Church. The whole attitude of the clergy and devout laity affords
opportunities of charity to the poor. Not only do they practise
almsgiving to a degree far beyond any question of strict duty, but
many of them give themselves to personal work among the poor, which is
more valuable than silver and gold, while the modern active
congregations of nuns are fully appreciated especially for the work
that they do among the poor. One of the most sanctifying phases of a
priest's life is his close contact with the poor. The man of the world
at best looks upon them as persons to be pitied, to be relieved, to be
helped; in modern times, they teach them to combine together to insist
on the betterment of their state--a movement with which, if carried on
with proper responsibility and care, the Church is in full sympathy.
But so long as the world goes on, so long there will be poor people in
it, and to the Christian, still more to the priest, the natural
attitude is something bordering on reverence for the poor; for to them
Christian virtues such as humility, work, self-denial, obedience, come
almost naturally as the accompaniment of their state. Their very
necessities almost compel them to seek comfort from God in prayer.
Many of the poor indeed neglect these advantages and make their
poverty a source of discontent and even murmuring against Divine
Providence in this regard. Equally a rich man may practise poverty of
spirit; but it does not come easily. "How _hardly_ shall they who have
riches enter into the kingdom of God." [7]
While however a priest easily understands the sanctifying effects of
poverty in others, there is a real danger that he may fail to
appreciate it in himself. The anxious and worrying effect on the mind,
the continuous trouble as much as the self-denial necessitated by the
conditions of his life seem to interfere with his power of prayer and
with the proper sanctification of his duties. Yet in truth the facing
of such conditions may react in a far more sanctifying way than the
prayers and devotions which they impede: the prayer of a poor man in
anxiety and distress, even though a distracted prayer, may be more
efficacious than the ordinary prayer of the man in comfortable
circumstances.
Thank God, in England there is no chance of a priest being anything
else than a poor man. But there are degrees of poverty amongst us
according to the missions at which we are stationed and other
circumstances; and from the fact of the general state being
inevitable, we are apt to lose sight of its value and long for
positions where we have to practise it less rather than more.
It is well for us then to think over and apply to ourselves the fact
that Poverty as such should be looked upon as a true blessing, to be
desired as the ordinary means by which our lives may be raised up and
made like to that of our Divine Master. True, indeed, our wish should
be for whatever surroundings will best enable us to carry out the work
which God has destined for us individually; and whatever He sends us,
we joyfully accept. But so far as we have any wish or longing, the
blessing we should prefer should not be riches, but poverty, for that
make us more like to Him.
It is just here, when we come to reduce theory to practice, that our
state contrasts with that of a religious. In one sense--and a true
sense--they practise the virtue in its fulness, and we should never
underestimate the spirit of self-sacrifice necessary in order to have
nothing that they can call their own. But in another sense, religious
poverty may be easier to practise than that with which a secular
priest is faced. For their wants are always provided for, and they are
free from the anxieties of poverty with which we are familiar. St.
Ignatius gives it as one of the fruits of whole-hearted sacrifice in
the Society, that it relieves its members of all care. They live
indeed in what may be called in the words of Pope Leo XIII "frugal
comfort," such as befits men who are poor; but they are free from
anxiety. For St. Alphonsus it was not enough that his subjects should
use things that are cheap; but he wished that they should be rough and
common things, so that the spirit of poverty might not be wanting. And
many inconveniences distinctive of poverty are common to all
religious. But so long as their order or congregation exists and
flourishes they need have no care or anxiety for themselves or their
future.
Our poverty, however, is of a totally different type, and our dangers
of a different nature. The life of a secular priest may be full of
care and anxiety on the question of money--difficulty of making ends
meet, support of church and school, perhaps the weight of a capital
debt, good works languishing for want of means--the poor dependent on
him--and so forth. He will wear a threadbare coat, and deny himself
any food or comfort that are not absolutely necessary for the sake of
his people and his work. This is a poverty more wearing and apparently
less sanctifying. Poor jaded human nature longs to be free from care
and anxiety, and we easily lose sight of the supernatural power of
poverty. We look on it as the unfortunate accompaniment of the
existing state of Catholic England; we fail to remember that it is one
of the great sources of blessing on it. Hence the anxiety of some
priests to be placed on better missions, with more pay and less work,
a hope for better days in recognition of past services and so forth.
