of purposeful prayer. Once we understand the essence of prayer, we must then ask ourselves how to pray. What is the best way to pray? There is no best way to pray. As seminarians and priests we are given certain parameters to our prayer, but these are few. The late Holy Father Blessed John Paul II once said: “How to pray? This is a simple matter. I would say: Pray any way you like as long as you do pray.” St. Josemaria Escriva said: “Prayer is the foundation of the edifice. All prayer is powerful.”
As in any relationship, prayer is speaking and listening. How successful can a relationship be with another person when there is no listening? And yet, we often try that trick with God. Saying prayers becomes our default mode. Yet, God has infinitely more to say to us that we have to say to Him especially in light of His omniscience. As Pope John Paul II said: “In a conversation there are always an ‘I’ and a ‘thou’ or ‘you.’ In this case … the ‘Thou’ is more important, because our prayer begins with God … We begin to pray, believing that it is our own initiative that compels us to do so. Instead, we learn that it is always God’s initiative within us …” Listening to God can be risky, however, because in our heart of hearts we know what God is asking us to do. Perhaps we do not want to do it. Like the lazy husband who claims he could not hear his wife asking him fifteen times to take out the garbage, we sit back and rely on our powers of self-deception in the essentially facile process of discernment. Prayer also demands time and energy. In truth, it is the only thing that we can devote ourselves to that will truly profit us. Our Fr. Hillary Otttensmeyer is famous for saying: “Until you are convinced that prayer is the best use of your time, you will not find time for prayer.” Truth indeed.
Prayer is speaking and listening. It is also presence as I mentioned above. Relationship is relational because the parties are present to one another. In human relationships we feel the pain of separation from our friends, our family, and our loved ones. How can we not feel cosmically that same pain of separation from our Source of Life? The best practices of speaking and listening in prayer do not come naturally, they come through disciplined practice. No one can expect mystical experience in their beginning practice of prayer.
The development of skills for speaking and listening to God in prayer overflow into the life of the community. The way we speak and listen in prayer and the quality of that speaking and listening helps us in our lives with one another. The speech of prayer informs community life and what is experienced in community life, its speech patterns may well be an indicator of the quality of prayer. In Chapter Four of the Rule of St. Benedict, the Father of Monks speaks of the necessity of the disciple:
To guard one's tongue against evil and depraved speech. Not to love much talking. Not to speak useless words or words that move to laughter. Not to love much or boisterous laughter. To listen willingly to holy reading. To devote oneself frequently to prayer.
Good practices in speaking and listening in the community arise from prayer. Prayer informs our way of engaging others in the community. Prayer also helps us discern challenges in this area that every community faces.
In the letter of James, we read:
So the tongue is a little member and boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is an unrighteous world among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the cycle of nature, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by humankind, but no human being can tame the tongue -- a restless evil, full of deadly poison.
In a community, gossip, murmuring, and idle speech are poisonous. They are toxic. In a community such as ours we live in close quarters. We know each other. We know more than we need to know. As the philosopher said: We all know where our goats are tied. Close living offers us the opportunity to love one another in more profound ways. It can also be the occasion of useless talk, inappropriate humor, ridicule and murmuring against the system. This is something that can be corrected, but only in a spirit of prayer and that prayer requires perseverance. As Blessed John Paul II once said:
Prayer gives us strength for great ideals, for keeping up our faith, charity, purity, generosity; prayer gives us strength to rise up from indifference and guilt, if we have had the misfortune to give in to temptation and weakness. Prayer gives us light by which to see and to judge from God's perspective and from eternity. That is why you must not give up on praying
There are many ways to pray. In a recent talk I gave on the question of theology and Tradition, I mentioned that our engagement with the life and teaching of the Church can be conceived in three ways: 1) Directive; 2) Disciplinary; and 3) Devotional. In that context my discussion was on what constituted doctrinal versus less-than-doctrinal concerns in the life of the Church. The distinctions apply equally to the question of prayer and, in particular, our context within this community of faith and by extension in the Holy Priesthood. Directive prayer may be said to have two aspects. The first is the necessity of prayer as a generic reality. In order to be disciples, we must pray. I have already discussed this necessity above but it bears repeating. We must pray. How that prayer looks and the direction it takes may have the aspects of individual preferences (for the most part) but we must pray. Failure to pray is a failure to engage the very meaning of discipleship. Prayer may at times be dry, but it can never be absent. Prayer may have consolation and desolation as its prominent features, but it can never be disregarded. Within a life of prayer, worship is the primary form of directive prayer. We must worship God. What does this entail? In the law of Christ it means first and foremost a sincere desire to offer homage and supplication to our Divine Creator. Concretely it means praying with the Church in the Holy Eucharist. In a directive way, the Eucharist is the spine of all prayer. Famously, the Second Vatican Council defines the Eucharist as the “source and summit” of our lives as followers of Jesus. It is also the source and summit of prayer. All prayer, whether the public prayer of the Church or our private prayer leads us back to the Mass.
The Fathers held that the Eucharist makes the Church. This tells us something essential about prayer. The Eucharist is the central feature of a life devoted to cultivating a relationship with God because it connects us intimately with God. It connects us with the saving action of Christ on the cross. It connects us to his resurrection. It connects us to the events of the upper room, both the Last Supper and the Day of Pentecost. The Eucharist fills us with the love of God by filling our very bodies with the Bread of Life, which alone gives meaning to this world’s travails. The Eucharist also essentially connects us to one another. It makes us brothers and sisters in the One who is broken, poured out, shared and consumed. Our essential prayer to God goes through the saving acts of Christ and grabs on to others. Prayer is relationship and the Eucharist is relationship par excellence. Certainly the saints have always known this.
In the words of the Angelic Doctor:
Material food first changes into the one who eats it, and then, as a consequence, restores to him lost strength and increases his vitality. Spiritual food, on the other hand, changes the person who eats it into itself. Thus the effect proper to this Sacrament is the con¬ver-sion of a man into Christ, so that he may no longer live, but Christ lives in him.
Our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI has also commented that:
The Eucharist is a "mystery of faith" par excellence: "the sum and summary of our faith." The Church's faith is essentially a eucharistic faith, and it is especially nourished at the table of the Eucharist. Faith and the sacraments are two complementary aspects of ecclesial life. (Sacramentum Caritatis, 6)
In connection with seminary formation and the priesthood we often hear of the need to cultivate a “Eucharistic Spirituality”. While there is no gainsaying this insight, what precisely is a Eucharistic spirituality? First, I would say that it is seeing the Eucharist precisely for what it is: a cosmic engagement with the very core of our being and an essential element of the divine plan for creation. In other words, the celebration of the Eucharist, as I mentioned above is essential to the life of the world. Second, a Eucharistic Spirituality is an engaging, active attention to the presence of Christ not only in the Holy Mass but in its effects, that is, in the world. The disciple of a Eucharistic Spirituality sees Christ not only as a necessary metaphysical element to the well-being of creation, but an essential social element as well. The social order is never complete without Christ and the Eucharist is the authentic harbinger of the real presence of Christ in that same social order. Third, a Eucharistic Spirituality acknowledges the need for transformation. Just as the elements of bread and wine are transformed so should we look to be transformed in the economy of conversion and we should further look for the world to be transformed through the economy of salvation. This dependence upon transformation gives the devotee of the Eucharist a particular insight not only about the liturgical celebration but about the world, every person in it and indeed, himself. The insight is this: Things are not what they seem to be. In the Holy Eucharist we must train our minds and indeed our spirits to look beyond the veil of accident to see the veritas, the Truth of what is present. This is a pastoral insight as well. We must look beyond the accidents of our lives to the Truth of Christ present. It applies to our self perception as well. Therefore a Eucharistic Spirituality is also an authentic psychology, an authentic sociology and an authentic moral code. In the throes of a Eucharistic Spirituality we learn to expect miracles of conversion. We accept a willing suspension of immediate judgment.
Armed with these insights, what are the best practices for our engagement with this essential prayer of the Church. First, we must take the Holy Mass seriously. The Mass is not another part of our day. It is the center of our day. It demands our attention, our careful consideration, and our equally careful preparation. The solemn celebration of the Eucharist engages our imagination and our will. We see in it the culmination of our morning movement and the source of energy for the rest of the day. Preparation for the Eucharist means several things. It means observing the Eucharistic fast carefully. It means being on time and ready to pray having predisposed ourselves to engage the miraculous. It means full, conscious and active participation. It means praying the responses. It means singing with the community at the prescribed times, even if the music may not be attuned to my particular tastes. It means suspending a critical attitude about things I really know very little about in order to authentically worship God in the assembly. Finally it means a reference to the others. The Eucharist is not our private prayer. It is a prayer that we undertake with the community. Reference to the community in the context of prayer means doing what the community does. It means praying with one another. It means regulating our voices in order to form a single voice of communal prayer.
Connected to the Holy Eucharist is the practice of Eucharistic Adoration and most particularly the Holy Hour. While not a directive aspect of the life of prayer, it does hold a pride of place and is a treasured part of our Catholic tradition and a very living devotion for a generation of Catholics today. The celebration of the Eucharist is an active expression of a Eucharistic spirituality. Adoration is a ministry of presence and cultivates the sincere love of God in our willingness to be present to Him in the Blessed Sacrament whether reserved in the tabernacle or exposed in the monstrance. The time spent with Our Lord in adoration is a privileged time. As Archbishop Sheen once remarked: “The Holy Hour is time spent with our Lord. If faith is alive, no further reason is needed.”
Regarding the Holy Hour, the Cure of Ares once remarked: ” How pleasing to our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament is the hour that we steal from our occupations, from something of no use, to come and pray to Him, to visit Him, to console Him.” Archbishop Sheen said: “ultimately the Holy Hour will make us practice what we preach.” The Holy Hour is a time of presence, of being with and as such must not be crowded with other activities. Each day’s Holy Hour should be an opportunity to spend time in the presence of the beloved and a time to calm the clamour of the day. To me, this is an essential aspect of formation, being still and quiet with God. In terms of best practices, therefore, the Holy Hour should not be a time for doing reading related to classroom work. It should not be filled with all kinds of vocal and mental prayer. It should be a time “to be” with God. This concept of the Holy Hour instills in the seminarian and priest that essential element of presence which is so necessary particularly in a world filled with so much unnecessary activity and a priestly life filled with so much busy work.
In addition to worship, a directive activity of Christian spirituality is reading the Scriptures. Developing a relationship with the Bible is key to priestly formation. The Bible is God’s direct speech to us. St. Jerome says that ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ. This is a theme reiterated by Pope Benedict in his apostolic exhortation on the Word of God in the life of the Church. We know God in and through the Scriptures and our active engagement with the Bible is key to our life of faith. Best practices for Scripture include daily reading of the Bible as well as good commentaries. Of course, in the life of the priest this also takes the form of homily preparation. For seminarians, it is a good practice to review the readings for Mass each day, perhaps writing downs some ideas for what the scripture passages suggest to you. For deacons and those who are actively preparing homilies, using the daily readings to inform not only what I plan to say as a preacher but how I plan to live as a preacher becomes essential. A key element to a scriptural spirituality is the community. As Pope Benedict tells us in Verbum Domini:
The Bible was written by the People of God for the People of God, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Only in this communion with the People of God can we truly enter as a “we” into the heart of the truth that God himself wishes to convey to us.
These two aspects of spirituality, worship in the Holy Eucharist and Scripture are essential elements of being a Christian. Now I will turn to the second category I spoke of above, that of discipline. There are certain aspects of the spiritual life that are a part of our world not by virtue of a universal imperative but by virtue ot the discipline of the Church. The Liturgy of the Hours is just such an aspect. The Liturgy of the Hours is the daily prayer of the Church. It is a prayer that connects us in an essential way to the Jewish roots of our faith. “Seven times a day I praise you.” The psalmist says (Psalm 119, 164). St. Paul exhorts Christians to pray without ceasing (I Thessalonians, 5, 17). This is the will of God. The Liturgy of the Hours is the rich tradition of prayer that allows for all of these goods to be realized. Again it is the prayer of the Church. As we read in the General Instruction to the Liturgy of the Hours:
Christian prayer is above all the prayer of the whole human community, which Christ joins to himself (cf. SC 83).”18 The Lord Jesus and his body pray together, as if in chorus, to the Father. This communion in prayer will be clearer if those who pray the Hours study and meditate upon Scripture, in reading which our word and God’s word are at one.
Additional aspects of the Liturgy of the Hours are to be noted. It constantly gathers and presents to the Father the petitions of the whole Church. All pastoral activity must be drawn to completion in the Liturgy of the Hours and must flow from its abundant riches. In this chorus of prayer, the Church more perfectly manifests what she is, for her identity as body of Jesus is kept continually in actuation; the injunction to pray without ceasing, which cannot be fulfilled by any one individual, is corporately fulfilled by the Church as a community
That having been said, the practice of the Liturgy of the Hours is not mandated for all of the faithful. It is required of the deacon and priest. As a necessary discipline in ordained life, the practice of the Liturgy of the Hours should begin in earnest right now. Best practices for praying the Liturgy of the Hours is first to attend carefully to the office in common that we celebrate in the seminary. Devote your energy to the office. Be on time and prepared. Before morning prayer, every one should pray privately the invitatory psalm. The Office of Readings may be done at any time of the day. One of the daytime offices is required as is compline. Many of these offices we will pray privately. Private recitation of the office is a challenge at times, particularly in the busy lives of the seminarian and the priest. It is essential however that we make the time for this sanctifying work. The Liturgy of the Hours should be prayed from day one in the seminary. We should be getting used to it, making it a habit. Is it always rewarding? Honestly, it is not. Is it rewarding in terms of the fulfillment of an obligation? Absolutely. The Holy Church asks us to pray the Liturgy of the Hours in union with all others. We do so in solidarity, in the name of those who cannot or will not pray, and in pursuit of a catholicity which only authentic prayer can bring. Finding fruitful ways to pray the Liturgy of the Hours is a conversation each of you should be having with your spiritual director, your dean, or any priest or deacon. Learn the Liturgy of the Hours and make it your own.
The final category of theological truths that I mentioned in my talk earlier this year was devotional. Something is devotional when it fulfills a particular spiritual ideal or need. Different persons have different personalities. I may enjoy one activity, such as watching a film with one friend and another activity, such as running a marathon with another. Devotions are about preference, about emphases, and at some level about personal tastes. A devotional life is necessary for the priest, but every devotion is not necessary. We have the freedom to exercise our preference for various devotions, and that freedom should be observed. No one should be made to feel inferior if they are not connected to my particular devotional practice. We should invite others to experience our devotional lives, but not compel them to do so. We may like certain devotions and find them meaningful. Everything is not for everyone. One may practice lectio divina, another meditation, a third a particular chaplet. Someone else may be inspired by the Stations of the Cross, or novena prayers. Another important devotion and work of mercy is prayer for the souls in purgatory. Prayer for the souls in purgatory and devotions connects us to the supernatural world where the Church also lives. It is another important expression of the communal nature of prayer. Finally I would mention devotion to the saints and in particular to Our Lady. These kinds of devotions take many different forms. In Marian devotion, certainly the rosary holds pride of place. It is a tested and true means of mediating on the mysteries of Christ. At the core of all Marian devotion is the central insight that Our Lady holds a particular place in the history of our salvific relationship with God in Christ. Just as we cannot fathom our Christian faith without her willingness to engage the Word in a powerful, corporeal way, so our prayer, as a life of cultivated relationship, needs her presence. Without Mary, historically, there would be no Incarnate Word. Without Mary daily in our prayer, how can we see the importance of that Incarnate Word in our momentary activity? As a community of faith, we too need Mary as a patron and guide for the work of formation here. Most days we have the opportunity to pray the Angelus prayer together. This prayer recalls that central role of Our Lady in the history of salvation. It connects us to her powerful intercession near Christ. In terms of best practices for devotional prayer: explore. Find out what suits you. This is the nature of devotions, the legitimate exercise of personal preferences. However, find some way to connect to these beautiful expressions of that core relationship with God through prayer. Brothers and sisters, prayer forms the center of what we do here. It shows us the open heart of Christ and connects us essentially with one another in the Body of that same Christ. It shows us also a central Catholic truth that lies at the heart of our theology and practice of prayer: We are not alone. Surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, the Church militant, the Church suffering and the Church triumphant. A life of cultivated prayer and methodical prayer leads to the greatest of virtues, the virtue of zeal. The word zeal comes from the Greek word for boiling. How apt an image. The good zeal of discipleship is well-attested in Chapter 72 of the Rule of St. Benedict. I paraphrase:
This zeal, therefore, the seminarians should practice
with the most fervent love.
Thus they should anticipate one another in honor (Rom. 12:10);
most patiently endure one another's infirmities,
whether of body or of character;
vie in paying obedience one to another --
no one following what he considers useful for himself,
but rather what benefits another -- ;
tender the charity of brothers chastely;
fear God in love;
love their superiors and formators with a sincere and humble charity;
prefer nothing whatever to Christ.
And may He bring us all together to life everlasting!

