1.The Sacred and the Profane

Prayer

Almighty God I praise and thank You for giving me the occasion to reflect on my call to be a priest. Many of my fellow priests in various situations are not able to have this experience. True it is that some of us find it difficult to separate ourselves from our daily work. We think of our people who need us; there are some of our collaborators who will always expect the word of the priest to carry on their responsibility. There are some urgent works that need our presence; there are many worries and anxieties connected with our daily work. All demands that require our presence in our place.

But Lord, during these few minutes take away from me every obstacle; every hindrance and difficulty to spend time with you. Take away the repugnance at times I feel in my spiritual duties. Send your Holy Spirit abundantly on me that I spend time with you to make me more useful to my ministry for which you called me.

At a juncture of history when a section of the human kind is trying to find happiness in this created world itself without God; anything sacred or holy are put on the back seat or perhaps trying to obliterate the very name of God, to talk on priesthood may be foolhardy. In fact listen carefully to what follows: “There are those today who would eliminate distinctions between the sacred and the profane. Sanctuaries are to be replaced with Eucharistic assembly halls. Priests offering sacrifice are to be replaced with functionaries, presidents, enablers. All of life is to be holy. All people are equally holy. No day is more sacred than another. Yet without ferial days there are no holy days. Without ordinary time there is not the extraordinary time of Christmas or Easter. Without fasts there are no feasts. Rather than all becoming holy through such attempts at eliminating the distinction between the sacred and the profane, all become desacralized in a pervasive, deadening secularism. Declaring no person, place or thing to be in any way distinct from another in terms of its relationship to God, results in no thing and no place and no one being sacred. Even innocent human life, which until recently continued to be imbued with a sacredness that left it inviolable, is no longer sacred in our secularized society.”¹

In spite of this almost artificial conviction of an extreme position, so to say, history and those who still believe in the presence of the sacred understand the place occupied by the Catholic priest and his intimate relationship with the celebration of the Eucharist: “Throughout the entire period of the Middle Ages there was never any doubt that the supreme expression of the Church’s life came not in political or intellectual triumph, but in the celebration of the Eucharist: ‘The noblest action in the Church is the simple consecration of the Eucharist’”². And it was for the celebration of the Eucharist that priests were primarily ordained according to the teaching of the medieval theologians and canonists³.

But then the shocking diminution of the clergy in many parts of the world may be according to some an indication that time of the Catholic priesthood as thought of by tradition has to give place to other forms of filling the gap. It seems the declaration of the Church regarding Laity⁴ as well as the far cry for married priests and priesthood for women⁵ urge us to look for other alternatives.

“One can see how the real danger is, for it is probable that all the great crises in the Church were essentially connected to a decline in the clergy, for whom intercourse with the Holy had ceased to be the fascinating and perilous mystery it is, for coming close to the burning presence of the All-Holy One, and had become instead a comfortable craft to which to secure one’s daily needs.⁶

For an example let us take the case of the Dutch Church,” Commentators on the Dutch situation observe that between 1930 and 1947, when Catholicism was apparently flourishing, an estimated 10,00 Catholics each year quietly left the Church, but that this considerable loss of adherents was hidden by the high Catholic birth rate. But by the 1990’s the Netherlands had become one of the ten richest countries in the world. The old Age Pension Plan (1957) relieved enormous pressure from people, but also loosened the ties between generations and made the young more independent of tradition. A wave of new ideas was channelled through the highly structured Catholic communications network which had to so successfully nourished a more traditional faith in the preceding decades.

The Dutch Catholic community was subjected to a flood of criticism and self-questioning. Private confession was virtually abandoned, Christian marriage practices criticized, and priestly celibacy held to be intolerable. Sunday Mass attendance dropped from 70-75% in 1961, to 19.8% in 1984; 1732 priests resigned within ten years (1965-1975), and ordinations dwindled from 318 in 1960 to 16 in 1977. ⁷

It is possible to take the astonishing cases of other countries of Western Europe but one case is more than enough for our reflection. By the great mercy of God in India it has not become an acute problem yet, God willing. it will never come, even though there are some indications in some parts of our dear sub-continent. Perhaps we priests are still in some way relying on the simple faith of our good Catholics. At the same time we must not be blind to the fact that some have left our ranks to join other sects.

