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THE WESTMINSTER LIBRARY
A SERIES OF MANUALS FOR CATHOLIC PRIESTS AND STUDENTS
EDITED BY
THE RIGHT REV. BERNARD WARD
BISHOP OF BRENTWOOD
AND
THE REV. HERBERT THURSTON, S.J.
THE
PRIESTLY VOCATION
A SERIES OF FOURTEEN CONFERENCES
ADDRESSED TO THE SECULAR CLERGY
BY
RIGHT REV. BERNARD WARD
F.R.HIST.S.
BISHOP OF BRENTWOOD
NEW YORK:
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO
FOURTH AVENUE AND 30TH STREET
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
BOMBAY, CALCUTTA AND MADRAS
1918
TO
THE CLERGY OF THE DIOCESE
OF BRENTWOOD
IN THE MIDST OF WHOM
IT IS MY HAPPY LOT
TO SPEND THE LAST YEARS OF MY LIFE
THE SANCTIFICATION OF WHOM
HAS BECOME THE FIRST OBJECT OF MY
PASTORAL SOLICITUDE
THE FOLLOWING PAGES ARE
RESPECTFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
PREFACE
THE aim of the following pages is to present well-known ideals and
principles of action, and to apply them to the state of things
actually existing among the secular clergy of this country. They
contain the substance of Conferences originally addressed to
Seminarists, which are now amended so as to be applicable to a wider
circle.
From the nature of the case it happens that the greater number of our
spiritual books are written by the Regular Clergy. Yet in some of its
phases the religious life differs essentially from that of a secular
priest. For example, the virtue of Poverty, or that of Obedience, as
practised by the latter differ not in degree but in kind from the
manner in which they are practised by those in the religious state.
Hence the seculars do not always find the exact application they want.
In the present book it is hoped that frequent quotations from the
writings or sayings of well-known bishops and priests who have had
personal experience of the English mission may at least give actuality
to what is said, and at the same time add an authority for it to rest
on.
FEAST OF ST. THOMAS OF CANTERBURY,
PATRON OF THE SECULAR CLERGY OF ENGLAND,
_December_ 29, 1917.
CONTENTS
PREFACE
CONFERENCE
I. THE PRIESTLY VOCATION
II. THE PRIESTLY VOCATION (continued)
III. POVERTY
IV. CHASTITY
V. OBEDIENCE
APPENDIX ON OBEDIENCE AT THE SEMINARY
VI. THE RELIGIOUS EXERCISES OF THE PRIEST
VII. THE PRIEST'S PASTORAL WORK
VIII. THE PRIEST'S PASTORAL WORK (_continued_)--THE LITURGY
IX. THE PRIEST'S PASTORAL WORK (_continued_)--PREACHING
X. THE RECREATIONS OF A PRIEST
XI. THE RECREATIONS OF A PRIEST (_continued_)
XII. THE ANNUAL HOLIDAY
XIII. THE PERIODICAL RETREAT
XIV. THE PRIEST IN SICKNESS--AND IN DEATH
THE PRIESTLY VOCATION
CONFERENCE I
THE PRIESTLY VOCATION
IT is well known that one of the great aims of Cardinal Manning during
his long episcopate, and perhaps the one of his works which has left
the most permanent impression behind it, was to raise the tone and
status of his diocesan clergy. For many reasons connected with our
Catholic history, the level at which the average secular priest in the
days of the Vicariates aimed left something to be desired. When we
read the story of penal times, and realise the kind of life that an
ordinary priest had to live, it is not surprising that the tone and
quality of mind which we somewhat vaguely designate under the name of
the "Ecclesiastical spirit," should not have been largely developed.
We are not speaking now of the time of actual persecution. In the days
when a priest had to go about his duties in the continual risk of
being apprehended and cast into prison, and being condemned on trial
to be hanged, drawn and quartered, the heroism of his life, and the
manner in which he had to be almost continuously braving personal
danger in his search after souls, would undoubtedly have taken the
place of much training and prayer in sanctifying his soul. But with
the relaxation of active persecution, came an imminent danger which
showed itself throughout the dreary eighteenth century, and during the
first half of the nineteenth. There was no longer any fear of
violence, and even the depressing penal laws invented after the
Revolution of 1688 gradually lost their vitality and ceased to be
enforced. But the spirit engendered by these laws lasted longer than
the laws themselves, and when the English clergy found themselves able
to live the normal life of a secular priest, some stimulus was
required to revive in them the spirit of their state, which had been
so long obscured by the necessity of hiding their priesthood.
