A Few Good Men
The Marines used to have an advertising tag line with the phrase “we’re looking for a few good men” (which was subsequently co-opted for a book and then a movie). The Church is as well and thankfully we have many that have heard and answered the call. Shelray recently did a post on a new blog begun by the pastor of Our Lady of the Atonement parish in San Antonio, TX. This is a Catholic Parish employing the Anglican Use Rite and the pastor, Fr. Christopher Phillips, is a former Anglican priest who was one of the first to be ordained as a Catholic priest under the pastoral provision.
Fr. Phillips recently did a post about his gratitude for being called to be a priest. He discusses “priestly burnout” and honestly confirms that he does not understand the phenomenon. Believe me, if any priest should experience burn out it would be Fr. Phillips. As the only priest at a large parish that is just finishing a major expansion project, saying two masses on weekdays, four on Sundays (there is no vigil Mass but there is a Saturday Mass), running a major primary and secondary school, teaching well attended Bible studies, etc., many of today’s priests would be burned out. Here are some snippets from the post:
I make it no secret that I absolutely love being a priest. I have never understood the whole “burn-out of priests” issue. I don’t doubt those who say it happens, but I can’t really understand it, and I pray earnestly that God preserves me from such a thing, however it comes about in the life of a priest. I hope I am on fire for Christ, but I can’t imagine burning out. For more than twenty-three years I have looked forward to getting up in the morning to say Mass, and to care for God’s people as best as I can. It gives me a quiet joy. For that I am very grateful, and I hope for another twenty-three years, at least.
I especially love being a priest who is pastor of a parish with a school. I can’t imagine why every parish doesn’t have a school. To me, that is a mystery (and not of the theological kind). It seems to me that the Council of Baltimore was right. The bishops of this country, in an earlier age, enjoined the pastor of every parish to build the school first, before anything else. They were answering the question that must have been in their minds, “How can we raise up a generation of educated and faithful Catholics if we entrust their education to someone else?”
[snip]
When we built our recent expansion for the church and school, I was able to move my office to a location just inside the front doors. This means that I see the children and their parents constantly. Very often, someone will stop by to chat, or to make a confession, or to ask a question. I have had parents come in to talk about getting their marriage regularized, because through their children they’ve seen how important the Catholic faith is. Our high school students will drop in to talk about the things that young people talk about. Scarcely a day goes by that one of the little ones doesn’t come to my office to bring me a hand-drawn picture, or a sample of cursive writing. And yes, sometimes someone will stop by to register a complaint or a concern, and I need to hear those, too. It’s all part of the care of souls.
What priest wouldn’t want to be in the path of daily blessings like that? And I actually get to say Mass for these children and their teachers every single day! You can’t hear five hundred children praying and singing together, without humbly thanking God. And I am always impressed, as we approach the solemn moment of consecration, that there is absolute silence. Five hundred children — from four-year-olds to high school students — five hundred of them know, absolutely and assuredly, that the Lord Jesus Christ is preparing to make Himself present on the altar in front of them. And on Fridays, something special — they’re children, after all, and they like to show off a bit, even to God. We have Mass every day, but on Fridays we have Mass in Latin. How they love to chant. Kindergarten voices chanting “Pater noster…” Surely God is pleased. I know I am.
We could use a few more good men like that!
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This post is a breath of fresh air.
A decade ago when I lived in a fairly progresive parish in Chicago, the new pastor assumed that he and his two assistants were so overwhelmed with work that he needed to rotate daily masses into a communion services. He did not, it was subsequently learned, consult the other two priests. His plea was that the priests each needed a total day off. His true intention was to create a means allowing middle-age females to celebrate the communion service and clear a bit, in his mind, the road to female ordination.
However whenever a communion service replaced a mass, the attendance dropped at least by fifty percent. And his successor, one of his assistants, immediately resumed the daily mass and did away with the communion services. His successor, by the way, never felt the need for a day off and saw the ruse the former pastor had pulled off.
Comment by John Hetman — January 9, 2007 @ 5:06 PM
Great example of a wonderful spirituality, bubbling slowly overflowing with the mercies of God.
The hard thing, in my view, is to read his post with the eyes of those who don’t believe that a gently boiling pot of water can make such a difference. Those priests who turn their backs on the supernatural part of their jobs in their haste to do it all are burning out for good reason – but lord help you if you tell them so.
In a way, these pastoral provision churches are a breath of fresh air, but I am not sure that their experience is applicable to the parishes we have been in (now in Wisconsin). What’s needed to help turn the tide is an exorcism of sorts. TO take all of the doctrines and teachings of the Church and believe it seems like a herculean thing in most parishes. And you cannot talk about it as if it were easy (which it is, once you give the task to Jesus, as the pastor of our lady of atonement has), and yet, if you talk about how hard it is – well, the devil has you stuck, then, doesn’t he.
It’s time in this country to be bold. Go for it, Our lady of the Atonement! The rest of us will try to follow.
Comment by Kristen — January 10, 2007 @ 3:32 PM