But “If a priest today is not automatically given the honour and respect accorded to his office in the past, if his ministry is not always recognized, if some people are inclined to look on him with suspicion simply because he is a priest, then there are significantly fewer incentives to seek the priesthood for reasons of status or personal advantage.

To be a good priest is real challenge. It is not an easy life. It is a genuine vocation which demands the kind of commitment that can only be lived out with the help of God’s grace. It is a vocation to be a leader precisely in the way that Jesus was, as one who serves. The priest is a servant of God’s wounded people. The church today desperately needs this kind of servant leaders. At the same time, the church itself needs the kind of reconciliation which is so much a part of the priest’s ministry”⁸

Without harking back to “good old days” we must not be blind to what our predecessors did in order to revitalize the call to priesthood. In fact after the Council of Trent the religious congregations and as well as diocesan clergy tried to enforce the decrees of the Council of Trent to enliven formation to priesthood we should also listen to the Magisterium to buttress the vocation of those who are called to priesthood. “The consistent use of religious orders to implement the decree of the Council (of Trent) led to yet another “monastic” revitalization of the priesthood. There was determined effort to develop a spirituality for the diocesan priest which would be as lofty as, and preferably loftier than, that of religious. At the centre of this movement was the so-called “French” School of men such as Pierre de Berulle, Jean-Jacques Olier, and Vincent de Paul, whose followers were to be so influential in implementing the Count’s call to establish seminaries”⁹

“In scripture “election” is always linked to “mission”. God calls and consecrates – in order to to send out. This was true of Abraham (Gn 12:1), Moses (EX 3:10, 16), Amos (7:15), Isaiah (6:9, 42:6, 49:1-5) 61:1), Jeremiah (1:7), and Ezekiel (2:3-8). And it was true par excellence of Jesus: “The Son, therefore, came on mission from his Father (LG 3). So too, the apostles were “consecrated” and “sent out” into the world (Jn 17:17-19)¹⁰. Thus we see the intimate connection between consecration and mission.

“We live in an age which evaluates people by what they “do” – and we esteem and reward financially those possess some technical skill: we are impressed when we meet a brain surgeon or an airline pilot. But through most of human history (and still in many non-European societies) persons tended to be recognized more for who they were rather than for what they did: so a medieval earl or cleric may have done any number of things, but these were very peripheral to the status the individual held in society. Towler argues that the status which traditionally attaches to the priestly office is felt to be slightly incongruous in the contemporary world. Some clergymen try to escape from this uncomfortable marginality (which has also undetermined the attraction of motherhood) by developing teaching, counselling or management skills” ¹¹

What is the purpose of a retreat? If I am consecrated and sent by the call of God retreat is the time to see whether I am true to this call and mission. I must examine myself and see whether I had a God experience to continue the God-given task which out of His generosity He conferred on me. Let us listen to what happened to Moses, his God-experience and his closeness to God. He was also called and sent.

“The angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was no consumed. Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up” When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see God called to him out of the bush, Moses, Moses!”. And he said, “Here I am”. Then He said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” He said further, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”. And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God” ¹² This is a kind of an experience where God is described as powerful somewhat distant from man and yet we know that Moses was speaking to God face to face although he was not allowed to see his face. Reading through the pages of Exodus describing Moses experience of God make us understand how the face of Moses was dazzling white that he had to put a veil when He came out of the tabernacle. Moses was a changed man.

“The venture of being called close to the mystery of God requires a preparation like that of Moses, who heard words that still hold true; one must take off one’s shoes. Shoes made of leather, from the skins of dead animals, were a symbol of the dead, of that from which we must free ourselves in order to be able to live in the presence of the One who is life. The dead – this is first of all the excess of dead things, possession, with which a man surrounds himself. The dead also refers to those behaviour that oppose the paschal way of life: only the one who loses himself finds himself. The priesthood demands a departure from bourgeois existence; it had to incorporate within itself in a methodological way this losing of one’s self¹³.

Let us listen to Cardinal Maria Martini to what he has to say about his own experience about our own people whom he met on a trip to India for whom we are priests: “During a recent trip to India I was struck by the yearning for the divine that pervades the whole Hindu culture. It gives rise to extraordinary religious forms and extremely meaningful prayers. I wondered: What is authentic in this longing to fuse with divine dominating the spirituality of hundreds of millions of human beings, so that they bear hardship, privation, exhausting pilgrimages, in search of this ecstasy?