For consider what the ordinary life of a priest was even in the later
days of the Vicariates. He dressed as a layman; he did not even
venture to wear black, but wore the ordinary coloured coats common at
that day. If he was not a chaplain to one of the old Catholic
families, he would live in his own hired lodging, by himself, and in
the utmost poverty. Only rarely would he have the opportunity of
meeting a brother priest. Daily mass was at that time not usual. Even
the Sunday services were of a very unpretending character, consisting
for the most part of low mass, with some English prayers before or
after. The "chapels" had little external signs of devotion beyond the
altar itself. Statues of our Lady and the Saints were unknown, for it
would have been considered highly imprudent to run counter to strong
Protestant prejudice in matters which were not essential. The
sacraments were administered with as much privacy as possible: the
priest would hear Confessions in his own room; and having no font,
would take Baptism water privately to the house of a child who was to
be baptised. No vestments would be worn on such occasions, except
perhaps a stole over a lay coat. It is not wonderful that such a life
produced a kind of religion which was restrained and below the
surface, and that there was little inclination to show outward signs
of devotion. The lifelong habit of concealing their priesthood from
the knowledge of others could not but tend to blunt the esteem for it
in themselves; and it engendered a form of Catholicity which was dry
and undemonstrative, to say the least, and wanting in the warmth of
devotion which we now rightly look upon as among the most valuable
aids to piety.
Nevertheless, it would be a great mistake to underestimate--as so many
of the early Oxford converts did--the sterling qualities of the
priesthood of the Vicariates. A more unworldly set of persons, with
greater conscientiousness and devotion to duty, has hardly existed in
any age of the Church. Their life had a hardiness and simplicity about
it which might well be a lesson to a modern priest. Their self-denial
and the strictness of their personal lives, added to their remarkable
humility and obliteration of self, often indicated great holiness, but
it was of a stamp which an outsider would not easily grasp. They
themselves in their daily conversations made light of their labours,
and it was considered almost bad manners to talk of spiritual
subjects. All that was taken as a matter of course, and anyone who
spoke of it would be suspected of self-consciousness. The concealment
of their devotional life had become to them a second nature, and it is
no wonder that the converts who were brought up under such different
surroundings failed to appreciate the real substantial virtues of a
priest of the old school, or even failed to believe in their
existence, while the roughness of their external behaviour was no
small trial to those who were brought across it for the first time.
Full allowance for this must be made in reading the strictures which
Cardinal Manning made on the clergy with whom he was first brought
into close contact.
Yet we must admit that this self-effacement had become a hindrance to
their work. The time had come when the sacraments could be publicly
administered, when many of the "chapels" had given place to churches
which could reasonably be so called, with fonts, confessionals,
tabernacles and ambries openly displayed, when a priest could go
abroad not indeed in his cassock, but in a distinctively clerical
dress, when he could live openly in a priest's house or presbytery,
when the churches could be furnished in proper Catholic fashion with
side altars, statues of our Lady and the Sacred Heart and the like,
and there was no longer any reason to be shy of such practices as
burning votive candles before pictures and shrines. Owing to their
traditions they did not easily take to such practices, and often even
discouraged them as being what they described as "Continental
Catholicity," unsuited to the English character. And this spirit was
intensified by the action of some of the converts who adopted the
extreme opposite course, and carried their slavish imitation of
everything Roman to a ridiculous degree. The practical result was that
the old Catholics became still more restrained as a protest against
the exaggerations of the new-comers, and it cannot be denied that the
spirit of shyness of legitimate Catholic devotions thus engendered
tended to stunt their development to an unfortunate degree.
It has, moreover, often been said, and still oftener assumed, that the
priests of the old school were unfitted or unwilling to undertake new
works, such as the building of churches and schools, or other
developments requiring initiative and energy. It must be admitted that
such was their tradition, for the simple reason that in the greater
part of the eighteenth century, no such developments were called for.
It was a time of gradual shrinkage of all Catholic work, as mission
after mission was shut up. Those who read the account given in Joseph
Berington's well-known _State and Behaviour of English Catholics from
the Reformation to the year 1780,_ will easily realise how the highest
hope of the priest of that day was to keep what remained of
Catholicity in the country, and to stem the wearying shrinkage which
persistently went on in all Catholic work. It is probable that the
English clergy obtained their first lessons of development of such
work from their brethren, the _emigres_ priests from France, men such
as the Bishop of St. Pol de Leon, or Abbe Carron of Somers Town, or
Abbe Maurel of Hampstead, or Abbe Voyaux de Franous of Chelsea, or
Abbe Cheverus of Tottenham (afterwards Cardinal Archbishop of
Bordeaux), or others who undertook such numerous works, primarily for
the benefit of their exiled compatriots, but works which reacted
powerfully on the English Catholics themselves. But as soon as the
tide was really turned, and the Relief Act of 1791 had begun to bear
fruit, we do not find such a marked want of priests ready to initiate
new works. Such men as "Father Thomas," afterwards Provost, Doyle, who
built St. George's Cathedral, or Rev. William Hunt, the founder of St.
Mary's, Moorfields, or Rev. Peter Butler of Bermondsey, were typical
priests of the old school, and yet had large ideas which bore fruit in
the carrying out of important new works.