What is to be our remedy? How are we to learn to love our poverty, to
realise its power for good, to make it, as it can be made, the
greatest source of our sanctification?
The answer to all these questions is one and the same. Our life must
have about it the notes and characteristics of the poor men that we
are. It must be a life of humility and self-effacement, hardiness, and
of work; there must be no self-indulgence; and, above all, we must
surrender our liberty to the call of duty. Let us consider these
points in detail.
1. A poor man does not think of himself individually; he knows that he
is only one of a multitude of human beings similarly circumstanced. He
has to work for his living, and is willing to put up with whatever his
lot may be, provided he can earn what is necessary for the support of
himself and those who depend on him. He does not resent being
slighted: he looks upon it as his natural lot. Nor does he put forward
his own wishes or opinions. He only desires to be able to go his way
and do his daily work. Our Lord was in this, as in other things, our
model. He had lived nearly thirty years at Nazareth, and all that his
fellow townspeople had to say of Him was, "Is not this the
carpenter?"--as though to say, "Is he not like any other carpenter?"--
"How came this man by all these things?" (St. Mark vi. 2, 3.) In like
manner a priest with the spirit of poverty will seek no notoriety,
will not wish to be known from his fellow clergy, but will only seek
to be allowed to live the daily life on the mission, and to share its
blessings. He will look on the ordinary rough usage of life merely as
incidents to be expected, while he pursues the end of his calling, the
acquisition not of temporal, but of spiritual riches: the "unum
necessarium," so far as he is concerned.
2. A poor man does not seek after self-indulgence. If money is spent
on himself, he has to do additional work to earn it: this thought is a
perpetual stimulus to self-denial. In similar manner, to a priest on
the mission there is plenty of such stimulus. Such small sums of money
as may pass through his hands are wanted over and over again for the
relief of the poor around him. Their needs are ever present, and
appeal loudly and forcibly to him. If he is a rector, the expenses of
the mission have to be met, and they are often increased by having to
find interest on mortgages or capital debt, sometimes leaving little
or nothing for personal expenses or salary. Here necessity to some
extent asserts itself; but not altogether. A priest in a so-called
comfortable mission has the physical power to make himself very
comfortable. He can furnish his rooms well, so that they appeal both
to his artistic sense and to his self-indulgence: he can spend money
enough to give himself the best of food, without sinning against
justice or defrauding anybody; he can save money enough for a
first-rate holiday once a year. His work may languish, though he does
all he is bound to do, and no one can make a complaint against him.
Yet he is living a life unworthy of his state, and one which will not
bring any blessing on him such as the sanctification of his flock.
Where is his spirit of poverty? Has a poor man always plenty of good
food? Does not his work sometimes suffer from his forced
abstemiousness? Can he give himself a holiday of the nature indicated?
Truly many a man of the world would envy the comfortable life of a
priest who has lost the spirit of poverty. A zealous priest on the
other hand will strive to live economically. His measure of food is
just that which will support him and enable him to do his work
efficiently: his measure of comfort [8] will be that which he needs
for his work. If he be in a well-to-do mission, he will willingly save
what he can for the relief of the poor at his doors. If he is on a
poorer mission, or if he is a junior priest, he will willingly accept
any necessary self-denial, both as a schooling for himself and because
he knows that what is saved will find a worthy destination in the
hands of the poor and needy, or in the support of the Church.
3. A poor man is a hard-working man. "Exibit homo ad opus suum, et ad
operationem suum usque ad vesperam." "Man shall go forth to his work,
and to his labour until evening." [9] Such is the ordinary lot of
mortals. By far the majority have to work for their daily bread. They
only think themselves fortunate to have work ready to their hands
which will enable them to earn what they require. Now a priest may be
a hardworking man or not as he himself decides. The amount of work
absolutely necessary and binding _ex justitia_ is usually not large.