In the late 1960 a musical group of women religious, called the Medical missionary sisters, composed a song that went with the parable presented in today’s Gospel. None of us who were around in those heady days liturgical and musical achievement are ever likely to forget its words

I cannot come to the banquet
Don’t bother me now
I have married a wife
I have bought me a cow
I have fields and commitments
That cost a pretty sum
I cannot come to the banquet
I cannot come


While it is quite obvious these women were medical missionaries and not English teachers, their observation seems right on the money

Every one has some kind of excuse

We start making excuses from our earliest years
The dog ate my homework
My grandmother died suddenly (for the ninth time)
I am sick and cannot play dodge ball today

Later the excuses become more sophisticated as life itself becomes more complex
My inner child is suffering
I have a repressed memory
I lived in a shame based patriarchal biosystem
No one understands me

Now I know this is going to come as a surprise, but, we even hear people making excuses in Church life

I had to miss mass because the roof of my house caved in
The organist at that parish plays too loudly, therefore I can’t come to church
I had to stay home and wait for the Sunday paper to arrive

The excuses of life seem endless

In the Gospel today, the guests had a thousand excuses, marital, bovine, or otherwise as to why they just could not make it to the glorious celebration the king was throwing.
Fields, commitments, spouses, livestock are all encompassing and yet,
Our Host, let’s just call him God instead of KING, has provided something really extraordinary, something that is destined to dazzle, God has prepared a meal for his guests, and not only a meal, an extravaganza. God has prepared lavishly, sumptuously, embarrassingly,. Graciously and yet Excuses for failing to come to the banquet remain as rampant and as myriad as the clever curvatures of each one’s mind

And of course this banquet is not just a great dinner. In fact, it is the banquet of God’s love and grace
Very well
I cannot come to the banquet, so what are my alternatives?

I am too angry to come to the banquet of God’s love
So I’ll just sit here in the corner and pout, supping on the cold Pop-Tart of my own hurt feelings and grudges. They didn’t want me at the banquet anyway


I will not come to the banquet of grace
So I’ll just zip through the drive through at McEgo and partake of the fast food of my way, my preferences and tastes, my vision.. And I can be a glutton if I like because at Mc Ego you always know where your next meal is coming from

I am too proud to come to the banquet of mercy and forgiveness
So I’ll just take my self on a little self-pity picnic and sit alone, under the tree of my own vanity and munch on the luncheon of self congratulation and personal delight

I am too old to come to the banquet of God’s generosity
So I’ll just stay in bed and slurp down the cold gruel of my own infirmities. Loneliness and fear

I am too poor to come to the banquet of God’s plenty
So, Ill just hangout here on the street corner of life, waiting for someone to feed me, emaciated by my own inability to ask anyone else for help.

I cannot come to the banquet. There are endless excuses as to why I will not accept the hospitality of the host, the graciousness of God and frankly none of them are very good.

The interesting thing about God however is this. He never backs away from his invitation.

God never loses heart even when our hearts are hardened to the needs of others, to our own shortcomings, to God’s particular invitation

God never forgets us, even when in our sinfulness, our stubbornness and pride, we forget ourselves and who we really are and we bury ourselves all the lies and deceptions that our culture heaps upon us

God never fails to call us, even when the cell phones of our consciousness have been disconnected and will not take any new calls, will not accept any new opportunities, will not hear any Good news

God always confront s us with the challenge to be better than the miserable wretches that we are, to see the world in fresh and life giving ways.

God always hopes for us even when the bright beacon of hope has been extinguished by our own pessimism and wrongheaded pursuits

God always loves us and holds us in infinite worth even when we blatantly demonstrate again and again that we do not love ourselves, Cannot wear with impunity the wedding garment we received at baptism
cannot see in ourselves the beauty that God has given us in calling us his children

Yet sisters and brothers that is what we are. Children and guests of a merciful, forgiving, patient and infinitely loving God.

And so the table is always set, the candles are always lit, the entertainment is always standing by.
Because

Here in this banquet the LORD of hosts
will provide for all peoples
a feast of rich food
Here in this banquet, God will satisfy all our hungers, not with the perishable food of human consumption, but with his own body and blood, the richness of which we can only measure in mercy, the power of which we can only conceive in the priceless witness of falling in love

Here in this banquet he will destroy
the veil that veils all peoples,
the web that is woven over all nations

Here in this banquet, there can be no fear, no self reproach, no morbid consciousness, because here we are all beggars and wayfarers, Here in this banquet there is no slave or free, no woman or man, no Jew or gentile, no rich or poor. We all come with what we have, which is nothing and receive what God gives, which is everything.

Here in this banquet The Lord GOD will wipe away
the tears from every face;
the reproach of his people he will remove

there is no time and no room for sorrow, for grudges, for hurts, for animosity, for shame, for death, because here we encounter not the hostile hospitality of the world but the robust reality of the living God, who comes to us in the breaking of bread and pouring out of wine (what a clever disguise) in words of comfort and challenge, in the very presence of the sinful and needy people we are.

Here in this banquet God will fully supply whatever you need,
in accord with his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.
Because Christ is all in all
Because Christ is everything
Because Christ eradicates the venal vestiges of human ego
Because Christ shows us how much we are worth
Because While we are still sinners, Christ died for us, he died for us. What host can do more than that
Christ is all our hopes and all our dreams and all we are and all we wish to be
Because Christ, humbled himself and became obedient unto death
And gained for us an immeasurable prize, a place at the table.
We have a place at the table. Always there for us, if only we can come in.
Once we were no people, but now we are god’s people
Here in this banquet
Here in this banquet we encounter the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, How happy are those called to this banquet
Will we come?
Will we come?

One thing we can be certain of, when Jesus speaks there will always be a twist. Life a subtle knife he cuts to the quick of our expectations.
The beatitudes, as presented in the Gospel of St. Luke are a two-edged sword. There are blessings, but there are also woes. In our proclamation of the Gospel, so often we are comforted by the blessings promised us. We are engaged with a message that proclaims peace in the midst of our daily experience of war, violence, abuse, and pain. We are nurtured by the promise that the coming of God’s kingdom in our midst will bring some relief, some solace from the sad trajectory of human history, a history, whether corporate or personal, often fraught with disappointment and disillusionment.
The woes of St. Luke’s Gospel speak to us of the shadow side of faith, the challenge that comes with the consolation.
But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Discipleship cannot come without some sacrifice, without placing behind us the various barriers that we erect in our lives to shield our vision from the suffering of our neighbors, even our brothers here.