It is probable that as time went on, and such work was more and more
needed, priests would have been found ready to undertake them; but it
may be admitted that such ideas did not occupy a large part of the
mind of the average priest of the day.
With respect to the Regular Clergy, many of the above limitations
affected the character of their work in similar manner; but they had
perhaps better means of combating them. They lived indeed outwardly
the same lay life as a secular priest; but at fixed intervals they had
to retire abroad to their monasteries and live the regular life for a
time; and even when living in England as chaplains to the gentry, or
in out-of-the-way country missions, they were able to keep some part
at least of their rule. With the Jesuits this was especially the case,
as their rule does not include reciting Office in choir, and is in
fact specially adaptable to the conditions of a missionary priest.
From the fact that they lived outwardly as the seculars, and were
occupied over the same missionary work, while they had the advantage
of a longer and more complete training, and continued it on the
mission by the observance of their rule, which gave them greater
opportunities of becoming spiritual men, they became more highly
esteemed by the majority of the laity; and the feeling grew up that
their vocation was the same as that of a secular priest, but that
their rule caused them to live up to it better. They were looked upon
as on a higher plane; a feeling which continued long after the
circumstances which had led to it had been substantially modified.
Even the secular priests themselves seemed to acquiesce in it, and
though they were jealous of their own rights in matters
ecclesiastical, they were often ready to hand over the more difficult
work to the Regulars, and seemed to assume that the latter were the
more experienced confessors or spiritual advisers, and that they were
leading a higher life than themselves. It was the persistence of this
idea which Cardinal Manning felt called upon to combat; and in order
to combat the idea, the most direct method was to destroy the
inequality of training which had given rise to it. We can quote his
own words:--[1]
"My first thought was that no Provincial or Father General had any
obligation to multiply and perfect his Order greater or more absolute
than I had to multiply and to perfect the priesthood of the diocese of
Westminster. . . . What was the esteem in which the laity held them?
They, with exceptions, were held to be at a disadvantage as compared
with the Regulars: as preachers, confessors, directors, judges of
vocation, advisers in spiritual and even in worldly things they were
held to be of less esteem. Many of them no doubt were so. But the
whole as such was higher in parts. On the other hand, many of the
Regulars, with longer training and greater advantages, were better
qualified than the priests of the diocese; but many were not so. And
yet the laity took for granted that the clergy were 'seculars' and
spoke of them as such. 'He is only a secular priest' was often heard,
and it revealed a whole world of prejudice, depreciation and mistrust.
This was bad enough, but there was worse to come. The priesthood
accepted the depreciation which depresses and paralyses the will. A
conquered people lose the sense of power, and what is worse, take
their state as a standard; so that priests have come to plead against
invitations and exhortations to higher things. 'I am only a secular
priest.' What can be greater than a priest? For itself does it not
contain all perfection? What can black or white or brown cloth add to
it? This seemed to me to be the first thing wanting. The world is
governed by ideas, and the idea of our Lord's priesthood, truly and
fully conceived, has a motive power to raise men to anything.
"The first thing needed, as it seemed to me, was to bring out into the
clearest light what the priesthood is. It seemed to me to be obscured
by the traditional prejudice that to be a Regular is to be everything,
and to be a priest is to be functionary for sacraments and ceremonies.
Even the priesthood of the Regular was lost sight of in his Order,
habit and privileges.
"This conviction was the motive of all that I did and wrote at
Bayswater. And more explicitly since 1869 in St. Thomas's Seminary and
in two books, _The Pastoral Office_ and _The Eternal Priesthood._"
It is no disrespect to the memory of so great a man as Cardinal
Manning, to say that like most men who pursue one great idea, he went
somewhat to extremes in working for his object. It is well known that
he discouraged or at times even prohibited the Regulars from giving
missions or retreats, in order to induce his clergy to do so instead.
He endeavoured to abolish the very name of a secular priest, as being
identified in the minds of many with low ideals and aspirations, and
preferred the name "diocesan clergy." He insisted that they had a
better right than the Regulars to the title "Father" which from his
time began to be applied to them, after the manner in vogue in
Ireland; and this change has become so permanent that the old title of
"Mr." would to-day sound quite strange. Many of his clergy rose to the
occasion, and undertook work which they had before looked upon as
outside the scope of their vocation; and they soon achieved great
success in it. Let Cardinal Manning himself bear witness to this:--[2]
"The next aim I had," he writes, "was to make the priests of the
diocese conscious of their own power as priests. . . . It forced
itself upon me that dormant powers diminish, faculties in activity are
enlarged, energies exerted continually grow in strength. Why then, I
asked, should our priests always ask others to preach for them, to
give Missions and Retreats? Is it because they know themselves to be
incapable? or because they have come to believe themselves to be
incapable, because the laity so regard them? Is it true? If so, _in
nomine Domini_ let us wipe away this reproach as speedily as ever we
can. Is it that our priests are discouraged and believe themselves to
be what is said of them? At all events the way to cure this incapacity
is to do the things of which they are told that they are incapable.
