The Love of a Father

“To the weak I became weak, to win over the weak.  I have become all things to all, to save at least some.  All this I do for the sake of the gospel, so that I too may have a share in it.”  
1 Corinthians 9:22-23

Be all things to all people.  That is a tall order.  An impossible order, I suppose.  There will always be a way that you fall short or don’t live the way someone expects or wants you to live.  Yet I saw this “all things to all” being lived out in a beautiful way.

We celebrated a large Mass with all of the Catholic students of our diocese.  In the thirty minutes following Mass, I watched the eager crowds of children gradually disperse.  While they waited, I watched my parish priest as he made his rounds.  He stopped by the section where students from his previous parish were seated.  A large group of them began to wave excitedly.  To them, he was a star and they were excited to see him again after his absence.  After a few minutes of talking to students and teachers, he migrated to his current parish and greeted the children.  I kept waiting for him to walk away, but he didn't.  One-by-one as the students left their rows to go to the bus, he greeted them.  Some wanted a high-five, others wanted a hug, and some simply waved.

It was beautiful to watch them each pass under his fatherly gaze, often accompanied by a pat on the head or shoulder and always a smile.  This is not the first time I have been amazed by his fatherly care.  During his homilies at Mass, it is easy to get that sense that he is our spiritual father.  Yet the way he lives it out does not remain simply spiritual.  It is not just in prayers and sacrifices that he seeks to be our father.  Rather, he greets the people of his parish and goes to their homes.  His heart is filled with a tender fatherly love for his children, some of them biologically older then him.

My experience with priests has led to me to harbor a deep love for them.  While I would not relate to all of them in a fatherly way, I have found many who are living out the call to encounter people where they are “for the sake of the gospel” in order to “have a share in it” also.  The priest who instructed my summers of Totus Tuus also lived out the role of a father.  We were primarily young college students and he laughed with us, taught us, and loved us.  At the end of the first summer, he thanked us for “calling out the fatherhood” in him. 

For all of the things that the secular media says about the institution of the priesthood and all the ways it seeks to change it, I am inspired to continually meet young, holy priests (or not-young, holy priests) who have sacrificed having their own families so as to welcome an entire parish as a family.  Regardless of your upbringing and family background, in the beauty of the Catholic Church, everyone has a father who reveals to us, in part, the person of God the Father.

Priestly Inspiration

A middle-aged man strode down the center aisle of the church minutes before Mass was to begin.  He was wearing dark blue jeans, a collared shirt, and a sweater tossed over his shoulders and the arms, in a loose knot, lay on his chest.  I was a bit surprised when a few minutes later the same man emerged from the sacristy dressed in priestly vestments.

For several days on the Camino we encountered priests who didn't wear clerics.  Inside the church they were in vestments, but right after Mass they were indistinguishable from other men of the town.  Some looked like businessmen with black dress pants and collared shirts.  Others looked more like they were out for a holiday themselves.

Perhaps I am simply blessed to live in the diocese that I do where many of the priests are found wearing their clerics.  It was the ninth day of walking before I encountered a priest wearing his clerics.  And this priest renewed in me the hope that Spain wasn't a lost cause.

We were in Santo Domingo de la Calzada.  The larger church was open for paid tours (because of its great beauty) but Mass was held in a small chapel nearby.  Arriving at the chapel, we found the priest sitting in the confessional at the back of the church.  This was another first on the Camino--a priest hearing confessions.  We were filled with great joy, however, simply when we prayed Mass with this priest.  I don't understand much Spanish, but the very way that he pronounced the words of consecration called all of us to become holy.  He elevated the host and the chalice and each time, the chapel was suspended in a rich silence.  The kind of silence that makes your heart ache and fills you to the brim with irrepressible joy.  Although I didn't understand all of the homily, I understood that he was reminding the people to practice silence in their lives.  He encouraged them to pray after Mass or to leave the church so as to allow others the chance to pray.  He brought this peace to all of the faithful gathered there.  He was showing his flock the pathway to holiness by following it himself.

After Mass the church was not immediately closed, as had been the case in nearly every other town.  Instead, the priest himself came out and prayed for a while.  So much of me wanted to stay in this town for a longer period of time just out of the hope that this priest knew English and we could speak to him.  I just wanted to be near him.  The other priests that we encountered weren't necessarily bad priests.  But this was the first priest who inspired me.  He was young and deeply in love with the Lord.  It was ridiculously attractive.

I don't know much about the life of St. Josemaria Escriva.  All I know is that he wrote books that can comfort yet also be a spiritual slap in the face.  This priest reminded me of what St. Josemaria Escriva may have been like.  He was traditional, used Latin, prayed the Mass with great fervor, spoke homilies to encourage and challenge his people, provided opportunities for the sacraments, and allowed the church to be open for prayer.  This priest, simply by following the Lord, filled us all with a great joy.  Much of that evening and into the next day we gushed about him.  How he had given us the pilgrim blessing during Mass without making all of the pilgrims come to the front of the church.  We spoke of how he wore his clerics.  We recalled how he seemed to inspire holiness in his people.

This priest did nothing intentionally to inspire us.  He simply followed the Lord's will for his life and that caused peace and joy to emanate from him.  The question all of this brought to the forefront of my mind was, "What does it mean to follow the Lord?"  I want those inspirational qualities that my beloved priest from Santo Domingo de la Calzada has and I want to follow the Lord as fully as he does.