But woe to you who are filled now, for you will be hungry. Jesus challenges us to embrace, even in our bodies, the gap that can be filled by God alone, the tug of celibacy, the real loss of promises and vows kept.

Woe to you who laugh now, for you will grieve and weep. Jesus confronts us with the silliness of our lives, silliness lived in idle talk and superfluous language, in devotion to frivolities that can never satisfy.

Woe to you when all speak well of you, for their ancestors treated the false prophets in this way. Jesus teaches us not to be confounded by our own egos, but to be fearless in proclaiming the message of the Kingdom even when it costs us a great deal, even when it costs us everything.

The shadow side of faith is the challenge that comes with the comfort, a challenge that presents to us each day the growing edge of our discipleship. Brothers and sisters, we are never there. Rather we dedicate ourselves to the pursuit of the elusive God who stands right beside us. We live lives caught between beatitude and woe, lives of complete and utter sacrifice, and the shadow of self interest.
We live on the edge of glory and the subtle knife can cut either way. Blessings and woe. The cut is in the will.

The Dignity of the Priesthood

Brothers and Sisters welcome to a new formation year. This year we begin on a somber note. As we know, last Sunday, in the very early hours of the morning, our two brothers, Fr. Jorge Gomez and Stanley Kariuki were killed in an accident in Tulsa. They were returning from a Knights of Columbus mass and dinner when their car was struck sidelong by a driver running a red light. They died at the scene. I am sure that neither of them imagined that that drive would be their last journey on this earth. I am sure that as they drove along they spoke of what would happen that Sunday morning in the parish where they were both assigned. I am sure that their conversations were filled with plans and expectations. I am sure that they spoke of Stanley’s return to Saint Meinrad This weekend. I am sure that they never anticipated death. I am equally sure that they were prepared to meet their ends. They were prepared to do so because they believe in Christ, they had given their lives already to the mystery of his dying and rising. They had promised themselves to eternity. For us, their violent encounter with the paschal mystery renews our conviction that in the midst of life, death is always lurking. Undoubtedly there is sadness for us as we begin this year. We will miss Stanley’s presence among us. He was a sweet, mild mannered man. We will miss Jorge and we mourn the promise of service unfulfilled. I can never forget the enthusiasm of his hometown on the day of his ordination. It would be easy to assign their untimely deaths to the providence of God. I think that is too easy for what we are feeling. I do not know why these two vibrant, enthusiastic young men died. I know I will miss them. I also know that in the shadow of loss comes the bright promise of the future. Today our new students, our returning students, our faculty and staff come together in the life of this community. We come full of hope, energy and desire to serve Christ in his Church. We are the resurrection to our own cross. We come at a time of loss but our only hope is for gain. In these coming days we have the opportunity to present to one another the authentic nature of the dying and rising of Christ, a dying and rising we are now experiencing in the very fiber of our being.
When our late Holy Father, Blessed John Paul II called for a “new evangelization” and when our present Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI renewed that call, I believe first and foremost they are asking for a re-evangelization of the Church, a renewal at the heart of the Church that will announce the Good News in fresh ways, internally, making the Holy Church a more effective instrument in carrying that same Good News to the ends of the earth as mandated by the evangelical charge of Our Lord, Jesus Christ. How do we announce a new evangelization for a seminary, a community already steeped in a climate of the quickening of discipleship and filled, hopefully with those already fully committed to the challenging, yet eternally rewarding work of announcing the presence of the Kingdom? Perhaps it can only be accomplished by going back to the basics.
In my rector’s conferences this year, I would like to focus on the gift of vocation. All of us have received a call from God. For some of us that call has been tested and tried by years of prayer and engagement with the Body of Christ. For some that call is still in the process of being formed. For others, it may be experienced as yet as a faint and ephemeral attitude of faith. However we experience the call of God in our lives, that call is a gift, one that is instilled in us by an act of Divine Grace, Divine Mercy.
I would like to begin my reflection today by asking a simple question: Why are you here? I ask that question of all of us, and to each of us in a particular way. I ask it of our seminarians, both our new men and those who have returned this year to continue the journey of formation to which they have been called and to which they have already given so much. Men, why are you here? I ask it of our faculty and staff, you, men and women who have devoted your careers and your lives for the formation of priests, lay ministers and deacons for the life of the Church. Faculty and staff, why are you here? Why are we here in this new formation year to engage the process of priestly formation, that leviathan struggle that at times buoys us up like the hull of a great ship riding the titanic waves of personal and communal triumph and at times weighs upon us with the fearsomeness of the unfathomable depths of that same abyss? Why are we here when it seems that every time we pick up a newspaper or access our usual website for news of the world, the priesthood is under attack? What do we hear? The Church, now throughout the world, continues to be embroiled in sexual scandals among its priests. Stories of abuse, many of them decades old continue to emerge from the shadows of memory and shame, continue to haunt both victims and perpetrators. We read likewise of the covering up of these crimes, the what seems like complete disregard for the pain of those who have suffered so wantonly at the hands of those very men who should have protected their innocence from the violent maw of the wolf. I continue to be shocked, I think we all must continue to be shocked, that after two decades of legislation both within and outside the Church, these scandals continue to emerge. I continue to be shocked, I think we all must continue to be shocked at the toll these scandals take. The toll is the very credibility of the Holy Church. The price is a lack of confidence in its leaders. The cost is a net of wide suspicion cast across the path of the innocent. And there is more. We regularly encounter other kinds of scandalous behavior, the misuse of funds, the abuse of power, the heavy handed leadership that robs our Holy Church of its trustworthiness as an expression of the love of God in the world. There are those who claim that the priesthood has been robbed of its dignity and I have more than a little confidence that these claims at least as some level are true.
What is the dignity of the priest? What should it be? What is the character of the priest? What is the priest as an agent? These questions are complex and not often asked in our Church and in the world today. For some they are questions whose answers are already laden with what is called clericalism because they point to a uniqueness in the priesthood. Questions about the nature of the priesthood point to the priest as one set apart, both ontologically and literally for a service that cannot be gainsaid because it is the service of God. First, the priest is a unique character. Part of the difficulty we face in the holy priesthood today is a lack of perception of this uniqueness. In a highly democratized culture, uniqueness in any form is ironically undervalued. Our social and political conditioning continues to remind us of that axiomatic “truth” that all men are created equal. While that is true at one level, it is also dangerous to hold that we should never expect in our cultural milieu anything encouraging genius, artistic achievement, and in the long run, real leadership. Often in our cultural environment we receive mixed messages. We are told simultaneously that we can achieve whatever we set our minds to, but to not aim above the commonplace. Thus we have created a cultureless culture, a bland suburban intellectual landscape in which all expressions of higher thought and transcendental values are seen as elitist and un-democratic. It was in this vein that Plato insisted that democracy lived in the extreme is next to anarchy. These are lofty reflections. Let us bring the case a little closer to home. In our daily lives, how do we encourage young people who find themselves a bit “different” from the pack? How do we highlight (or denigrate) true talent when we encounter it? The origins of our cultural perspective in this country is a thoroughgoing empiricism, an earthboundedness, a utilitarianism in which heart and mind are not encouraged to soar, but to produce and be useful in a very narrow sense. And yet such downward gazing is against our nature. Within each of us is that spark of divinity that seeks the stars, the longs for something beyond the practical, that yearns for truth, beauty and goodness expressed in a kind of divine superfluity. We long for heaven but the heavy yoke of social and cultural expectation keeps our eyes firmly focused in the dirt of the gutter. Jesus Christ encourages us to exchange that yoke for his own, a yoke that is easy, a burden that is light. The yoke of discipleship allows us to look upward to the stars. It engages us to transcend the fixed root of where we are and dream. It restores our human dignity destroyed by the sin of Adam. What did the Lord prescribe for Adam in the event of the fall? Until the advent of the Messiah, his lot was to be labor, toil, drudgery and exile from the vision of the empyrean heights. With Christ there is now hope for a greater dignity in the human condition and yet we continue to saddle ourselves with the adamantine burden of our first parents, our lax father and mother who has themselves been freed from the burden set in motion through thier disobedience. Where do we stand in Christ? In Christ we are free. As St. Paul reminds us in the letter to the Galatians: “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free” (Galatians, 5,1). In the light of such a promise, how is it that humanity can continue to reject the message of the Gospel and return to its imprisoned condition in the earth like a dog to its own vomit? Christ has made us free and if by any act of will we continue to wear the yoke of slavery, then we have damaged the dignity wrought for us in the saving act of the cross. We have an inherent dignity in Christ. Now we must realize it. All of us are set apart in Christ, for God. Now we must manifest it. If all are set apart, there is a new democracy. Now we must make it real. If we are to make it real, we must be lead into this new promised land. And who is the Joshua who can take a desert bedraggled people into that Christian freedom flowing with milk and honey? It must be the priest, the Joshua, the other Jesus. Christ has prepared for us an unhoped-for dignity and he has called priests to serve his people. Thus the priest is set apart by his character as a baptized person, and by his call to lead and inspire others. He has been given a particular gift to enrich the world. He has not been given that gift to enrich himself or to create for himself a position in opposition to those from whom he has been called.
What does the priest do? What can he do? The priest is called to service leadership and cultic leadership. Service leadership for the sake of cultic leadership. The priest leads by confecting the Eucharist in the exercise of his unique power. The priest makes the Church in the confecting of the Eucharist. What is the Eucharist? It is a covenant, the presence of Christ on earth in a mystical extension of the earth-shattering event of the Incarnation. It is the Christus prolongatus, the prolonged event of Christ. The presence of Christ, the continual presence of Christ ensures that the dignity spoken of above is maintained in the world. The Eucharist makes the Church and thus is the full manifestation of the new condition of humanity. The Eucharist is the source of human success in its striving to touch the transcendent, to grasp the things of heaven in a way the icarian pretense of human pride could not. If the priest is set apart in Holy Orders from all the others who have been set apart in Baptism, his status is for service in the cultic action of the constitutive Eucharist. Like Joshua, the priest fights against the citadels of the compromised expectations of our condition and opens the gates of grace, not for his own sense of victory but to feed a hungry people left to wander the desert. The priest has a dignity that is manifested in his willingness to fight for the people, even as Joshua railed against the walls of Jericho, even as Christ fought, all the way to Calvary. The priest has a dignity that is bound up with the fate of the people. The priest has a dignity that is directed always over the shoulder to encourage a people moving forward freed from the burdens of the earth. The priest has a dignity that is not his own, a dignity that rightly belongs to Christ. The priest has a dignity that is always emptying itself like the breast blood of the pelican to give life to others. The priest has a dignity rooted in sacrifice. The priest has a dignity that bridges the fully human and the fully divine. The priest has a dignity that carries the people on his shoulders so that they can have a better look of that rich valley, that promised land that God has called us to in calling us his sons and daughters, brothers and sisters in our dear Lord, Jesus Christ. The priest has a dignity that serves as a living icon of that dignity to which we are all called. The priest has a dignity that is not his own. The priest is not his own. The priest is for God and the priest is for us.