Let them preach, give Missions and Retreats, 'Use legs, have legs.'
"I have therefore encouraged them to give parochial missions, which
have greatly prospered; chiefly to the priests themselves. Many have
told me that they had no knowledge they possessed such power over
their people; that in giving the missions a new light and strength
came to them, and a new piety came to their people. They had never
before made a full trial of the priesthood, and of the powers dormant
in it."
There can be no doubt that the work of Cardinal Manning was
successful, in that he raised the tone and work of the secular clergy
in a marked degree. And his work had a certain reflection outside his
diocese, especially in the north, where the traditions of Dr. Newsham
at Ushaw were still fresh. It is true that neither there nor after
Cardinal Manning's time in London, has the full exclusiveness which he
introduced been maintained. Missions and Retreats are fitly given by
religious not only because they have more leisure to give to a proper
preparation, but also because the holiness of their lives will often
react upon the success of their work. The very fact of their being
outside the ordinary parochial life is often an advantage for a
mission. People confess to them more readily. But the idea that a
secular priest is by his state unfit for such work may be said to be
dead, and from time to time, as occasion offers, we find them bearing
their share of it. The expression "only a secular priest" has passed
from out our vocabulary, and the old-fashioned depreciation of the
secular clergy is almost a thing of the past.
[1] _Life of Cardinal Manning,_ ii. p. 784.
[2] _Ibid._ p. 785
CONFERENCE II
THE PRIESTLY VOCATION--_continued_
IT was pointed out in the last Conference that the root of the evil of
the depreciation of the secular clergy in the past, was the idea, in
which they seemed to acquiesce, that their vocation was similar to
that of the Regulars; but that not being religious, they were on a
lower plane and could live with less high ideals and aspirations. The
true fact, however, is that the two vocations are radically and
essentially different. Each has its own special sphere of work in the
Church, and if properly lived up to, they will not clash, but will
supplement each other.
Consider this one point. The secular clergy are trained and ordained
for the one special object of parochial or pastoral work; whereas in
the case of the regulars, such work is only incidental and secondary.
Many--in some countries the majority--never do it at all; and in the
case of those who do, it is limited both in quality and amount by the
demands of the rule and traditions of their particular Order or
Congregation.
It is true indeed that in this country in the penal days and after, a
large amount of missionary work was done by the regulars under
conditions not very dissimilar to those under which the seculars were
working. The English Benedictines became practically a missionary
congregation, and remained such until almost within living memory: but
this was due to the stress of the times. At an ordinary Benedictine
monastery the monks give themselves to a life of prayer and study, and
to singing the Divine Office in choir, only a few of them doing any
parochial or missionary work, and that always in subservience to their
monastic life.
Let it be admitted if so desired that, in itself, this vocation is
higher than that of the secular clergy; for it makes the
sanctification of him who receives it the first and chief concern, to
which any work which he may undertake must be subordinate. In that way
it becomes the highest possible state of life, for it fulfils our
Lord's test, [1] "If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast and
give to the poor, and thou shalt have a treasure in heaven, and come,
follow Me." The traditional interpretation given by the Church to the
well-known text, "Mary hath chosen the best part," [2] indicates the
greater dignity of the contemplative over the active life.
Many religious orders, however, especially the modern congregations,
were not founded for the contemplative life in this strict sense, but
rather for carrying out some active work of a specific nature, which
could be combined with the religious life. The Society of Jesus was
founded for special educational and other work; the Redemptorists were
intended for giving missions to the uninstructed poor of the country
districts; and similarly with others. Such Congregations will adapt
themselves, so far as they can, to altered conditions, and will often
undertake work such as was not exactly contemplated by their founders;
but they will always regulate the amount which they undertake by the
consideration of the limitations of their rule and the number of their
subjects available, their general principle being that no member must
be given work which either in degree or in kind would interfere with
his own religious life, for that is the primary object of his
vocation. For every one of them is bound to aim at perfection, which
is of the essence of his state.
This consideration is so important as to be an excuse for quoting at
some length a portion of a well-known letter of Cardinal Wiseman in
which he urges it. When he first came to London as Bishop in 1847, and
saw the amount of work among the poor that was calling out to be done,
and the utter inadequacy of the secular clergy in point of numbers to
cope with it, he conceived the idea of putting much of it as special
work into the hands of the religious Congregations, who were then
settling in London: but he found in every case that their missionary
activities were strictly limited both as to quantity and quality. We
can quote his own words:-- [3]
"1. The Jesuits have a splendid church, a large house, several
priests, besides Westminster. [4] Scarcely was I settled in London,
than I applied to their Superior to establish here a _community_ in
due form, of some ten or twelve fathers. I also asked for missionaries
to give retreats to congregations, etc. I was answered on both heads,
that dearth of subjects made it impossible. Hence we have under them,
only a church which, by its splendour, attracts and absorbs the wealth
of two parishes, but maintains no schools and contributes nothing
towards the education of the poor at its very door. . . .
