Down To The Sea In Ships | A Desert Place | And Into A "Plain Place"

7 October 1986
Bettystown, Ireland

When Bishop Eamonn wrote, asking me to join you today and to speak to you, the theme he suggested was: A Review of the Spiritual Changes in a Priest's Spiritual Odyssey in Thirty-five years. Now let me say straightaway that to escape from the raw fact that already we have passed three and one-half decades in the priesthood and that we have all reached or passed or are at least on the borders of the sixties, I found refuge and shelter in the odyssey dimension of the theme-title. One of the definitions given in the Oxford dictionary of the word odyssey is that it is an adventurous journey. What man among us here has not had an adventurous journey since he left the ordination sanctuary thirty-five years ago? Our lives, in their outward appearances anyway, could hardly be described as adventurous journeys. Most members of the class have lived out their lives within the confines of one diocese. You may have moved up and down, and over and across the diocese, but you would hardly claim that each move, each change was "an adventurous journey." Irish priests do not dramatize their lives, and with their sense of humble realism would be reluctant to present their lives in the priesthood as great adventures or themselves as particularly venturesome.

Yet each one of us here has had within the vast territory of his own heart an adventurous journey over the past thirty-five years, a journey which merits the title of odyssey. We will never get around to recounting in full the experiences of that adventurous journey, which is the spiritual odyssey of our priestly lives. We have not the insights into our own personalities and characters nor the powers of expression nor perhaps the humility nor the courage of a St. Augustine or a Thomas Merton to "go public" on our personal experience of being a priest for thirty-five years. However, there is not a man of us here but has had, spiritually speaking, an adventurous journey during the past three and a half decades as a priest of Jesus Christ. During these few days together I imagine that what you are doing is trying to heed the advice of Jeremias the prophet: "Halt at the crossroad, look well, and ask yourselves which path it was that stood you in good stead long ago. That path follow, and you shall find rest for your souls." (Jer 6:16). The halt is a brief one, and the crossroads is not perhaps a particularly significant one, or at least not as significant as that halt which you made here ten years ago and hopefully--at least for a remnant!--will make here fifteen years hence.

What you have asked me to do this morning is to reflect on certain experiences that we have shared together during our odyssey of thirty-five years, and which have affected our spiritual lives as priests. My reflections are random ones, and I cannot claim to be reading the map correctly as we look back over thirty-five years of journeying. It is for you to make the necessary corrections and adjustments, and what you will have to say may help all of us to move on with greater confidence and lighter step from this crossroads--which we will call thirty-five--at which we have decided to halt briefly.

I can recall very vividly the beginning of the priestly odyssey of this class. I am not thinking of that very first evening in Maynooth in September 1944, although that is still a very vivid memory in my mind. Rather am I thinking of the first steps you took as you moved out of the Maynooth sanctuary after your ordination in June 1951. You kindly invited me to be present at the class ordination. I was there as an observer in the choir stalls, having lost a year through "defecting" to the Vincentians. The steps you took as you moved down through the stalls at the end of the Ordination were very measured ones. The pace of the procession down the center of the chapel was, I can see it still, particularly slow. The steps may have been slow, but they were firm and confident ones on that ordination Sunday. The steps were firm and confident because you were moving out to a people who in every sense of the expression looked up to the priest. The people lifted up their eyes to the mountain of the priesthood. It was from there that help would come. So let us say that the odyssey of our priesthood began on a mountain. Life in the priesthood in the 1950s may not have been without its rough hours (when was it ever without its difficulties?), but it was studded with stability and security. We knew who we were, and it was good. How often in the oratories of Maynooth had not the changes been rung on texts such as that from Hebrews: "Every high priest is a man taken from among men and ordained for men in the things that pertain to God." (Heb 5:1). The priest was a man set apart by God, and books such as Cardinal Manning's, The Eternal Priesthood, underscored the dignity and the elevation of the priesthood. The priest, too, was the Ambassador of Christ, who like Moses descended from the mountain to explain the law of God to the people, and to return to the mountain in order to offer gifts and sacrifices for the sins of the people he represented. The newly ordained priest of 1951 was reminded daily of the mountain of God as he began Mass praying Psalm 43, "Send forth Your light and Your fidelity; they shall lead me on and bring me to your holy mountain, to your dwelling place." (Ps 43:3). Because of his dignity and because of his ambassadorial status, the spirituality of these years heavily underscored the importance of a strong personal relationship with God in Christ. Our dignity as priests rested, too, on a deep consciousness of the powers of the priesthood. We came down from the mountain of God with power to make Christ present in the Eucharist, to pardon sins in His name, to baptize, and administer the sacrament to the sick. The consciousness of our dignity and of our priestly powers lifted us above the people, and the people looked up to us, even in our youthful rawness and inexperience.