When we examine the condition of the holy priesthood today, we must say that in its character, in its essence there is no compromise to the priesthood. The priesthood today is what Christ realized it to be in the institution of the sacrament of Holy Orders on the night he was betrayed. The priesthood, in essence, is what it is and its inherent dignity is complete and inviolate. The perception of the dignity of the priest is another story. The essence of the priesthood is safeguarded by the matter and form of the sacrament and the assurances of apostolic succession. The perception of that dignity, however, is undoubtedly compromised. What, or perhaps, who has compromised the perception of the dignity of the priesthood? It is true that this perception has been assailed in the pretensions of an overweening media-saturated culture. But let us not place the blame completely out there. The loss of respect experienced by the priesthood is not only the product of persecution, it is the product of our own folly. What compromises the dignity of the priesthood? First, I would say a lack of personal character on the part of priests. All of us are the products of our environment. Many of us have been raised in a highly commercialized culture in which we were told that we can have everything. We cannot. The character of the priest is dependent upon his ability to understand his nature, his function and his place in the social order. The character of the priest is compromised when he tries to have his cake and eat it too. It is compromised when he remains with one foot in the world of the so-called “secular” and another in the sacred. It is compromised when it fails to reach its true potential in Christ because the priest is engaged in other activities which begin to take precedence over his life of prayer and service. The character of the priest is compromised when he fails to accept completely who he is, when he tries to hold on to that which is not priesthood. It is compromised when he tries to live an ontological lie, when he brackets in any way his essence for the convenience or pleasures inherent in not bearing the heavy responsibilities of the priesthood. Let me give some more concrete examples. The priest is compromised when he is lazy. Laziness is a trait that has to be overcome in a serious way because we live in a culture of leisure. It is a false leisure. All of us have the necessity, I would say the responsibility to recreate in the truest sense of the word. That is not the question. Laziness is doing what I need to do to get by and nothing more. It is fulfilling obligations at the bare minimum in order to do what I want to do. The lazy priest rushes from Mass in order to catch the game or his show. The lazy priest abandons the confessional to do something fun. The work ethic in our culture has been severely compromised by the cult of leisure. We work not to fulfill a mission but to have the resources to spend on having fun. Laziness overwhelms the priest, making him a mere functionary. God can use the mere functionary character of his priesthood, but at what price to his own dignity and at what cost to his reputation. The lazy priest makes excuses not to go to the hospital, the nursing home, not to make communion calls. He “says” mass. He gets homilies off the internet. He gives lip service to his responsibilities so he can do what he wants. The lazy priest is no leader. Neither is he a follower. He is a lounger and thus compromises the dignity of which he is possessed. The lazy priest holds the treasure of his priesthood in a reclining chair. Then he wonders why no one shows him the proper deference due his office. After all, he has sacrificed so much to be a priest.
The perception of the dignity of the priest is compromised also by crudeness. This can take several forms. One is poor hygiene and poor grooming. The priest looks slovenly and then protests that his appearances is the result of a commitment to evangelical poverty. This is nonsense. While we may reject the Wesleyan axiom that cleanliness is next to godliness, cleanliness is respectful. I show respect for the people I meet by appearing clean-shaven and not reeking of body odor. Crudeness can also take the form of impropriety of speech. The use of crude and shocking language is not prophetic, it is ignorant. It demonstrates a lack of humanity, particularly when it is directed to a sexually-exploitative purpose. No one can take the celibate commitment of a priest seriously when he is continually using foul language and telling off-color jokes. Refinement of speech is not un-manly, it is human.
Another way in which the perception of the priesthood is compromised is a lack of professionalism. Some priests believe that because of their missionary character, they should not be held to the same standards of practice as other professionals. They can dress in a careless manner. They can make and break appointments. They can be late for meetings. They can fail to show up all together. The priest believes that he will be forgiven and, of course, many times he is. The unprofessional priest is also unreliable as a leader. He is not respected by his parishioners or by his peers. While the rules of the professional world and its standards are not the end of the priest’s life, they are certainly a means by which he gains credibility. A lack of professionalism in the priest is not a sign of inspiration, it is a sign of disdain for those around him. Like the rules of etiquette, professional behavior is essential for the common good. It facilitates the mission.
Another means of compromising the inherent dignity of the priesthood is the expression of an anti-intellectual bias. A number of years ago, I was speaking to a group of priests about the Second Vatican Council. We were having a discussion of the various documents and the way in which those documents had been realized in the decades since the council. After the conference, one of the priests came up to me laughing to himself and confessed that he had never read a document of the council and that he operated on pastoral instinct. I told him that I felt sorry for his parishioners. Sometimes, even in the seminary we can be caught up in a kind of cultural anti-intellectualism. We wonder, even aloud, about the necessity of the study that we undertake here for our future pastoral engagements. I say, if you do not take your studies seriously, even if you are not the best student, if you do not take seriously the need to know the teachings of the Church and the Tradition, I say I hope to God you never have any parishioners to inflect your opinions upon. The damage wrought by the material heresy of well-meaning, anti-intellectual priests is real and devastating to the fabric of the Body of Christ. The cavalier attitude that some priests take toward doctrine is not only shocking, it is sinful. As priests, we bear a tremendous responsibility for the orthodoxy of the Christian people and that orthodoxy cannot be of our own construction. It must be forged and forged hard at the anvil of the Church’s intellectual life, a life to which all of us, no matter our native talents, have access. One manifestation of this anti-intellectual attitude is cultural narrowness. A cultural perspective that is woven together from distended threads of popular music, the internet, social networking, commercial television etc. is not likely to weave a tapestry of inspiration. A cultural bias that is earthbound is not going to offer us the opportunities for cultivating such practicalities as a celibate life or a literate imagination for preaching and teaching. It is a commonplace in our society to disdain higher culture. We scoff at those who care about art, music, literature and theater. We laugh at the pretensions of those who seek the things that are above. And yet, it is these things that have the potential to unite us as a people by appealing to our better selves whereas the manifestations of a low fanciful culture merely reinforce the self-gratification and selfishness that tear at the fiber of the Body of Christ. The dignity of the priesthood is compromised by too close an identification with popular culture. We think that “being in touch” with the world is inspirational to our youth. I would suggest that familiarity breeds contempt and that young people are more often inspired by alternatives to the dead end culture that surrounds them.
Another means by which the perception of the dignity of the priesthood is jeopardized is a lack of engagement with the spiritual life. An old adage in the world of formation is that after ordination, the prayer life is the first thing to go. Outside of the structures of seminary life, the priest simply cannot find the time or the energy to pray. We make excuses for neglecting the breviary and the holy hour. We live into falsehoods such as: “my work is my prayer”. We discover all of a sudden that we are burnt out and the pastoral life has little meaning. Why should it if we have discarded the essential relationship with God expressed in prayer that gives meaning to our pastoral engagement. We fool ourselves if we do not think prayer is the key to priestly life and service. We fool ourselves here if we are not convinced that a dedication to prayer is the most important thing for me to do. We fool ourselves if we believe that people do not know when we no longer pray, when our spiritual life is not only dry but dead. We compromise the dignity of the priesthood when we continue to present ourselves as that bridge between heaven and earth and fail to acknowledge that the bond has been broken by our lack of prayer.
We also endanger the dignity of the priesthood when we refuse to accept responsibility for the pastoral mission to which we have been called. This can take several forms. One is a refusal to accept the unique role of the priest as leader, servant leader to be sure, but leader and to align ourselves to an unserviceable egalitarianism. Another way is to fail to engage the work of God in a particular place because I am constantly looking forward to the next, seemingly better place. It is amazing to me how many of our young clergy today are ordained for the transitional priesthood and refuse to take their place in the vineyard of the Lord in the expectation that some better venue will soon be opening. It is amazing to me how many young priests today are willing to sacrifice their name and indeed their souls by stepping on the backs of lower men to rise to the top of chancery officialdom in some of the poorest dioceses in the country. The obverse of this refusal to accept responsibility is rank clericalism. I use this expression rank clericalism intentionally. An authentic clerical spirit recognizes the uniqueness of the vocation and accepts the responsibility that that uniqueness necessitates. Rank clericalism claims privilege without responsibility. Rank clericalism is more about the dress than the service. Rank clericalism insists upon respect without offering. Rank clericalism is all about the look of the thing and nothing about the substance of the thing. Rank clericalism legislates according to tastes. Rank clericalism exercises power without consultation. This kind of clericalism destroys perceptions of the dignity of the priesthood by being all about me.
Brothers and sisters, are we not aware of these issues? Have we not witnessed the daily damage done by those whose callous disregard for the dignity of the priesthood calls all of our credibility into question? Today we face a mighty challenge, but a worthy one. How do we restore the dignity of the priesthood? In my closing conference last year, I commented on the ordination rite and described the dignity of the priesthood in these words:
It is the dignity of a human person fully alive insofar as the human personality of the priest forms a living bridge to service. In the central part of the Rite of Ordination, we rise from the dirt of the ground to the company of the angels in the dignity of the priesthood. Here we might do well to remember the sacramental act that brought us into the wonder of discipleship, our baptisms. In baptism we hear these words with the presentation of the white garment the outward sign of your invisible dignity. Bring it unstained into the wedding banquet of eternal life. This is true dignity, the dignity for which we prepare, after which we strive in this house of formation, this seedbed of God’s generosity. It is the dignity of a man inebriated by ceaseless prayer, whose calling is always beyond. It is the dignity of a man of keen intellect who knows well the masterful story of the Church’s great intellectual tradition. It is the dignity of a man who knows himself and is not afraid of himself. It is the dignity of a man who does not fear the sexual energy that God has given him, that relational energy that allows him to have profound, holy contact with others. It is the dignity of a man who does not shy away from others, is not threatened by others but embraces others as brothers and sisters. It is the dignity of a man of culture, a man who has lifted his gaze from the gutters of the ephemeral and raised it to the transcendent to that which carries him beyond his little lot. It is the dignity of a man who has realized that the only greatness in any man is the ability to make those around him, the poor, the lonely, the outcast, to make them feel great. It is the dignity of a man whose clarity of vision is such that he can see the arch of heaven in the threatening jaws of an earthly hell. It is the dignity of a complete man whose completeness is augmented by the grace of a sacrament. It is the dignity of a man who will never take advantage of God’s people because he has been given something that they have not. The dignity to turn privilege to tireless service, the dignity to celebrate the sacraments with reverence in accord with the teachings of the Church and not seek to celebrate himself in celebrating God’s mysteries. It is the dignity of hope in a world of fatalism, joy in the face of disappointment, prayer in light of human failure, reconciliation in the wake of sin. It is the dignity of a man who can pick others up from out of their degradation their imprisonment to sin because he himself has felt countless times, witnessed in his own breast the powerful words of restoration: I absolve you. It is the dignity of a man who is as free in giving as he is grateful for what he has freely been given. It is the dignity of a man who would never embarrass another person, never purposefully cause harm, never put himself before the others. It is the dignity of a man who knows in the first instance not to call upon his own resources, but upon the name of Christ, the name of Mary, the names of the saints who washed over him as he lay prostrate in the dust. It is the dignity of a man who will walk the path until the end, who will live with integrity and die with holy beauty because, in the last instance, in the last breath he draws, after all the trials of life are over, after all the disappointments are reckoned, after all the hours of the Church’s endless round of prayers are recited, after all the shining consecrations are dimmed, after all the throes of this life have been overcome, he will find dignity in the arms of the Father and peace at the last because he was, until the temporal end true to who God called him to be eternally, a priest.
These lofty ambitions are not beyond our reach.
How do we understand the dignity of the priesthood? We might do well to look at the preface of the Eucharistic prayer for the Chrism Mass of Holy Thursday:
Christ gives the dignity of a royal priesthood to the people He has made His own. From these, with a brother’s love, He chooses men to share His sacred ministry by the laying on of hands. He appointed them to renew in His name the sacrifice of redemption as they set before Your family His paschal meal. He calls them to lead Your holy people in love, nourish them by Your word, and strengthen them through the sacraments. Father, they are to give their lives in Your service and for the salvation of Your people, as they strive to grow in the likeness of Christ and honor You by their courageous witness of faith and love

In our desire to comprehend the dignity of the priesthood we might also turn to St. Paul, who shows us so eloquently how those configured in Christ are to exercise their ministry.
Brothers and sisters:
As your fellow workers, we appeal to you
not to receive the grace of God in vain.
For he says:
In an acceptable time I heard you,
and on the day of salvation I helped you.
Behold, now is a very acceptable time;
behold, now is the day of salvation.
We cause no one to stumble in anything,
in order that no fault may be found with our ministry;
on the contrary, in everything we commend ourselves
as ministers of God, through much endurance,
in afflictions, hardships, constraints,
beatings, imprisonments, riots,
labors, vigils, fasts;
by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness,
in the Holy Spirit, in unfeigned love, in truthful speech,
in the power of God;
with weapons of righteousness at the right and at the left;
through glory and dishonor, insult and praise.
We are treated as deceivers and yet are truthful;
as unrecognized and yet acknowledged;
as dying and behold we live;
as chastised and yet not put to death;
as sorrowful yet always rejoicing;
as poor yet enriching many;
as having nothing and yet possessing all things.
How is this not a plan to realize, in the expression of divine love the dignity of the holy priesthood?