"2. The Redemptorists came to London as a missionary Order, and I
cheerfully approved of and encouraged their coming. When they were
settled down, I spoke to them of my cherished plan of missions to and
among the poor. I was told that this was not the purpose of their
institute _in towns,_ and that 'another Order would be required for
what I wanted.' The plea of 'rule' is one which I have all along
determined to respect; and I had no more to say. They have become, so
far as London is concerned, a parochial body, taking excellent care of
Clapham, having five or six priests and abundant means for it. . . .
"3. The Passionists I brought first to England, in consequence of
having read what their founder felt for it, and of a promise I made to
Father Dominic years before I got them placed at Aston Hall, and
thence they have spread. In consequence it was decreed that the
principal house should be in London when I came to it. . . . They have
never done me a stroke of work among the poor. . . .
"4. The Marists I brought over for a local purpose, and they are
answering well. I hope for much good from them in Spitalfields, but,
at least at present, I dare not ask them about general work.
"5. And now, last, I come to the institute of which I almost
considered myself a member, San Filippo's Oratory. I have never
omitted an opportunity of expressing my thankfulness to God for its
establishment here, and for the many graces it has brought with it, in
the piety it has diffused, and the many it has converted. But as a
matter of fact, you know that external work, the work I have been
sighing for, is beyond its scope.
"You know" (he continues) "how rigidly I have respected 'rule,' how I
never thought of forcing a parish on you, how I have refrained from
asking cooperation, even a sermon, because I would ask for nothing
which I understood to be incompatible with the Institute's purpose. .
. . Two things I have always respected in the case of all Orders,
_vocation_ and _rule_."
And he sums up as follows:--
"Look at the position in which I am . . . I have introduced, or
greatly encouraged, the establishment of _five_ religious
congregations in my diocese; and I am just (for the great work) where
I first began! Not one of them can (for it cannot be want of will)
undertake it. It comes within the purpose of none of them to try.
Souls are perishing around them, but they are prevented by the rules,
given by Saints, from helping to save them--at least in anything but a
particular and definite way."
In the case of secular priests, no such reasons for limiting their
work can ever enter in. It is sufficient that the work is there,
waiting to be done, and they must put their hands to it, even though
their number be hopelessly inadequate to perform it with anything like
completeness or efficiency. They are, as it were, the residuary
legatees of the needs of the Church, and often have to do the roughest
work for the simple reason that no one else has undertaken it. Many a
priest is in charge of a mission, either alone or in company with
others, in which the amount to be done is hopelessly out of proportion
to the supply of men to do it. Yet he cannot refuse. He must do what
he can, as well as he can, and leave the rest in the hands of Divine
Providence. This is surely nothing to be ashamed of: it is rather the
chief glory of the secular clergy that the roughest work of the Church
falls to our lot, and we are continually called upon to do that which
the religious, for good and lawful reasons, cannot undertake. One
sometimes hears of dissatisfaction at their having missions which are
flourishing so far as this world's resources are concerned. It may be
that it is their hard work and self-denial which has caused their
missions to become so; but whether this is the full explanation or
not, there is no reason why we should envy them: rather they should
envy us, in the difficult and uphill work which has been laid upon us
by the providence of God.
Nor can we refuse to do it on the plea that our spiritual life will
suffer. Such will indeed seem at first sight to be the case. Consider
the example of a busy mission in London or one of our large towns,
especially if it be a single-handed one. On an ordinary Sunday there a
priest cannot possibly devote much time to his own religious
exercises. He will perhaps have to say two masses, to preach possibly
more than once, to catechise children, and give Benediction, and to
administer the sacraments of Confession, Holy Communion, and Baptism
at different times of the day. Manifestly his own meditation,
spiritual reading and the like have to be omitted. Even his Office is
said with difficulty, a great part of it perhaps at the end of a long
day's work when he is hardly physically fit to say it, and might with
advantage profit by our English privilege of substituting the Rosary.
Often on the Monday he will not have sufficiently recovered and has as
far as possible to take a day's rest. Thus his regular spiritual
exercises are at best limited to five days in the week, on the last of
which--the Saturday--the pressure of the coming Sunday work is already
making itself felt, with the duties of preparing sermons, and perhaps
sitting long hours in the Confessional. This weekly break is an
effective hindrance to any strict adherence to a rule of life, and
prevents the personal self-sanctification of a secular priest from
being so systematic as that of a religious. Indeed, even on an average
week-day, it is impossible to adhere at all rigidly to any self-made
rule. If a priest has to go out to say mass at a Convent, it is hard
to avoid his daily meditation being performed in a perfunctory
fashion, or sometimes even omitted altogether. If he has to say mass
twice or three times a week at ten o'clock and on other mornings at
eight--as is often the case in town missions--regularity of life
disappears. Then much of his pastoral work--such as visitations, sick
calls, or unexpected calls to the Confessional--is entirely uncertain
and variable as to time, and cannot be foreseen. Moreover, the
anxieties of a priest are very distracting to the even tenor of our
spiritual life. Add to this that much of his recreation has to be
taken late in the evening, as being the only time that his friends in
the parish are at home, and it is difficult to refuse _all_
invitations to dine out, or his position among his parishioners would
suffer: yet the evening is the time of day when naturally a spiritual
man wishes to be recollected.
