Saint Vincent Seminary - Saint Gregory Chapel
My brothers…
we who find ourselves on the brink of ordination…
or as one might say, “dangerously close to the priesthood”…
are faced with a great deal of uncertainty.
Where will our first assignments be…and what will they be like?
What will the pastors be like?
What will it really be like to hear confessions or to give spiritual direction?
How will we respond to the myriad of dilemmas that will face us every day…
in the complex world in which we live?
My own reflection in these days
leads me to believe that our ability to serve the Church well as priests
depends on how intimately we have come to know her
and how completely we have grown to love her.
The Church in our day is filled with polarizations and false dichotomies…
that serve only as sources of disunity
and as barriers between the faithful and the fullness of the faith.
It strikes me that in these times we are called to be a unique kind of priests…
priests who see past the polarizations and embrace the whole Church.
There are so-called “sacristy priests”…
and there priests who minister to the poor yet disregard the Liturgy.
There are rigid, unfeeling legalists…
and there are those who throw out law and doctrine entirely
under the guise of being “pastoral.”
There are clericalists…
and there are those who hand priestly functions over to the laity.
There are false separations between
hierarchy, proper liturgy, fidelity to tradition and doctrine on the one hand…
and being communal, pastoral, welcoming, and compassionate on the other.
None of this has any place in the Church…
and especially not in our priesthood.
If we find ourselves struggling to understand a particular teaching of the Church…
If we harbor disdain for some aspect of the Church’s liturgical tradition…
or for some devotions of the people…
If we find ourselves harshly judging a particular era in our Church’s history…
If we hate going to hospitals or making Communion calls…
If there is some aspect of the life of the Church that we separate ourselves from…
now is the time to examine that part of ourselves…
so that we may come to embrace the whole Church.
This is the ultimate pastoral approach.
For our people deserve the fullness of their tradition,
which is rightly theirs as baptized Christians,
and ours is the solemn duty to hand it on to them…
complete and unstained.
It is possible to be orthodox, faithful to our tradition,
and passionately loving toward our people…all at the same time!
We have to fight against the human tendency to stray toward extremes.
This is a struggle we must all face…myself included.
The people need us to be men who love the Church…
the whole Church…and nothing but the authentic Church!
Anything less is giving lip service to God…
and teaching as doctrine something which is not of God.
For if we have not embraced all that mother Church is about…
we run the risk of presenting as doctrine our human ideas.
We risk presenting ourselves and our version of the Church.
I look forward with joy and hope to an exciting time of ministry
in this moment in the life of our Church.
If we have striven to know and love the Church in her fullness…
and if we have at our disposal the riches of her whole tradition…
all the better equipped we shall to meet the needs of the faithful
May the grace of Christ and the loving care of His mother Mary
keep us firmly rooted in the fullness of our Church’s life…
and keep us safe along the journey of faith we share.
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