What is attained by the pursuit of dignity? When we truly intend to express in our lives the dignity that is within the priesthood, there are inevitable results. The first is a sense of coherence. When we authentically seek our nature, there must follow a irenic sensibility that flows from that authenticity. As long as we continually try to live a double life, we will find no peace of mind. Then there is a sense of integration, of seeing the various components of our lives in tandem with our authentic baptismal vocations as followers of Christ. There is also in the expression of this dignity a kind of evangelical attractiveness, an ability to win souls for Christ through the example of our lives.
My dear brothers and sisters that is why we are here. We are here to win souls for God. We are here to express with joy and confidence that boundless blessing that has been bestowed on us through the redemptive act of Christ. We are here to give witness to the power of his cross. We are here to rejoice in the joy of his resurrection. We are here not to perpetuate the mistakes of the past, be those personal or communal but to learn from those mistakes for the sake of conversion, our conversion and the conversion of the souls entrusted to our care.
We are here to draw others into the glorious vision of heaven that we have received through our intimacy with God in a committed life of prayer
We are here to demonstrate the authentic dignity by which the glory of God is manifested in the person truly alive
Brothers and sisters, we are here to become saints, to see our lives, our mundane lives, our sinful lives drawn upward and upward to that full dignity of the saints.
All of us here bear the incredible responsibility of being more than the world, in its cynicism expects us to be. The future is in our hands. The future is in your hands.
And so I welcome you to a new formation year, a year of challenge, a year of expectation and a year of hope. Will we? Can we satisfy all of the demands imposed upon us, the responsibility incumbent upon us to restore the dignity of the priesthood? We will and we can with the help of God, his angels and his saints and in particular that exemplar of human dignity, the Theotokos and Blessed Virgin Mary upon whom we cast all our care.

We begin our formation year with a full house, 142 seminarians. Thanks be to God.

You duped me Lord and I let myself be duped.
The words of the prophet Jeremiah may well resound among some of us here today, those of us who are new and those who have returned.
You duped me Lord and I let myself be duped.
The claims of Jeremiah in the first reading however, offer us something greater than the opportunity to reflect upon our present condition, they offer us the opportunity to examine the vocation of the prophet in the history of salvation. Like the apostles of the new covenant, the prophets were a curious lot. Some, like the prophet Jonah were reluctant men. Jonah when asked by God to go to Nineveh, avoided it like the plague. Elijah was a fiery preacher and outspoken critic of the culture of his time. Isaiah was a poet. Amos was a dresser of sycamore trees. Hosea made a bad marriage. And Jeremiah was a young man, a hesitant man but a man like the others (and like the apostles later on) who could not resist the call of God. He was imbibed with the prophetic spirit, the spirit of witness to the ultimate reality of the Divine over the ephemeral, the passing notions of human happiness, power, authority, prestige and accomplishment. He and the others were gifted with the prophetic spirit and so they went forth to do mighty deeds and proclaim powerful messages in the name of the Most High.
You duped me Lord and I let myself be duped.
There are some in the Church today that claim that the prophetic spirit has departed from the Church. These critics would say that the forceful message of God has been stifled by institutional bureaucracy, by outmoded forms of leadership or by a simple inability to proclaim the Word of Truth effectively to a new generation. For many in the Church today, things are not what they used to be, whether our vision of a prophetic Golden Age existed 50 or 500 years ago. These harbingers of doom lament the lack of prophetic voices in the Church, but I say let us not be duped my brothers and sisters by their fearful warnings.
Brothers and sisters, to these naysayers, I say. As long as Church walls stand in places like Pakistan and Syria, Church walls bombarded with messages of hate yet boldly continuing to proclaim the Prince of Peace amid the clamor of the gross machinery of ideological warfare, I say the prophetic spirit lives in the Church.
I say the spirit of prophecy lives as long as bells ring out over distant hills to proclaim times of prayer and consecration in a world of violence, violence in the home, in the fields, in the human heart, and in a world of blasphemy, blasphemy of creation, blasphemy against innocent life, blasphemy against God himself.
I say the spirit of prophecy lives as long as altars are approached and the manifestation of the Living God is present to us, as long as men and women and children bring forward the gifts of their lives to be transubstantiated into Divine reality and take from those same altars the Good News of salvation in the clever disguise of bread and wine.
I say the spirit of prophecy lives as long as candles are lit to quell the encroaching darkness of the human spirit inebriated with false understandings of choice, debilitating lies about freedom.
The spirit of prophecy lives as long as masses are celebrated in distant churches, while outside the hounds of intolerance bay for the blood of Christians.
The spirit of prophecy lives as little children continue to be brought forward to be baptized and men and women find their way to the safe harbor of the Church in Easter vigils from year to year
The spirit of prophecy lives as long as knees are bent in humble confession and tears are shed as sins long held fast are forgiven and the assurances of absolution given
The spirit of prophecy lives as long as one couple enters into the sanctity of marriage with the full conviction of their vocations to be witnesses of Christ’s love for the world.
The spirit of prophecy lives as long as women and men kneel in sanctuaries to take vows of apostolic service and pour out their lives for the good of others
Brothers and sisters the spirit of prophecy, the spirit of evangelization, the spirit instilled so irresistibly in those varied men of old continues in our day, it cannot help but continue
The spirit of prophecy in every utterance of Church teaching that points to a better way of life for the hungry huddled masses starving in the streets of the cities of so called developed countries
The spirit of prophecy that speaks liberation to families immured in lives of rank poverty, the slavery of unutterable violence, and the shroud of desperation
The spirit of prophecy that boldly proclaims life in a culture of death, the dignity of every man, every woman every child from conception until the last labored breath is drawn
The spirit of prophecy in far flung places like Korea, Africa, Mexico, India, and throughout the United States where men continue to stand up to be counted with the saints and hearing the call of God, the call heard by the prophets of Old, respond with heartfelt voices, clear voices, unwavering voices: Speak Lord, your servant is listening
It is the spirit of prophecy that infuses us to be mighty proclaimers of the Word
That Word whose quickening syllables arouse us from the slumber of indifference, impatience, and spiritual sloth
That Word that desperate ears long to hear, that dispels the fearsome phantoms of death and proclaims life eternal for a people sheltering against the walls of a lost Eden
That Word that compels us to proclamation, instills in our hearts the wonder of the Incarnate Deity
That Word that invades our bones, the very marrow of our bones, and sets us ablaze until it and we become like fire.
Fire that cannot be quenched
And O brothers and sisters we need a fire
We need a fire to burn in the depths of our souls and consume our complacency and our lack of faith
We need a fire of illumination to take to a world hovering in the shadows of its own lies
We need a fire to warm the depths of the human intellect and culture long neglected by the enduring chill of indifference.
And the Word of God, the spirit of prophecy is that fire that consumes the critical spirit of this age, clearing barren trees from the landscapes of cynicism and destruction until we can see the clear horizon of Truth over which the Mighty Son of Justice rises with healing in his wings and whose thunderous voice cries out that God is not dead nor does he sleep and continues to instill the spirit of prophecy in his Church, in her preachers, in us
We are called my brothers and sisters to take this message, this wondrous word to those who need it
To be bearers of his love for those who are lost and forsaken
To be witnesses of his affection for the lonely and afraid
To bear within ourselves the power of his promise
Brothers and sisters, today let us resolve to take up the mantle of prophecy.
Dare to be faithful to God’s call which is unique in each of us
Dare to be faithful to the Holy Church, to the College of Bishops, to our superiors, to the program of formation in this seminary
Dare to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice of service in the celibate way of life with the full conviction that the Lord will take care of all your needs
Dare to move that service away from attention to the self and toward the needs of others
Dare to hear the cries of help, sometimes secret, sometimes hidden, in the lives of your brothers and sisters here.
Dare to reject the spirit of the age, the spirit of individualism, the spirit of cynicism and the spirit of death
Dare to study and be transformed renewing your mind in the spirit of prophetic utterance through the authentic teaching office of the Church
Dare to pray, dare to open your heart to the pleading Christ, the beckoning Christ, the consoling Christ
Give your lives to him and hold nothing back and then we will know Brothers and sisters, without a doubt we will know that the prophetic spirit has not left the Church, nor could it leave as long as we long to be true to the Spirit of the Gospel, the living spirit of Christ.
It will not depart as long as one witness cries out from the street corners of overrun cities
As long as one heart continues to beat on behalf of Love Himself
As long as one holy but failing priest opens the covers of breviary hard pressed by years and with his faltering hands makes the sign of the cross and with trembling voice utters the familiar words: God come to my assistance. Lord make haste to help me.
You brothers and sisters have come here, you have come back here, we continue to stay here to be the very life of that prophetic spirit alive in heroic and little ways even as we say:
You have duped us, O Lord, and praise God, we have let ourselves be duped.

Just seven weeks ago, I was making my way to Mexico for the ordination to the priesthood of Fr. Jorge Gomez. I did not want to go. Not that I had anything against Jorge, quite the opposite, he had served the House of St. Mark well as prefect and had been a wonderful seminarian during his years with us. I was just a bit travel weary and traveling to Mexico was probably going to be a hassle. All of my consternation vanished, however, when I arrived in Durango, “Land of Scorpions”. The night journey to Jorge’s hometown of Jesús Agustín Castro proved to be an overland adventure. When I arrived late in the evening, the whole town seemed to be wide awake, preparing for the coming day’s festivities, The entire town was festooned with bunting and streamers, the church was decorated to the rafters and everyone seemed to have come out to help. Now my irritation was giving way to admiration. In the next days, I had the chance to witness a town in love, not only with their native son, but for what he now stood for as a priest. The ordination was beautiful. The mass of thanksgiving was wonderful. The mariachi band played into the wee hours of the morning. Canons were fired. Fireworks exploded. I returned from Mexico less weary than when I arrived. Once again, I was inspired by the beauty of the Body of Christ, lived in places around the world, places like Durango, “Land of Scorpions”.