Think back for a moment on some of the features of that mountain's spirituality; weekly or fortnightly confession, thanksgiving after Mass, visits to the Blessed Sacrament, the recitation of the Divine Office, lengthy, by today's standards, and in Latin. While we lived with the basic conviction that the breviary was the prayer of Christ, and accepted it as such, we would be less than honest if we did not admit that the shadow of the opinions of the moral theologians lay heavily over us, reminding us that the deliberate and inexcusable omission of a small hour constituted a mortal sin. For spiritual reading we were nourished on the works of authors such as Dom Marmion, Dom Chautard, Dom Van Zeller, and Dom Boylan. You will have immediately noticed that each of these authors was a monk. Their writings made strong emphasis on what was called "the interior life". It would be unjust on our part to disparage or devalue the worth of the writings of these authors. They carried then and still do, much valid and profound theology that can still serve as pabulum for our priestly lives. I only invoke their names here to highlight the orientation given to the spirituality which was presented to us. The priest on the mountain was a consecrated man of God. There was a very forceful emphasis given to the importance of being holy. Can you still hear Father Tom Cleary in a rather high-pitched voice, somewhat excited, telling us that "a holy priest makes a holy people"? As you emerged from the college chapel in June 1951, you knew who you were, and so did the people of the parish into which you were going. There is lodged in my mind an observation which Cardinal Dalton made on a Union Day in Maynooth sometime in the early 1950s. He reminded the newly ordained priests that they were going out to a people who were second to none in the world in their devotion to, appreciation of, and love for the Catholic priesthood. Yes, we knew who we were, and it was good.

From the mountain fastness of the 1950s we began towards the end of that decade to go down to the sea in ships. We had just passed the ten-year mark in the priesthood when, from one of the slopes on the mountain range, our eyes caught sight of what seemed to be an immense ocean, clouded in a haze. A mist prevented us from seeing it clearly at first, but the prospect of it was enchanting. Vatican Council II can be likened to an experience of discovering the sea after a long trek across a range of solid mountains. The sea always calls forth adventure. The spirit of adventure was in the air in the early 1960s. It was not that the sea was healthier than the mountain, but there was a quality in the ocean air that was very gratifying and, above all, the sheer expansiveness of the ocean opened up within ourselves a new sense of freedom.

The Council launched us out into deep waters very quickly. New horizons opened up before us and new depths in theology were plumbed. In the exhilaration of the sea voyage we came to see ourselves a little less as "other Christs," and a little more as "servants of the servants of Christ." We began to hear a little less about the dignity of the priesthood, and a good deal more about the people of God. If I recall rightly, it was the voice of the Irish bishops, with the late Cardinal Conway as their spokesman, that made a special plea at the Council that the priesthood be not overlooked in the documents that were being written. While welcoming the completion of the work of Vatican II on the role of the bishop in the Church, and rejoicing at the prospect of the development of the full potentialities of the lay person, the bishops underlined the centrality and the excellence of the order of priesthood in the Church. It is noteworthy that the second sentence of the decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests remarks that "a most important and increasingly difficult role is being assigned to this order in the renewal of Christ's Church". The fact is that a renewed vision of the Church was being presented to us in the Constitution Lumen Gentium. Because the concept of priesthood is inextricably linked with the theology of the Church, certain shifts of emphasis in the theology of the priesthood were inevitable. Central in the Constitution Lumen Gentium is the concept of the People of God, a concept already well accepted and lived by the Irish people as the term Phobal De clearly shows. However, down from the mountain and sailing across this new sea, we found ourselves closer than ever before to the laity. It was not that the Irish priesthood was ever distant from the laity, but we were beginning to turn our altars around. The laity were being given a different view of us, and we were seeing them in a different light. The placing of the chapter on the People of God before that on the hierarchy in the Constitution Lumen Gentium was not without its significance, nor the decision to treat the universal call to holiness before presenting the theology of the religious life.