His Sunday duty may be heavy; but during the greater part of the week
he is free. But if he has the spirit of his state, the work ready to
his hand is inexhaustible; and the salvation of numberless souls
depends upon his doing it. "Why stand ye here all the day idle?" is
Christ's reproach to those who have time on their hands and do not use
it. St. Alphonsus made a vow that he would never pass a minute of time
unoccupied. Such a vow if kept to would mean a heroic life. Far short
of that we can well learn to use our time with the sense of
responsibility. To throw away time in inordinate reading of the
newspapers, accompanied with the smoking of cigarettes, may not be
definitely sinful; but it is throwing away opportunities which will
never recur. A hard-working business man once explained to the writer
that he never wasted a moment of time: so much so that if he had to
wait in a waiting-room before seeing some one, he would exercise
himself by valuing in his mind all the objects of furniture, which he
considered a good business training of the faculties. Truly the
children of this world are in their way wiser than the children of
light. He said Time is money: we can say, Time is eternal life. Which
of the two maxims makes time more valuable, or should make us harder
workers?
4. Uncertainty as to the future. We often hear a demand among the
clergy for "fixity of tenure." This means that a Rector, without
Canonical fault, should not be removable from his mission, which
should be bound to give him support in sickness and old age. There is
nothing unreasonable in this aspiration, at least for those who have a
certain number of years of work behind them: the ordinary law of the
Church is designed to produce such security. Nevertheless, we in
England, when we were truly missioners, and had no such claim to fall
back upon, were undoubtedly practising the virtue of poverty in a
higher degree than those who had complete and permanent parochial
livings. A poor man's future is always precarious, depending on his
services being still wanted, his employers being themselves
prosperous, his own health remaining strong, and a thousand other
contingencies of life. A missioner in accepting a like state of
precariousness is putting himself on a higher plane than that of the
ordinary parochial clergy, and many priests, with the true spirit of
their vocation, have rejoiced in their condition in this respect, the
hardship of which has been much mitigated by the existence of clergy
funds which secure to the aged and infirm an amount of help quite out
of proportion with the entrance fees or subscriptions they have to
pay, and thus far better than any mutual help association of the
working man.
In recent years, however, this question has been settled permanently.
Whatever the effect here in England of the legislation of Pius X--
about which there has been some difference of opinion--in the revised
Canon Law it is laid down that in all countries in which there is a
Hierarchy, the rectors of the churches are to be "Parochi"; but
whether or not they have security of tenure is left to the Bishop to
decide in each case. It is possible that our custom in England may
continue without much change, and only those who have what were
formerly known as Missionary Rectories will have true security of
tenure: that, however, will depend on the individual Bishop. But at
least, we can say that those who are called to work long years without
such security, will be called to practise the virtue of poverty in a
higher degree than the others. A priest with the true missionary
vocation will do good while he can, and leave the future in the hands
of God. The practice of a priest saving up money for his old age is
not indeed to be condemned, but it is the less high course. How many
have done this for years and then the last summons came to them while
still in middle life, so that they had to leave their savings for
others to spend.
5. Surrender of Liberty. The consideration of this can be postponed
until the Conference on Obedience.
[1] Prov. xxx. 8.
[2] Ps. lxxxi. 4, 12.
[3] St. Luke vi. 20.
[4] St. Matt. xix. 24, 26,
[5] St. Luke xvi. 19, 25.
[6] St. Luke xii. 20.
[7] St. Mark x. 23.