Last weekend, just as Saturday night was giving in to the day of resurrection. Fr. Jorge and our Tulsa seminarian, Stanley Kariuki, were killed in a tragic automobile accident. The lives of two men were lost when a driver ran a red light at top speed and plowed into their car as they were returning from a Knights of Columbus function. In the Tulsa newspapers, their deaths were reported in a very matter of fact way. For us the matter was more than facts. They were our brothers. In his time at Saint Meinrad. Jorge was well-known as the informal ringleader of a band of disparate characters I called the United Nations. He had a gift of making others feel welcome. The United Nations included men from Mississippi, Bahamas, Philippines and all points in between. Jorge was a good friend. He cared about everyone. He was also a devoted man of the Church whose single desire was to serve Christ in his people. I can never forget the joy on his face as he was ordained a priest in Mexico. I cannot forget the joy on his dear father’s face and his family’s faces, the whole town’s faces. Jorge wanted to serve. He wanted to be a good priest who changes people’s lives. He had six weeks. I am sure he made the most of them.

Stanley Kariuki came from a small town called Molo in Kenya. In his youth he prepared to be a medical doctor, but his vocation came when he was serving with a group of medical missionaries in his native country. Eventually, Stanley left Kenya and he came to the United States with Glenmary. He came to Saint Meinrad, a town about as far from Molo as one can get. He came with a missionary heart and an open and willing spirit. Just last May he affiliated with the Diocese of Tulsa, but he had already endeared himself to the people of eastern Oklahoma. Stanley was a quiet, studious man with a ready smile. His patience and calm helped to alleviate a great deal of tension. He was passionate about his native culture and willing and eager to share it with all. Stanley was a gentleman in every sense of the word. In his life he already served the Church well by witnessing to the global power of God’s love and God’s will. It seems impossible that he is gone and we will never see his smile again.

Despite coming from opposite sides of the world they were brought together by a common love for Christ and his Church. Despite speaking different languages, they were brought together by the common language of call and service. Thrown together by their common experience as seminarians at Saint Meinrad, these men represented the best of us. They were bridges between worlds, bridges built in the name of Jesus. They were our brothers. They were not perfect men. Like the rest of us they could be a little whiney, a little hard headed, even a little troubling. Jorge had a way of getting his point across. Stanley was a well-known goat slayer. And they were our brothers. They were one of us. They taught us how to be good travelers in this life. Now Fr. Jorge and Stanley are united forever, not only in the fact of their death but in their now being bound together on another great journey. They are our brothers still. Ascending that seven-storey mountain they will soon come face-to-face with the Everlasting Father who calls of his children from the corners of the earth. We will miss them. We mourn for them and with their families and friends. We will see them again in that Kingdom of many colors, languages and cultures. Then there will be no more parting and we shall be brothers forever.

The Feast of St. Matthias

Graduation Liturgy
Archabbey Church
14 May 2011

Then they gave lots to them, and the lot fell upon Matthias,
and he was counted with the Eleven Apostles.

In our reading from the Acts of the Apostles this morning we have a powerful reminder of the origins of our doctrine of apostolic succession and a potent witness of the power of God to choose and call those whom he desires to serve him.

The call of the Lord is indeed powerful. It extends even beyond the events of the paschal mystery. We know that it continues in the Church today, not only in the College of Bishops, but in other ways as well, in particular ways, in storied ways, in ways that each of us here could relate, in very personal ways.
In other words, just as the lot of service and witness fell upon Matthias, it falls upon us.
Jesus chose his disciples personally. Who were they? They were ordinary men, sinful men, arrogant men, humble men, ignorant men. Jesus chose them from tiny out of the way places, dustbowls, fertile fields, fishing holes, and counting houses. They were weak men and men prone to fail. He called them and in his love he taught them. He taught them the true meaning of life. He taught them what was important. He instructed them in his way. In their relationship with Jesus, their daily darkness was filled with the light of missionary zeal. They became articulate, inspired, fearless witnesses of the Word, offering up their lives, their very lives for the proclamation of his kingdom.

Why? Because the lot had fallen upon them

The disciples became emissaries, witnesses, martyrs and by their witness so many others were called. Men and women and children from every culture, speaking every language, from Jerusalem to the ends of the known world heard the call of Jesus through those disciples. Called to be baptized into the life, death and resurrection of the itinerate preacher from Galilee, Judaism heard the call and likewise the Greeks. The preaching of the apostles and the witness of the power of Christ alive in them gave hope for a new life, a renewed world, eternal life, an end to the stifling stench of death and a new universal and new Catholic reality. The early Christians were inspired by the missionary prospect of His coming - to be more than they could have ever imagined. But even that was not enough.

And the lot fell upon Mathias. The lot fell upon Matthias and upon so many others, apostles and priests, bishops and deacons and thus this overwhelming, this flooding Word burst forth from the levies of its cultural and religious barriers to drown a world, thirsting, dying to hear the Good News proclaimed in every tongue, among every race, in every place. In the lot of those who are called, the ends of the earth have witnessed, are witnessing, the saving power of God, the Word of God careening down the tributaries of time and locality and flowing into every sullen place and dark corner of life.
In the sheer will of His command that prophetic preaching has shaken, with the power of an earthquake, the givenness of human institutions and its sacred vibrations have retaliated against the confining parameters of human power, human prestige, human wealth and created the possibility of making God-like the cultures of humanity offering them a new message, the message of the Kingdom.
And now, Brothers and sisters, the lot has fallen upon us to announce that message

A message that resounds against the fortresses of bigotry, warmongering, terrorism, discord, and diabolical notions of personality. It is a message that has suffered ridicule and reformation, reductionism and revisionism but it cannot be silenced, never muted, neither destroyed but rather, that Word is still heard today…
Brothers and sisters the lot has fallen upon us to announce the Good News of Our Lord, our Savior and the mandate of the Holy Gospel is clear: Love one another
Love one another in the desperate and cowering, the outcast, the forgotten and the bullied.
Love one another in your own families, communities, suffering brothers and sisters. The sick and the spiritually fractured. Wanderers and immigrants, the lost and uncertain.
Love one another in mothers desperately fearful that they cannot feed their children, in fathers in search of useful jobs to free their families from the yoke of marginalization, in children abused and jaded by life so early, so terribly, yet so truly.
Love one another in the flood victims of the south
The citizens of tiny, yet noble towns in Mississippi, Arkansas, Iowa, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Indiana,
Love one another in the rich and the overtly powerful
The exhausted and the athletic
The desiring and the complacent
My brothers and sisters, men and women and children desperate to experience the Love of Christ are calling out to us – Can you not hear their voices?
They call to us, not in theories or ideals, learned in the classroom, but from the streets and byways of anonymous refuges.
They cry and lament, despairing for lack of a hearing, despondent in damnable hopelessness, desperate for some glimmer of light, a twinkling of meaning in the dark landscapes of chaos.
And thus the lot has been cast and we have to go to them, we are compelled to go to them, obligated to reach out to them, bound to cast our lots with theirs.
In the name of the Lord Jesus.
That name that…
Rings out across human history and wrestles the viciousness, the perfidiousness of indifference.
That name that brightens the sights of the miserable, the cast off, the homeless, the neglected poor, and the dying
That name that lilts like the tune of “Love itself” on wearied ears that long to hear songs of peace in a world in which the base babble of war and the pulsating perniciousness of poverty unfailingly croak their disparate melodies.
That name is heard, will be heard, in every place across the globe because of men like our graduates today who have heroically answered the call and have accepted their lot to serve the Church as priests, because of men and women like our graduates today who will selflessly minister to the Church as laypeople.
Brothers and sisters they are called, and we are also called, in our place, in our ways
We are called to be martyr witnesses
We are called to the wrecklessness of conversion
We are called to the danger of discipleship
We are called to be Saints
Saint Meinrad is just such a place of witness, of conversion, of discipleship, of holiness. Whether we are here for graduation, for formation, for a lifetime, all of us have experienced it in one way of another …
We came here, ordinary men and women, sinful men and women, arrogant men and women, humble men and women, ignorant men and women. Jesus chose us from tiny out of the way places, dustbowls, fertile fields, fishing holes, counting houses. They were weak men and women, men and women prone to fail. He called us and in his love he taught us. He taught us the true meaning of life. He taught us what is important. He instructed us in his way. In our relationship with Jesus, our daily darkness was filled with the light of missionary zeal. We became articulate, inspired, fearless witnesses of the Word, offering up our lives, our very lives for the proclamation of his kingdom.

Today in the call spoken in so many voices we hear the singular voice of Jesus pleading with us: My brothers and sisters, the lot has fallen upon you. Be witnesses, martyrs, evangelists, prophets, teachers, apostles.
How will you do it? In my power, with my authority, by my witness, in my boldness, by my grace.

There is no doubt; the lot has fallen upon you, upon us.

If there is anything I hope our graduates take away from here today, it is the conviction to not only accept your call but to embrace it, continue to expand it, sanctify it and see in that unique call your only hope, your life, your breath, your food, your energy, your song, your stay, and your lasting peace.
Saint Meinrad has prepared you and the power of this place has one source, that which we celebrate here, now.
Here we inculcate a new reality, an everlasting res not only in the bread and wine, but in ourselves.
My dear graduates, brothers and sisters, after today we may never meet again in this holy place. But in our individual spheres we will witness - as we witness here - the daily miracle of God’s presence that binds us together, that gives us the courage, strength and will to rise up and see the glory of His wonder-working power, even as we move from this place to another place and another place after that, as we wander the earth as pilgrims of the promise until at last the roll is called and we discover ourselves bound on that final journey and the saints of God, gathered on that shore will show us to another hillside where we will find our great reunion day– After all, has he not promised His salvation to those who accept the call: The lot has fallen upon you. Love one another.

Reflection Six

In these conferences, I have been reflecting on the spirituality of the priest in light of the rite of ordination with the conviction that we understand the nature of the priesthood and thus its spiritual components by way of the ritual that makes it. This final reflection takes us to the end of the rite itself.
Having imposed hands on the candidate and praying the prayer of consecration, the rite moves forward rather rapidly. After the prayer of consecration there are four actions that equip the newly ordained priest with the tools he will need to perform his ministry and thus devote his life to the service of God’s holy people: the anointing of his hands, his vesting, the reception of the gifts and the sign of peace.
The anointing of the hands is, like the laying on of hands, an ancient ritual gesture. There is no anointing in the ordination of deacons. In the ordination of bishops, the head is anointed. For priests, it is the hands. Anointing, like so many actions of the rite, has an almost universal anthropological significance. Many cultures and religious traditions employ consecrated oils in rites of initiation and the appointment of religious personnel. It has two purposes, to set something apart and to seal a blessing. In the Old Testament, anointing is a sign of setting apart. The High Priest and the king are referred to as "the anointed" or the “Lord’s anointed”. (Lev 4 and 6 and Psalm 132).Anointing was also a sign of fitness for prophecy (I Kings 19, 16). The anointing of a king was his power. It set him apart as is evident from the anointing of David in the first book of Samuel.
Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brethren: and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward.(I Samuel, 16,13).