I think I can answer by understanding the meaning of the covenant. They are yearning for the fusion with the divine guaranteed and assured by the covenant, as the Kingdom of God, eternal life, heavenly banquet, through the presence of the Holy Spirit that is God’s direct action in human hearts, transforming and deifying.”¹⁴ We are Christ’s priests to a people who believe in a supernatural, where the vast majority is religious.

By our priestly consecration the good Lord has changed our inmost being we have become “other Christ’s”. A real change has taken place in us; our very being is changed as it is possible for a creature who partakes of God’s life: we are essentially different from others¹⁵. Only that we do not put a veil on our faces! But we are capable of saying in the person of Christ “This is my Body”.

God is in me. He is with me. He loves me and takes me as I am giving me His whole time. He takes care of me. It is not just a theological notion but it should be a daily experience. Think of the manifold benefits He has bestowed one me in the past: God-fearing family: exemplary parents, practising Christian brothers and sisters and other elatives; a satisfactory education and now the occasion to make a retreat, the companions who are with me to help me by their prayer and example to make the retreat well.

He has taken the initiative and made me His double and perhaps we have refused his love as Jerusalem had done in the days of Christ: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing”¹⁶. In spite of our refusal the Lord continues His search for us with an insatiable love as we can understand from the words of the prophet Isaiah: “Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands”.¹⁷

In order to realize my attentiveness to God we must imitate our Blessed Lord before taking His mission given by the Father He went to the desert to listen to His father more carefully so to say. He was in the desert for 40 days and 40 nights. We may not go to the desert materially but we must make a desert within ourselves. The desert speaks of sincerity, truth, of suffering, of trial, of powerlessness. In fact, scripture says that Jesus was hungry after the 40 days. He desired material food and as a consequence the devil found a favourable time to attack him. We instead in the desert of our loneliness with God we must hunger for more for Him.

The desert is a physical reality, it becomes an image of the life of man: the desert is interior dryness, solitude, deception, silence around us. It is a place of temptation. It brings sadness, suffering of the heart and mind. But there are also providential moments of discernment, of success, of growth.

All this is verified in the experience of the chosen people of God during their sojourn in the desert. During this retreat we have to go through his experience in order to feel the tangible presence of God in our lives. In fact, Israel considers the desert the time of its infancy and adolescence and her espousal with God. The prophets spoke of the desert as the ideal place of meeting God, of cultivating friendship with him; at the same time of infidelity of the people of God of idolatry and of punishment.

The desert formed the leaders of the people of God: the patriarchs, Moses, Jacob, David, Elias and the Maccabees. The Baptist and Jesus himself had the fascinating experience of the desert. “I am the voice of the one crying in the wilderness”¹⁸ The destiny of the desert is to become a garden. A garden has its roots in aridity and in the salt of life. Man’s refusal to obey God turned the garden into a desert. And the desert will become a garden only through suffering: “in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bred”¹⁹

Desert is also a place of silence and silence is much needed during a retreat. Listen to what Paul VI says of silence: “May esteem for silence, that admirable and indispensable condition of mind, revive in us, besieged as we are by so many uplifted voices, the general noise and uproar, in our seething and over sensitized life” ²⁰

We must enter into a “Sabbath” of God: not only to stop activism but to give time for God. To have an experience of God in faith and love. An experience we will go through in our prayers: liturgy of the hours, the Eucharist, our visits to the Blessed Sacrament, our common prayer and our ejaculations said with real affection, our mental prayer and silent adoration.

Think of what the Apostles and the Evangelists did. They were with Him. As a result they wrote the Gospels. We must write a Gospel of our life during these days.

“The word of God is alive and active, sharper than any double edged sword. It cuts all the way through, to where soul and spirit meet, to where joints and marrow come together. It judges the desires and thoughts of man’s heart. There is nothing that can bed from God; everything in all creation is exposed and lies open before His eyes. And it is to Him that we must all give an account of ourselves”²¹

Finally let us be close to Mary. She is the burning bush that is not consumed. All her life spent for God. Meditate on her conversation with the angel Gabriel. How open and available she had been. She kept everything in her heart. No wonder why Augustine said” She conceived first in her mind and then in her womb”.