It was during these years, too, of our spiritual odyssey that new riches in the theology of marriage were being discovered. Did we during those years begin to feel that the sacrifices we had made to become celibate priests were being ever so slightly devalued? Had the discovery of the new riches in the theology of marriage and presented in Gaudium et Spes made us feel in some inexpressible way less secure in our priesthood? Whether this be so or not, these were the years when we began to be told that celibacy was an eschatalogical sign of the coming of God's kingdom. They were years when we embarked on a search of finding new ways of living our celibacy at greater depth. Side by side with the question, What is the meaning of celibacy?, priests were raising the deeper question, What meaning can I give to a life of celibacy?. Some priests found the questions profoundly disturbing or realized that the charism of celibacy had not been theirs in the first instance and left the priesthood. These were the years, too, when the vernacular first inched its way into the liturgy and then after a short time, the Latin language virtually surrendered to it unconditionally. We found ourselves speaking less of "my Mass" and a little more about the people's Mass. No longer was there the same awesome silence at the consecration as there was in the days of the Latin Mass, to be followed by widespread coughing on the part of the congregation when the final consecration bell had been rung. The sense of mystery was diminished and we priests, too, were becoming less sacralized.

It was in the second decade of our priesthood, that we began to hear about the new Christology. The humanity of Christ, His knowledge about Himself and His mission became focal points of discussion among us. How much did Jesus Christ know? and when? Did He know that He was God? These were questions that were scarcely raised, or not at all in the manuals we knew, such as those of Van Noort or Tanquerey. The renewed Christology was emphasizing the deep human love of Christ, His compassion, especially for the poor, His appreciation of humanity, both His and ours. However, a consequence of emphasizing the humaneness of Christ was an almost imperceptible diminishment of reverence before the uniqueness and mystery of the Incarnation. Throwing into relief the richness of the theology of the Resurrection seemed to draw us away somewhat from the way of the Cross and the preaching of Christ crucified. Was it about this time that we noticed a weakening of the sense of sin among our people and the thinning out of the file of people outside our confessionals? As for ourselves, we seemed to be frequenting less the Sacrament of Penance or Reconciliation, as it was beginning to be called. It was not that we had lost faith in the absolving words of a fellow priest, but rather that we were not seeing things with the sharpness of Peter's faith when he felt compelled to cry out on his knees in the boat: "Depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man." (Lk 5:8). The Council years saw us relegate Marmion and Vonier and Chautard to the shelves in the visitor's bedroom in our rectories, in order that we might make room for Quoist and Evely and Boros.

A Desert Place

We can say that in the years immediately following the close of Vatican Council II, we ran into some turbulence. I would prefer to suggest that we reached land again in 1965, but found the terrain very different from that from which we had set out in 1962. We moved inland again on our adventurous journey, after the bracing airs of the Council. Before long we found ourselves in a terrain that was very different from the one from which we had set out on our sea voyage. If the truth must be told, the late 1960s and early 1970s were years when it seemed to many that the Church had moved into a desert. Like the Israelites of old, there were those who began to question why God had led them out into a desert place. Why had He, if He cared for His people, taken away from them some of the old securities? These were the years when some theologians were speaking about the death of God. Perhaps a consequence of the death of God theology was the questioning of the validity of prayer. I have heard it said that at the turn of the decade, from the 60s to the 70s, Pope Paul VI became somewhat depressed by the thought that the Church was weakening in its conviction about the validity and efficacy of prayer. No, we did not give up prayer; we still celebrated Mass with the people and for them. We held on to our breviaries, somewhat relieved that at least now we could understand what was on the page before us. They were the years of the Interim Breviary, the Blue Book, rushed out rather hurriedly, it was said, lest the priests of this country would lose the habit altogether of praying the prayer of the Church. These were the years, too, when dispensations from priestly celibacy continued to be granted. The Tu es sacerdos in aeternum that had been sung in majestic polyphony at your ordination ceremony, no longer seemed to have the awesome finality that it had some twenty years earlier. For the laity the newly-granted dispensations from priestly celibacy were tolerantly and with understanding accepted, even if many of them remained bewildered and a little sad.