[8] The question of how to furnish one's rooms must be always a
personal one for each priest to settle. To some, the advantage of an
attractive room, artistically decorated, both as to furniture and
pictures, may be a help towards their work, and induce them to spend
time among their books which might otherwise be frittered away. But
the effeminate or even luxurious method of furnishing that one has
occasionally seen is hard to defend in a priest's room. Cardinal
Vaughan ends his book on _The Young Priest_ by this advice:--
"We have but one caution to offer, and that is, not to furnish your
room as though it were a lady's boudoir. Indulgence in this kind of
taste tells unfavourably upon a Priest's own character and stamps the
man in the judgment of others" (_The Young Priest,_ p. 34).
[9] Ps. ciii. 23.
CONFERENCE IV
CHASTITY
WE are often asked by non-Catholics why it is that priests are not
allowed to marry. It is a difficult question to answer in a few words,
and becomes the more difficult from the obvious inability of even a
well-disposed person who is not a Catholic to understand our view of
the matter. We should probably answer by appealing to the conveniences
of the rule. A man who is unmarried is free from encumbrances; he can
go where he is sent at short notice; in his daily life all the time
and thought which he would otherwise spend on the affairs of his home
and the bringing up of his children can be devoted to the direct work
of his ministry. We might perhaps quote the words of St. Paul: "He
that is without a wife is solicitous for the things that belong to the
Lord, how he may please God; but he that is with a wife is solicitous
for the things of the world, how he may please his wife; and he is
divided." [1] Or we might point to financial considerations to show
that it is a useful rule, for an unmarried priest can be supported on
a far lower income than a married one. A somewhat similar rule applies
to the army, and for similar reasons, with this important limitation,
that soldiers cannot be expected to deprive themselves permanently of
matrimony, so that the limit of the rule is to restrict it to a
certain percentage, and to those of a certain age; whereas priests
being called to a more self-denying life, are expected to do without
it permanently.
All this is true as far as it goes; but we ourselves know that this is
only one aspect of the subject, and that not the most important one.
The fact that the Church faces scandals among the clergy in every age
of her history, without showing any inclination to relax the rule,
would surely point to the fact that there are greater issues involved
than mere questions of finance or convenience. These scandals are
indeed happily few--very few--in proportion to the total number of the
clergy; but they are sufficiently numerous and sufficiently grave to
make us certain that the Church would not insist on the rule which
makes their recurrence possible, but for a good of surpassing and
all-pervading importance.
In fact the Church has ever spoken with no uncertain voice on the
excellence of the celibate over the married state. Not that she
underrates the latter; on the contrary, by raising matrimony to the
dignity of a sacrament and insisting on its indissolubility, she has
done much to raise the standard of domestic virtue and domestic
happiness, and to emphasise the greatness of the Christian home and
family. But St. Paul says, "He that giveth his virgin in marriage does
well"; but "he that giveth her not does better"; [2] and the celibate
state has ever been regarded by the Church as higher than that of
matrimony.
In fact it would seem that the married state, great as it is, is
hardly compatible with the highest sanctity: scarcely an instance
occurs to mind of a canonised saint who died in the married state,
except martyrs whose sanctification was accomplished by the very act
of death.
Nor is there any difficulty in discerning our Lord's special love for
celibacy or virginity. An esteem for virginity was indeed the creation
of Christianity. Even to the Jews, for a woman to have no children was
considered a reproach, [3] if for no other reason, because it
destroyed any possibility of the Messiah being descended from her. It
was our Blessed Lady herself who first broke through this prejudice.
For her answer to the Archangel Gabriel can only mean that she
esteemed the privilege of being ever a virgin more than the prospect
of having the Messiah descended from her, or even that He should be
her own son. It was only when it was explained to her that by a
special dispensation of Providence her mothership was to be compatible
with her continued virginity that she gave the requisite consent, and
the Word was made Flesh within her womb. It is perhaps a thought that
we might make more prominent in our spiritual life that Mary, whom we
love to regard as the guardian of a priest's celibacy, was in truth
the first in this world to discover the excellence of that state, and
the first to practise it as a virtue.