In the Old Testament, anointing is likewise a sign of healing, protection and sealing (Isaiah 1,6. Psalm 109). The same imagery is found in the New Testament. The Samaritan poured oil upon the wounds of the man to heal him. (Luke 10, 34). The significance of anointing takes on particular meaning in the New Testament. Jesus is the messiah, in Greek, the Christ, the anointed one. The anointing of the priest in the rite of ordination is connected to all of these things. First, the anointing sets the priest apart. He is established for holy duty. Unlike the priests of the Old Covenant who performed their priestly duties in annual shifts, the priest of the New Covenant is set apart permanently. As Pope Benedict XVI mentioned in his recent homily for the Chrism Mass “What happened symbolically to the kings and priests of the Old Testament when they were instituted into their ministry by the anointing with oil, takes place in Jesus in all its reality: his humanity is penetrated by the power of the Holy Spirit. He opens our humanity for the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Ours is a continual sacrifice of praise and we are anointed for that purpose. Our being set apart by our anointing also has spiritual ramifications. Concretely speaking the priest is not like other people. Here I do not mean to imply that there is something about the priest that should keep him from engaging with others in normal social interaction. Not at all, the priest needs friends and intimate acquaintances from a human standpoint. The priest is not set apart because he is a different species of person, or has different basic needs. He is set apart by his power and spiritual authority. He can confect, he can absolve, he can anoint the sick. No other human agent can do these essential things. That is not a cause for pride but a cause for realizing the immense responsibility the priest has. The abuse of that power and authority is the sole cause of much of the scandal in the Church today. As the priest is anointed on his hands, the priest’s hands should always be a reminder of what has been entrusted to him. Not only has he been set apart but he has been sealed. He is a priest forever. The sealing of the anointing of the hands mirrors the sealing of the baptismal rite and later confirmation. The anointing is “sealing in” the consecration and hopefully the priest’s formation as well. The hands are fortified. The rite also mirrors the consecration of altars and churches, physical objects sealed for their use and set apart. A beautiful tradition connected with the ordination of priests is the tradition of the manutergium. Before the reform of the rite of ordination after Vatican II, the priest’s hands were wrapped in a linen cloth. The cloth, now soaked with the anointing oil, was given as a gift to the priest’s mother. Traditionally it was placed in her casket and was said to be her clavis caeli (key of heaven). While not required in the new rite, it is not forbidden. The symbol of the manutergium forms a beautiful connection between the ordination and the priest’s family, his place of origin.
The anointing is accompanied by these words: “The Lord Jesus Christ, whom the Father anointed with the Holy Spirit and power, guard and preserve you, that you may sanctify the Christ people and offer sacrifice to God.” All of the symbolism of the rite is contained there, separation for a purpose and sealing. Most significantly, it connects the newly ordained priest to Christ his sovereign and his model.
The next action of the rite that arms the newly ordained with his priestly identity is the clothing with the vestments. Ritual garments are an essential part of any cultic identity. Like the anointing, the vestments set the priest apart. He is vested with particular garments, the garments of the priesthood, but they are placed over his common Christian garment, the alb, that white garment with which he was clothed at baptism. This is an important image. Baptism is his first identity, discipleship. Now he is to be set aside within that context for service as a priest. He has particular garments for this reality. Here I think it is important to reflect upon the cultic identity of the priest. A great deal has been written in recent years about reclaiming a cultic identity within the priesthood. I think this is significant but possible unnecessary. Perhaps the image of the priesthood has become too sanitized, too pedestrian in recent generations. I have often said that the priest has more in common with shamans than with social workers, but that is not to exclude the importance of the latter. The priest must realize that he is not dealing with merely earthbound matters. I use this expression rather than merely human matters because the task of the priest is not to only to acknowledge the earthiness of those whom he serves, but to serve them authentically by pointing out their heavenly citizenship as well. We must be careful here. The priest does not give heavenly citizenship. He points it out. The priest is a cultic agent, but he is also an anthropological agent. His task is to offer insight to others about their true nature. The people of God are made in the likeness of God, and most particularly in the likeness of Christ. Christ was possessed of two simultaneous realities, human and divine. We are conformed to Christ as disciples. We likewise share this dual citizenship and yet our self-perceptions can be very earth bound. The priest points to heaven while remaining here on earth. He points to our true nature and our reality over and against the false messages of inauthentic culture. His ability to make this profession is a function of his office, but it must also be evident in his way of living. The priest is a cultic figure in that he is both a denizen of culture and a transformer of culture. His being set apart for this duty is signified in the vesture. The vesting prayers of the extraordinary form give us some insight into this symbolism.
With the alb
Dealba me, Domine, et a delicto meo munda me; ut cum his, qui stolas suas dealbaverunt in sanguine Agni, gaudiis perfruar sempiternis.
“Purify me, Lord, and cleanse my heart so that, washed in the Blood of the Lamb, I may enjoy eternal bliss.”
The connection to baptism is clear and, in particular, the eschatological nature of baptism. Baptism connects us not only to a concrete community of faith but to an eschatological community the implications of which are continually played out in our lives.
With the cincture:
Praecinge me, Domine, cingulo fidei et virtute castitatis lumbos meos, et extingue in eis humorem libidinis; ut jugiter maneat in me vigor totius castitatis.
Gird me, O Lord, with the girdle of purity, and extinguish in me all evil desires, that the virtue of chastity may abide in me.
The cincture is another sign of separation, in particular through the priestly charism of celibacy.
With the stole:
Redde mihi, Domine, obsecro, stolam immortalitatis, quam perdidi in praevaricatione primi parentis; et, quamvis indignus accedere praesumo ad tuum sacrum mysterium cum hoc ornamento, praesta, ut in eodem in perpetuum merear laetari.
“Restore unto me, I beseech You, O Lord, the stole of immortality, which I lost through the collusion of our first parents, and inasmuch as I presume to draw near to Your holy Mystery with this adornment, unworthy though I be, grant that I may be worthy to rejoice in the same unto eternity.”
Often the stole is seen as representative of authority. It was worn by judges and other officials in the ancient world. It is still a part of the coronation regalia in modern monarchies. The prayer ties the stole to immortality. It is the rope by which the priest climbs, or is pulled to heaven and the rope by which others, through the Holy Mystery will climb with him.
With the Chasuble:
Domine, qui dixisti: Jugum meum suave est, et onus meum leve: fac, ut illud portare sic valeam, quod possim consequi tuam gratiam.
“O Lord, Who said: My yoke is easy and My burden light: grant that I may bear it well and follow after You with thanksgiving.”
Whom does the priest represent? Christ the Lord and him alone. The chasuble is the priest’s daily reminder of what he has received and what he is.
After the vesting, the priest once again kneels before the bishop and hears these words: “Receive the oblation of God from the holy people, to be offered to God. Understand what you do, imitate what you celebrate and conform your life to the mystery of the Lord’s cross.”
This part of the rite is very powerful. First it connects the priest’s life and ministry of service to the people, always to the people. The rubric says: “Some of the faithful bring a paten holding the bread and chalice containing the wine mixed with water for the celebration of Mass.” What are these gifts? What do they represent? What will they become? The prayers for the preparation of the gifts give us some insight here. They are the gifts of the earth, the fruit of the vine and the work of human hands. Our Lord chose these very gifts to be the accidental forms by which his holy body and blood would be communicated to the world in a perpetual sacrifice of praise. Obviously they had ritual implications in the chabura/seder meal he celebrated with his disciples in the upper room at the institution of the Holy Eucharist. Even in that context, however, they represented something deeper than aspects of a cultural pattern; they represented and represent the basic elements of our livelihood. The bread and wine of the Passover represented the Jewish people’s liberation because they represented the Jewish people. Bread and wine are basic to human sustenance in what amounts to an almost universal anthropological signification. Bread and wine are what keep human persons alive. They are also the creative engagement of earthly elements and human labor. In the anthropology of food, culture is required for bread and wine as opposed to wheat and grapes. Bread and wine require our participation and our intentionality. We have to make them. In the theology of human labor then, they are a part of us. Bread and wine not only keep us alive, they keep us living through our positive intervention in our creative longevity. When the gifts are presented then, the holy people are giving not only what they need to survive, they are giving the best and most basic elements of themselves.
Now the newly ordained priest is called to receive it. In receiving the gifts, he is receiving the lives those gifts represent. He is receiving the basic aspirations of the people. He is receiving their livelihood. He is receiving all of them. They in turn are entrusting themselves to the priest, or rather to what the priest will do with those gifts. The exchange speaks volumes. The people say: Here is what we have. Here is what keeps us alive. Here is the work of our hands. But it is not enough. It is not enough just to keep ourselves alive. Our creative energies are not sufficient in themselves. Take these gifts priest and make them more than they are at present. Give them life by joining them to God. You alone priest are able to make that journey. We need more. You alone can provide the more we need. Thus the presentation of the gifts becomes a pledge of unity between the best of humanity soon to be augmented by the Divine life which will fill up the best of humanity. As in the Incarnation and the theological ramifications of redemption, Man provides the raw material for the sacrifice. Why did God become man? Man owed a debt and he owed it in the very ground of his being. God alone can satisfy that debt. In the light of the Incarnation and Redemptive act of Christ, the presentation of the gifts is a sign of what is; the perfection of the human condition in the sacrifice of Christ, the unity of God and Man. This is a momentous exchange. It is a cosmic and an historical exchange. It teaches the newly ordained an important lesson: You are here to offer this exchange continually because this exchange is our strength, our life, our only hope.
Who brings these gifts forward? Your parents, your grandparents, your brothers and sisters? Certainly. And all Mankind. All of humanity brings these forward. The familiar and the familial bring them forward. The stranger and the outcast bring them forward.
What does the bishop say? “Understand what you do.” This is perhaps the most sobering injunction of the ordination rite. Narrowly interpreted, this means that the newly ordained priest ought to know how to offer the sacrifice. He ought to understand the principles of the liturgy. He needs to know the rubrics and the proper gestures. But that is not enough. He also needs to know what the sacrifice means. He needs to know the symbolic universe it inhabits. He needs to probe the metaphysical implications of the sacrifice. He must understand where he stands in a greater than natural order. He must appreciate the final significance of this sacrifice. He must also know that in this Holy Sacrifice he is handling the Body and Blood of Christ, but not only in the sacrifice proper, the insight must extend further. The priest will take the bread and wine. He will renew the sacrifice of Christ. He will offer it back to the people in a wonderful exchange. And those who partake of it will become what they consume. The Eucharist makes the Church. The Body of Christ is for the Body of Christ. Now the injunction of the bishop takes on even greater dimensions. Understand what you do not only in the Mass but as a result of the Mass. Understand what you are touching when you touch the lives of the faithful. Understand what you are doing when you “handle” the fragile Body of Christ encountered daily in your ministry and life as a priest. Respect and revered the Body of Christ in the sacrifice and in the tabernacle, but also in the assembly. Understanding leads to respect, authentic respect in the sense of looking again. In our pastoral engagement we are perpetually called to look again. We must see again what we may not see the first time, the authentic presence of Christ in the troubling, the difficult, and the problematic. Understanding what you do means knowing how to appreciate what you have assisted in bringing about. The command goes even further. Understand what you do and who you are. The command seems to be a clarion call to realize your identity as a priest. Who is the priest? What is his function? What is his essence? These questions cannot be answered simply or at first sight. The answer to these questions begins when the newly ordained priest takes the paten and cup. He begins a sacrificial journey at that moment that will not only touch the gifts he has received. It will also touch him, effect him, change him. The priest is unveiled to the world and to himself in his offering of the sacrifice. The paten and the chalice are his key to self-identity because through those vessels and what they contain, he discovers Christ. Christ is the true signifier. Christ is the only thing that makes a difference in this dramatic engagement. In the rite the priest is called to “imitate what you celebrate” to become Christ. How can this be done? By conforming to the mystery of his cross. What is the mystery of the cross? It is tension. The cross is that tensile place, that crossroads of opportunity. In his crucifixion, Christ had the possibility of becoming either a scandal or a source of life. He became a source of life to all who believe. The cross is the intersection between heaven and earth, the vertical and the horizontal. The cross is firmly planted in the earth but reaches decidedly to heaven. Conforming our lives to the mystery of the cross means placing ourselves there, or perhaps more precisely realizing that we are there. Our lives have the opportunity to be either a scandal or a source of life. Some few of our brothers chose the scandal. We must choose the source of life. We become the source of life only when, like Christ, we surrender our will to the will of the Father, we trust being cared for as we drink the cup of the world’s suffering. We become the source of like when like Christ the Good Shepherd we foolishly seek the lost sheep. We become the source of life and thus live the fruitfulness of the mystery of the cross when we recognize that we stand in that unique place, between heaven and earth. The cross without Christ is a symbol of sadism. The cross with Christ, is a symbol of love. Conforming our lives to the mystery of the Lord’s cross means we are willing to put everything aside, family, lands, home, job, everything to become a vessel of his love for the world. We become a paten that holds his body, a sacred chalice that contains his blood and everything we do has the potential, through his grace alone, to change the axis of a sinful world.
The eschatological tension kindled by the Eucharist expresses and reinforces our communion with the Church in heaven. It is not by chance that the Eastern Anaphoras and the Latin Eucharistic Prayers honour Mary, the ever-Virgin Mother of Jesus Christ our Lord and God, the angels, the holy apostles, the glorious martyrs and all the saints. This is an aspect of the Eucharist which merits greater attention: in celebrating the sacrifice of the Lamb, we are united to the heavenly “liturgy” and become part of that great multitude which cries out: “Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Rev 7:10). The Eucharist is truly a glimpse of heaven appearing on earth. It is a glorious ray of the heavenly Jerusalem which pierces the clouds of our history and lights up our journey. (Ecclesia de Eucharistia, 19)
Who does not need a glimpse of this vision?
Finally the bishop gives the newly ordained the fraternal kiss of peace. His words are the words of the risen Christ: “Peace be with you” Peace will certainly follow if the priest has attended carefully to the injunctions that have been offered in the rite. He will be a man of peace, God’s own peace, which may not always look to the world like peacefulness, but it is peace in the truest, deepest, and most abiding sense. The priests present also the newly ordained the kiss of peace. The fraternity of the presbyterate cannot be gainsaid. The priest is now one of their number and will take his place. In many dioceses the common vestment now makes the newly ordained difficult to find in this sea of men. That seems fitting. He is a part of an army of priests, formed together to wage a war of love. The irony should not be lost. The rite allows for the singing of the antiphon: “You are my friends says the Lord, if you do what I command”. So be it. The rite of ordination is now over. The priest must move on to his first celebration of the Holy Eucharist as a priest. He does so with his fellow priests, led by the bishop, the most fitting sign of God’s plan of the Church. Now the newly ordained priest can expect many days. He will face many trials. He will enjoy countless triumphs. He will be loved and reviled. He will have moments of perfect clarity and moments of grave doubt about his decision to become a priest. There is no question that all of these potential difficulties are worth it when we consider the core of the priest’s call in the Eucharist, in priestly service and in evangelization:
From the perpetuation of the sacrifice of the Cross and her communion with the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist, the Church draws the spiritual power needed to carry out her mission. The Eucharist thus appears as both the source and the summit of all evangelization, since its goal is the communion of mankind with Christ and in him with the Father and the Holy Spirit. (Ecclesia de Eucharistia, 22).
Going back to the insight that began these reflections, it is necessary for the priest to find his authentic identity and his true spirituality in the words of this rite. The rite makes him a priest. Often today there can seem to be a move among some of your younger brethren that the priesthood is not enough. In the wind today is talk of particular gifts given to some priests and not others. Some have various gifts and this is certainly scriptural. St. Paul tells us as much in the First Letter to the Corinthians. “There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit; there are different forms of service but the same Lord; there are different workings but the same God who produces all of them in everyone. (I Cor 12, 3-6).
We certainly know that all priests are not the same. We wouldn’t want them to be. We have great preachers and mediocre preachers. We have amazing teachers and some who seem regularly to induce slumber. We have those who excel at the bedside of the sick and those who avoid the hospital like the plague. Nuances of talent are not the significant issue in looking at the life and ministry of the priest. They exist. A dangerous move for both the theology and spirituality of the priesthood is the introduction of the notion that some priests have more than others. Every priest is the same. Every priest is called to the same thing. The introduction of the perception of special gifts above the priesthood is insidious. There is not greater power in the hands of men than the power to confect, absolve and anoint the sick. Show me a priest who thinks he has special powers above these and I will show you, in almost every instance, a narcissistic charlatan. Brothers we are called to a vocation of custody, custody of the Divine Power that God intends to unleash upon the world through the passion, death and resurrection of his son. That power is the power of love. The rite of ordination tells us who we are. It tells us that definitively. It tells us that permanently. My brothers, there is no greater vocation to which we can be called, if we take it soberly and seriously. There is no greater power entrusted to human hands, if we assume it humbly and diligently. There is not greater act that the human mind can conceive than the act of sacrifice renewed in every Eucharist. But we would be remiss not to refer to the words of the Apostle. “The one who eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks damnation” (I Corinthians, 11, 29). As our lives are spent appropriating a priestly identity and spirituality we must realize that the stakes are high. The rewards are higher. As I said recently in a retreat to some of our seminarians, in my years as a priest I have never felt lonely, never felt alone and certainly never felt bored. As priests, we are called to an awesome mystery. We cannot realize it on our own. We should not even try. As the rector of Saint Meinrad, it is my daily privilege to witness the unfolding of this drama in the lives of men who struggle mightily to realize the authentic nature of the life they are undertaking. We always take it seriously. It is serious. In the end we know, however, that it is God’s work, a work of grace. In that insight is our lasting peace and our everlasting joy. I wish to conclude these reflections with the words of our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI, words spoken at the Chrism Mass in Rome in 2011.
I turn finally to you, dear brothers in the priestly ministry. Holy Thursday is in a special way our day. At the hour of the last Supper, the Lord instituted the New Testament priesthood. "Sanctify them in the truth" (Jn 17:17), he prayed to the Father, for the Apostles and for priests of all times. With great gratitude for the vocation and with humility for all our shortcomings, we renew at this hour our "yes" to the Lord’s call: yes, I want to be intimately united to the Lord Jesus, in self-denial, driven on by the love of Christ. Amen.