What then? Are the secular clergy to surrender their own
sanctification for the sake of their work? The question has only to be
asked to be answered in the negative. The dignity of the priesthood
and the pastoral office is enough to put such an idea out of our
thoughts. Some of the greatest saints of the Church--including the
Apostles themselves--belonged to the secular clergy: and it would be
manifest blasphemy to look on their state as anything but a school of
holiness. Certainly we must look for an answer in a different
direction from this.
Three different answers may be suggested, each of which can lead us to
important considerations.
In the first place we have the three great Evangelical Virtues,
Poverty, Chastity and Obedience, as practised by the priest, which
inform their whole lives and give a character and greatness which
overshadows everything that they do. These are so important that
separate Conferences will be given to the consideration of each. Let
it suffice here, then, to enumerate them as the first answer to the
difficulty we are considering, of how the secular priesthood is to be
made a school of holiness.
The second answer is the spirit which prompts us to do our work. It is
a spirit of complete self-sacrifice and trust in God, who will in his
own way watch over His priests and ministers, so that if they have
sacrificed themselves for the sake of preaching the Gospel of His
kingdom, He will in return take them under his protection and
accomplish their sanctification in His own manner and in His own time.
Let us take comfort when we examine our lives. We may find that our
daily exercises have been very irregular; that our meditation has been
cut short, or elbowed out; our spiritual reading has often been
postponed till late at night, or performed in perfunctory or
distracted manner, or not infrequently omitted; our Office has been
said at odd times whenever we could fit it in; perhaps we have not
always been regular even at our daily mass. The cause of much of this
has no doubt been culpable; we might have been less irregular than we
have been. But if we can truly say that it was in great measure due to
the unequal pressure of our work, and that the primary cause is
traceable to the necessary sacrifice of our ministry we can feel
confidence in the result; for whatever our shortcomings in detail, we
have in the main been practising the highest kind of self-sacrifice,
and the kind which is specially characteristic of our vocation as
secular priests. This is the advice insisted on in the _Imitation of
Christ_: [5] "Evil ought not to be done either for anything in the
world, or for the love of any man; but for the profit of one that
stands in need, a good work is sometimes freely to be omitted, or
rather to be changed for a better. For by doing thus, a good work is
not lost, but is changed into a better. Without charity the outward
work profiteth nothing; but whatever is done out of charity, be it
never so little and contemptible, all becomes fruitful. For God
regards more with how much affection and love a person performs a work
than how much he does."
But if we have often to set aside our rule of life, and postpone or
give up our religious exercises at the call of charity, we should be
careful to maintain strictness in not giving them up for other
reasons, as, for example, for the sake of some recreation, or through
pure laziness. Here also we may quote the _Imitation_: [6] "If for
piety's sake, or with a design to the profit of our neighbour we
sometimes omit our accustomed exercises, it may afterwards be easily
recovered. But if through a loathing of mind or negligence it be
lightly let alone, it is no small fault and will prove harmful." So
long as we act strictly on this principle, we shall find that hard
work, however distracting, is not a bar to holiness. "Let no one
think," says Cardinal Manning, [7] "that a busy life cannot be a holy
life. The busiest life may be full of piety. Holiness consists not in
doing uncommon things, but in doing all common things with an uncommon
fervour. No life was ever more full of work and of its interruptions
than the life of our Lord and His Apostles. They were surrounded by
the multitude, and 'there were many coming and going, and they had not
so much as time to eat' (St. Mark vi. 31). Nevertheless, a busy life"
(he adds) "needs a punctual and sustained habit of prayer. It is
neither piety nor charity for a priest to shorten his preparation
before mass or his thanksgiving after it because people are waiting
for him. He must first wait upon God, and then he may serve his
neighbour."
A third answer to our question on the means of our sanctification may
be given, of a different kind from the other two. It is that the very
works of our ministry may be a direct source of sanctification far
greater than the various exercises, which from time to time we give
up. Some of these we may enumerate.
First and foremost comes our daily mass. This can never be omitted
through pressure of external work, whether there is a congregation or
not. Time was, when in the days of our youth, we looked forward to the
privilege of saying mass as almost too great and too sacred to be
spoken of. It seemed to us that with this daily privilege, all life
would be sanctified and sin would become impossible to us. What has
been our experience after many years of this daily privilege? Has it
fulfilled our expectation? Alas, our first experience has been that
with frequent repetition the act has become perfunctory, and has often
been performed with inadequate preparation, too short a thanksgiving,
and little real devotion. Perhaps we have been free in too often
omitting it. But it is not too much to assert that when it has been
said properly, with suitable preparation and recollection, it has more
than realised our most sanguine expectations, and that no instrument
of sanctification could exceed in strength the daily mass of the
priest, well prepared, well celebrated, and with a suitable
thanksgiving.