And there are other instances where our Lord showed His special
predilection for this virtue. The "disciple whom Jesus loved," whose
head was on His breast at the Last Supper, who stood beneath the
Cross, and received the commission to be the guardian of our Lady
during the remainder of her sojourn on this earth, according to
tradition practised this virtue throughout his life in all its
fulness, so that the Church on his feast day calls out, "Valde
honorandus est beatus Joannes, quis upra pectus Domini in coena
recubuit; cui Christus in cruce matrem virginem virgini commendavit";
and again, "Diligebat eum Jesus quoniam specialis praerogativa
castitatis ampliori dilectione fecerat dignum: quia virgo electus ab
ipso, virgo in aevum permansit. In cruce denique moriturus huic matrem
suam virginem Virgini commendavit, quia virgo electus ab ipso, virgo
in aevum permansit."
These thoughts might easily be developed; but it is unnecessary, as--
theoretically at least--we are all familiar with the idea.
Nevertheless, there is often a danger that we may lose sight of its
essence--that we may look upon celibacy as a mere disciplinary law of
the Church, made for prudential reasons, and our duty as merely to
abstain from every thought or act which may endanger its observance--
to look on celibacy, in short, as a negative rather than a positive
precept, forbidding us to do this or that, but not adding anything
very special to our daily spiritual life, beyond absence of sin. Yet
this gives one a very inadequate idea of what should be to us a most
positive virtue, affecting our whole lives, giving to the priesthood
our greatest glory, and to our lives the note of heroism.
Now the positive side of the virtue of celibacy is in theory plain
enough, at least in its main outline. Woman was created to be man's
helpmate, and she fulfils her calling in the first place by her power
of sympathy. There is no human sympathy like that of a woman, and
granted that it is used within proper limits and restrictions, it is
one of the greatest helps which man can have in meeting the troubles
and storms of life. The care and sympathy of his mother in youth, of
his wife in the heyday of life, of his daughters in old age, are the
most valuable helps to many a man of the world, to enable him to face
with success the difficulties of his state. In like manner when he
wants counsel and advice he turns to that sex who have specially the
gift of entering into another's difficulties and helping him through
them.
The essence of celibacy is that when we seek sympathy and counsel in
our troubles and trials, or our work, and in all the affairs of life,
we turn not to human sympathisers, but to those whom we know by
faith--to our Lord in the Tabernacle, to His mother, to our patron
saints, to our guardian angel, etc. The sympathy we get differs from
that which is to be obtained in the world in the first place in the
absence of the feeling of sense, which is the first and easiest remedy
and that which we should look for as the natural accompaniment of
sympathy in the world. This does not mean that it is less real: on the
contrary, it is far more real and more powerful. If a priest is sent
any great trouble or anxiety, and instead of seeking human consolation
and guidance, goes straight into his Church, to pour out his soul in
the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, or before the altars or statues
of our Lady or the Saints, he will come forth strengthened in spirit,
and having received the gift of counsel in a far higher degree than
would ever have been the case had he had recourse to the solace and
company of a wife or family or relations. And this counsel and
strength will increase in degree in proportion as he has banished from
his life the ordinary sensible consolations to be obtained from human
sympathy.
He does not on this account love his family and his friends less; on
the contrary, he loves them more, though in a different and more
mortified manner. The relations between a priest and his family must
be essentially different from what they were when he was a layman. His
pleasure in being in their company, the joy of their society, has to
be restricted and curtailed; often for long years--as in the case of
foreign missionaries--he may be cut off from them altogether; but his
true charity towards them, his wish for their highest good, his
readiness to sacrifice himself for them are not less but far greater
than before, and both he and they have the consolation of knowing the
power of his prayers to help them.
The great exemplar of this virtue, St. Aloysius, may be quoted as a
special example. Of him it is written that he even denied himself the
sensible consolation of his mother's countenance, and his detachment
from all the consolations of sense were such that we can hardly
realise. Yet he speaks confidently of his affection for his family and
friends. He declared that he offered daily to Almighty God in one hand
his relations and worldly friends, in the other his fellow members of
the Society of Jesus, and that both were continually in his mind.