It is a “yes” that connects us mystically to the great cloud of witnesses around the throne of the Ancient of Days. It is the “yes” that initiated the life of God on earth, a “yes” spoken by a maid in a secluded corner of the world and echoing today in those who owe their authentic lives to the theotokos, that Blessed Lady upon whom we cast all our cares.

Welcome back to our seminarians. Here is the homily for Easter Monday

Easter Monday, 2011
Among the Saint Meinrad monastic traditions associated with Holy Week is the practice of presenting a live lamb to the abbot during the Easter Vigil. The lamb is brought forward by the novices. It is a moment of levity in the awesome rites of the vigil. From the standpoint of the assembly it is quite funny and sweet. For years I have wondered what it was like from the standpoint of the lamb. And so I present ---
A Lamb’s Tale
My name is Raymond. All of this business happened when I was about three months old. I can’t say that at the time I was a very good lamb, I wasn’t. I mean, I was good-looking enough but, you know, morally speaking, not so much. I fought a lot. I have a scar on my nose from a particularly nasty fight. It’s pretty bad, but you should have seen the hoofmarks on the other lamb. I didn’t do so well in school. I did great in frolicking but I was horrible at math. This was a cause of some consternation, after all what good is a lamb who can’t count sheep? I was definitely a mama’s lamb. That’s not to say that all of this is out of the ordinary. For goodness’ sake, I was only a kid. I’m sure I could have never predicted what would happen, what did happen because I swear everything I am about to tell you is the truth, even if the truth hasn’t always been died in the wool with me, so to speak. IT all started on an ordinary day. I had done a bit of nursing in the morning and around noon I was looking forward to a bit of frolicking with some buds of mine when the farmer showed up. He had a couple of other humans with him, two grown ones wearing some outfits like I had not seen before, long black robes. Weird I thought to myself, and might have just frolicked off but before I realize it, the farmer had me around the middle and was wrestling me into this wire pen. All of this is still such a blur that I can’t remember what happened next, but they put me into this kind of wheeled wagon and the two robed men got in front and off we went, faster than I thought it was possible to move. Over the walls of the wagon I could see pasture flashing by. This seemed to go on forever. Then we arrived at this barn, or some kind of barn made all of rock. They took my wire pen out with me in it and set me down in a kind of courtyard. They threw some straw, a container of water and some pellet like food into the pen. They were laughing. Then they just walked away. I felt so lonely there. There was no one around. It was so dark. I couldn’t see the moon or stars. O my what have I go myself into? Where’s my mama? Where are the other sheep? This was really looking Baaaad. I don’t know how long I stayed in that wire pen. It might have been two or three years, or just a couple of days. Lambs don’t have such a great sense of time and I was very bad at math. Finally, one night, the whole thing seemed to be unraveling. I caught a glimpse of a bunch of people. They started a fire. They were all dressed up in black and white robes. They seemed to dance around the fire. There was a big one. he was all dressed up in gold and had a kind of tower on his head. He also carried a shepherds crook, but it was like nothing I had ever seen before. They sang a bit and then someone brought out a big white pole, about as tall as a man. They seemed to think this was very important. They touched it and stuck things in it and then they set the top of it on fire. All of those folks then went into the barn, leaving me in the courtyard by myself again. Fortunately, they left the barn door open so I could hear what was happening. The first thing they did was get some fire off of that white pole and light little white poles they were all holding. Soon there was a warm and rosy glow coming from the barn. Next they began to tell stories. I could hear them from my pen. Over and over different ones got up to tell a story. I knew this is what shepherds sometimes did around fires. These stories were crazy though, about the beginnings of the world, about some people who walked through a pond, some old guy who tried to kill his son, crazy stuff, but somehow, quite compelling. This went on for a long time, and then I heard bells ringing, like cow bells but much bigger. Inside the barn they were singing really loud. Some crap was getting ready to go down, I could feel it and sure enough, in a flash two of the black robes were rattling my cage. “Come on girl, they said. What a pair these two were. Girl?! My name is Raymond for heaven’s sake. They tied my feet together. I was scared to death because I had seen this before. An old sheep I saw got tied up like this once. We never saw her again. They wrestled me into the ropes and then placed me in a basket. O no, I bleated, this is the end. They hauled me up the steps of the barn and then inside. It was beautiful. It smelled of flowers and plants. I love flowers and plants. It was glowing, at least what I could see of it, being tied up on my back and all. Well if this was the end, it was a great way to go. The two black robes brought me forward to the dude with the shepherd’s crook. From my position in the basket, he was upside down. He shook something in my face. It felt like drops of water. It was probably some drug I thought, something to make the end easier. The people around were laughing as I spoke and cried out. Then just as quickly as it started, it ended. In just a few minutes I was untied, and put back in my wire pen. Now I was interested. I listened closely to what they were doing in the barn. They sang. They recited words. The head guy spoke a lot. This went on for days, or hours, I’m very bad at math. Then they seemed to eat something. I heard it called the “Lamb of God’ I knew it wasn’t a real lamb, because, well, I was the only one around and they weren’t eating me. The Lamb of God seemed to have a name. It was Jesus. From what I could tell, they seemed to love this lamb, In fact, they loved him very much. Seemingly, from what I could make out, he had done something very important for them, this lamb named Jesus. That made me feel good, somehow important. Well, soon the adventure was over. The next morning, I went back to the farm, the same way I came. But I can tell you this, I wasn’t the same lamb. Having gone through all of that, I felt different, really different. I know no one here on the farm will believe my story. That’s why I am writing it down. (I know my hoofwriting is not so hot, sorry.) I know what happened. I know how my life, one crazy night was changed by this Lamb of God named Jesus. I know what happened and that I am a better lamb for it today. No one can take that away from me. Now I am determined. No matter what else happens in my life, I am going to find out more about this Jesus, the (how did it go?) the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Maybe one day I will be called to his supper. Who knows? I do know this. That night changed my life forever. That night was the making of me, Raymond, a simple lamb transformed by Jesus in a great mystery that I know I will never fully understand. I hope it was that way for the humans. I’m sure it was.