After this we may look at the various exercises of the pastoral
ministry. Take the Confessional; who can rise up from a long session
in the box without the consciousness that he is a better man? Why is
it that the time spent in the exercise of hearing the Confessions of
others never seems long, except that during the whole time we are
conscious that it is reacting upon ourselves? Cardinal Manning
enumerates five different truths upon which the Confessor
assimilates:-- [8]
"First, self-knowledge, by bringing things to his own remembrance and
by showing him his own face in a glass by the lives of sinners.
"Secondly, contrition, in the sorrow of penitents who will not be
consoled.
"Thirdly, delicacy of conscience in the innocent whose eye being
single and their body full of light, accuse themselves of omissions
and deviations from the will of God which we, perhaps, daily commit
without discernment.
"Fourthly, aspiration by the fervent, whose one desire and effort, in
the midst of burdened and restless homes, is to rise higher and higher
in union with God.
"Fifthly, self-accusation at our own unprofitableness, from the
generosity and fidelity of those who are hindered on every side, and
yet in humility, self-denial, charity and union with God surpass us,
who have every gift of time and grace needed for perfection."
A similar effect is produced in us by the ordinary visitation of our
people, even in the most difficult surroundings. How many do we not
come across whose daily uphill struggle for virtue puts our own lives
to shame! Others whose trust in God in apparently hopeless
circumstances, and the answers which we see to their prayers, bring
the closeness of God's providence over His elect sensibly nearer to
us. Then our prayer with our people and for our people, our
instructions and sermons, our indirect influence over them, all alike
continually keep us in the presence of God. There is a tendency among
some priests to look upon the devotions in which they lead their
people as one thing, and their own spiritual exercises--their Office,
Meditation, Spiritual Reading--as another. There is no need for any
such distinction. The devotions which a priest goes through with his
people--the Rosary, confraternity prayers, Benediction and the like--
react on his spiritual life quite as strongly as his Meditation or
Spiritual Reading which he may have omitted in their favour. The Cure
of Ars for many years practically gave up his private spiritual
exercises, except his mass, in order to devote the whole of his time
to his pastoral work, either in the Confessional, or in the midst of
his people, preaching to them, or saying night prayers or other
devotions with them. In his later years he was dispensed by Rome even
from saying his Office. His was indeed an extreme case; but the same
principles hold good, in their measure, in the case of every priest
who devotes himself to his pastoral work. Even the sin and misery
which we see around us, bring vividly before us the dignity of our own
office in trying to rescue our people from the results of their own
folly. Still more when we minister at the death either of one who has
led a good Christian life, or one who has become a true penitent, are
we brought almost into touch with the other world. There is a
sacredness about a Catholic death-bed which is all its own. One moment
the patient is going through the last of his sufferings in this world,
dependent upon our poor help and our prayers, and receiving the
consolations of religion at our hands: a moment later he is in the
other world, looking down on us, with knowledge and experience which
we so long to have, his salvation we hope assured, and this the result
of our ministry. Can any priest come back from a Catholic death-bed
without a feeling of awe, and his faith strengthened as though he were
in actual contact with the next world?
To sum up then, the pastoral work of the priest is in itself a means
of sanctification as direct and as efficacious as any personal
religious exercises can be; and while we should always be jealous of
omitting any of our accustomed devotions through carelessness or
laziness, we need have no misgiving when they are omitted in
consequence of the pressure of our pastoral work. We may fitly
conclude with one more quotation from Cardinal Manning on the
sanctifying power of the self-sacrifice which a true pastor
practises:-- [9]
"The pastoral office is in itself a discipline of perfection. For
first of all it is a life of abnegation of self. A pastor has so many
obediences to fulfil, as he has souls to serve. The good and the evil,
the sick and the whole, the young and the old, the wise and the
foolish, the worldly and the unworldly--who are not always wise--the
penitent and the impenitent, the converted and the unconverted, the
lapsed and the relapsed, the obdurate and the defiant, all must be
watched over--none may be neglected, still less cast off--always, at
all times and in all ways possible. St. Philip used to say that a
priest should have no time of his own, and that many of his most
consoling conversations came to him out of hours at unseasonable
moments. If he had sent them away because they came out of time, or at
supper-time and the like, they might have been lost. Then again, the
trials of temper, patience, self-control in bearing with the strange
and inconsiderate minds that come to him, and the demands made upon
his strength and endurance day and night in the calls of the sick and
dying, coming often one after another when for a moment he has gone to
rest; the weary and continual importunities of people and of letters,
till the sound of the bell or the knock at the door is a constant
foreboding, too surely fulfilled; all these things make a pastor's
life as wearisome, and, strange to say, as isolated as if he were in
the desert. No sackcloth so mortifies the body as this life of
perpetual self-abnegation mortifies the will. But when the will is
mortified, the servant is like his Master, and his Master is the
exemplar of all perfection."
