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PRIESTLY ROLE & IDENTITY
BY THE MOST REV TIMOTHY DOLAN ARCHBISHOP OF MILWAUKEE USA
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One priest you may not consider a friend, but one whom you as a priest should love, trust, and stay in touch with, would be your bishop. The intimate bond between a bishop and his priests is a theological necessity, which is to be a human reality as well. There is not a bishop I know who does not have the welfare of his priests as a top priority. As I have in the past, I encourage you now to remain in close contact with your bishop. An older priest I respect told me that twice each year – at the conclusion of his retreat and on the anniversary of his ordination – he would write the bishop a very personal letter, just reviewing his life and renewing to him his priestly promises. An excellent idea! Closeness with our bishop is a good insurance in protecting our priestly identity.
And, even though I am stressing healthy friendships with brother priests, let me not exclude good ones with the laity. They keep us on the ground. In general, our people have never had an “identity crisis” about the priesthood. They love and cherish priests, and value our ministry. While we always have to be careful about having favourites in a parish, we can and should, as we go along, cultivate close associations with people who bring out the best in us and see deep down in us that indelible mark of priesthood.
So many things can whittle away at our priestly identity that sometimes it is in jeopardy and we don’t even realize it. Thus we need the guidance of someone who knows us well, who can warn us of danger, who can encourage us when we fall. So is a trusted spiritual director a real blessing in nurturing our priestly identity, as is the grace and mercy that comes from regular celebration of the sacrament of penance.
A fourth guarantee of priestly identity would be, and this might seem somewhat generic, a way of life appropriate to priests. Under this rubric I would list such safeguards as clerical dress, a comfort in being called “Father,” simplicity of life, avoiding plush restaurants and places of entertainment, and the temptation for fancy and extravagant clothes, cars, vacations; retiring for the day at a proper time, a disciplined way of life. Common sense, perhaps, but all practical ways to protect our priestly identity.
I suppose all of these safeguards pale when we conclude with the most important aspect of fostering our priestly identity: a close, intimate relationship with Jesus. We are only priests because of our call from him and our union with him. Especially are we called to be united with him on his cross. Here, of course, he was most the priest, and we are most priests when we share in his suffering. This can be physical – we think of priests who have been tortured and imprisoned because they were priests, or priests who are sick in mind or body. This can be a spiritual suffering, as men struggle with dryness in prayer, wrestle with sin, fight temptation, or confront doubt. This can be emotional suffering caused by loneliness, inadequacy, discouragement, or the heavy burden that comes when good priests suffer with their people. The presence of the cross is not a sign that something is wrong with our priesthood, but that something is right with it! The classical writers called this “victimhood,” as the priest, like Jesus, take upon himself the sins, worries, and cares of his people, knowing full well that he will stumble a lot more than three times going up the hill of Calvary.
I have spoken about priestly identity; I have urged a sense of confidence and gratitude for our priestly vocation; I have listed some ways to safeguard and foster this identity, this “pearl of great price” that we cherish in holy orders. Now a word of caution.
Clericalism speaks of privilege, prerogatives, special treatment, being served rather than serving; it prefers sacristies to streets, and is usually more concerned with cuff links and cassocks than care of souls. Clericalism does not indicate a sense of confidence in one’s priestly call but rather such a lack of confidence in self, God, and vocation that one must prop up one’s weak identity with externals and pettiness.
What I ask you to do is contemplate the difference between clericalism and priestliness – one is a vice, the other a virtue. You know the difference, because you have seen both. I call you to priestliness, not clericalism. When with Maximilian Kolbe, you say to yourself, to your people, to your God, “I am a Catholic priest,” we say that gratefully, humbly, confidently, never arrogantly, and we say it, not expecting to be served, but expecting – like Father Kolbe – that it will lead to sacrifice for and with our people.
And it all started not with us, but with that call, that whisper from the Master to “Come, follow me,” that call all of you hear, that call all of you are discerning and translating, that call which will become audible on ordination day, that call you will answer, please God, every day of a long and fruitful priestly life. As the Holy Father Pope John Paul II said to newly ordained priests, a few years ago, “Up to the evening of your life remain in wonder and in gratitude for that mysterious call which one day echoed in the depths of your spirit: “Follow me!”
Allow me to conclude with an old poem attributed to St. Norbert:
O priest, who are you?
Not through yourself, for you are drawn from nothing.
Not for yourself, since you are mediator of humanity.
Not to yourself, for you are married to the Church.
Not your own, for you are the servant of all.
You are not you, for you are God.
Who are you, then?
0 You are nothing, and everything.
Reproduced with kind permission of Archbishop Timothy Dolan from Priests for the Third Millennium, written when he was Rector of the North American College Rome.
Copyright © 2000 Our Sunday
Visitor Publishing Division, Our Sunday Visitor, Inc. All rights
reserved. Used with permission. For more information, please call
1-800-348-2440 or visit www.osvbooks.com.
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