[1] St. Matt. xix. 21.
[2] St. Luke x. 42.
[3] _Life of Wiseman,_ ii. p. 116.
[4] i.e. The old Jesuit mission in Romney Terrace, afterwards
Horseferry Road, now absorbed in the Cathedral parish. The letter was
written on October 27, 1852.
[5] Book I, xix. 3.
[6] _Ibid.,_ xv. i.
[7] _Eternal Priesthood,_ p. 81.
[8] _Ibid.,_ p. 104.
[9] _Ibid.,_ p. 58.
CONFERENCE III
POVERTY
THERE is nothing new in the remark that Christ at His coming
sanctified the state of poverty in a manner totally new to the world.
In this relation we look upon the circumstances which surrounded His
birth as a very special Providence. The life of the Holy Family at
Nazareth was indeed one of ordinary but apparently not extreme
poverty. The question "Is not this the son of the carpenter whom we
know?" "Is not this the carpenter?" show us that our Lord and St.
Joseph practised a trade in the ordinary way, like any other Jews
would have done, working no doubt day by day for their living, but not
in a state of destitution, or in want for the necessaries of life. By
a combination of circumstances however, which we believe to have been
brought about by God for this express purpose, His birth took place
away from His home and from the friends of His mother and St. Joseph,
in surroundings which were without what may fairly be considered as
the necessaries of life. It was under these circumstances that He
preached His first sermon on the dignity of Poverty.
It was a new idea to the people and one of which the world had never
before heard. The poor have ever formed the vast majority of mankind;
yet the instinct has always been to look down upon them. The ancient
Romans looked upon the needy and the afflicted as the object of the
malediction of the gods. A story is told of one of the Emperors
sending a whole shipload of them to sea, and having the vessel sunk,
so as to rid the city of their presence. The Jews had indeed learnt
something less opposed to the truth; but even they looked upon Poverty
as a misfortune. A promise of an earthly reward was necessary as a
stimulus to lead them on to do their duty. "I am the Lord thy God, who
brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage."
"Honour thy father and thy mother, that thou mayest be long lived upon
the land which the Lord thy God will give thee." A modest competency
was to them the minimum that was put before them to deliver them from
care and anxiety. "Give me neither beggary nor riches: give me only
the necessaries of life." [1] Yet they knew that if the poor were
faithful to God, He would protect them; and indeed that one of the
attributes of the God of the Jews was His providential care of the
poor. "He shall judge the poor of the people, and he shall save the
children of the poor, and he shall humble the oppressors. . . . He
shall deliver the poor from the mighty, and the needy that had no
helper. He shall spare the poor and needy; and he shall save the
souls of the poor." [2]
Our Lord in His teaching, however, went far beyond anything which even
the Jews had before their minds, when He proclaimed that Poverty was
the true state of blessedness. His first recorded words as official
teacher of mankind are "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is
the kingdom of heaven." In another passage we read still more
explicitly, [3] "Blessed are ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God;
Blessed are ye that hunger now, for you shall be filled; Blessed are
ye that weep now, for you shall laugh; . . . but woe to you that are
rich, for you have your consolation. Woe to you that are filled, for you
shall hunger; woe to you that now laugh, for you shall mourn and
weep." He is here putting the state of poverty forward as the state of
blessing, more to be desired than the state of riches.
The same idea we find enforced by our Lord in His teaching in numerous
instances. He speaks of as "the Mammon of Iniquity," so intimately
connected does He consider them with vice. More than that. He speaks
as though the salvation of a rich man was so difficult as to be almost
a test of God's omnipotence. "It is easier for a camel to pass through
the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of
God. . . . With man it is impossible; but with God all things are
possible." [4]
Consider also some of our Lord's parables in this regard. The
well-known one of Dives and Lazarus at once occurs to mind. The rich
man is not accused of any particular evil; but simply he lived
trusting in his riches, the selfish life of which they are so often
the foundation. He "was clothed in purple and fine linen and feasted
sumptuously every day"; while Lazarus "lay at his gate full of sores,
desiring to be filled with the crumbs that fell from the rich man's
table"; and it is added almost as a matter of course that after death
their lots are reversed. Abraham is depicted as saying to the rich
man, "Son, remember that thou didst receive good things in thy
lifetime, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted,
and thou are tormented." [5] In another parable we have placed before
us one who trusted so much in his accumulated wealth that he said to
himself, "Thou hast much good laid up for many years, take thy rest,
eat, drink, make good cheer"; and the merited rejoinder is "Thou fool;
this night do they require thy soul of thee, and where shall those
things be which thou hast provided?" [6] These examples might be
multiplied indefinitely.