The wilderness situation of the late 60s and early 70s was characterized, too, by a feeling of not knowing what direction the people of God with their priests should be taking. Recently I heard of a French bishop, now retired, referring to these years as an era when it was forbidden to forbid.

It would not be fair nor true to speak in totally negative terms of these years which could be described as the wilderness experience. In the history of Israel, the wilderness experience of the Exodus had some profound spiritual effects on the Israelite people. In retrospect, our wilderness years did much for us priests. Somehow there seemed to be a new awakening in our consciences, that we were called to be our far distant brothers' keepers. The Irish diocesan priest was giving thought to the needs of dioceses far beyond our shores. Vocations to Mission Societies, Religious Orders and Congregations continued to drop. Yet almost systematically, individual Irish dioceses began to establish their own missions in third world countries. The numbers sent to such missions by individual dioceses may have been small, token forces, but they pointed to an awareness on the part of the priesthood in our dioceses, of the centrality of the priest's role in the extension of the Kingdom of God. These newfound missions did much for our people, calling forth an unsuspected generosity for their support. It would be idle to deny that we in turn were not moved by it.

The partnering of the two themes, the priesthood and justice, at the Synod of 1971 was also significant. The horizons of our minds were being widened, so that we began to feel responsibility for the poor and the oppressed of the third world. The 1950s saw a strong reaffirmation of charity in moral theology, in the writings of men such as Spicq and Haring. It was welcome emphasis. Then later, with the Popes themselves giving the lead, justice became the contemporary name for charity. Action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the social order impinged more on our consciences. We were ordained for men in the things that appertained to God; our God was a just God, and we must consider ourselves as being among his privileged agents of justice. With the heightened awareness of the extreme poverty in two-thirds of humanity, we as priests came to a new realization that Jesus Christ had come to give the good news to the poor, that He had shown a particular interest in the poor, and that as men who shared in His ministerial priesthood, we should reflect that concern.

Deserts are often trackless, and sands shift. In deserts it is notoriously difficult to find direction for the onward journey. Confidence can be shaken. Each of us in the early 70s did feel a little confused about direction at times. We were finding it difficult to present to our people the old theology in its new dress. For some perhaps the weakening of confidence accentuated the loneliness of the desert. Were these the years when, with many familiar landmarks gone, we as celibates felt most acutely the loneliness of the desert?

And Into A "Plain Place"

Imperceptibly after the publication of the masterly document, Evangelii Nuntiandi, by Pope Paul Vl in 1975, which gave expression to some of the difficulties of communicating the deep things of God to mankind, we seemed to move into new terrain. It was a slow journey. New vegetation gradually appeared. In paragraphs 25-39 of Evangelii Nuntiandi Paul VI touches on the content of a priestly spirituality which takes account of the two dimensions, the contemplative and the apostolic. Taking their cue from this document, authorities and writers will throw into relief now one dimension and then the other, but always stressing the intimate link that binds the contemplative with the apostolic in the life of the priest; not contemplation alone nor pastoral action alone, but both working together without dichotomy, in the life of the priest.

It was when Pope John Paul II was elected Pope in 1978 that he drew attention to a range of mountains on the horizon. As the anniversary of the institution of the priesthood on Holy Thursday came around each year, Pope John Paul recalled for us the truth that a priest must be a man of the mountains and a man of the sea, a man of the desert and a man of the marketplace. He is called to be a man of prayer, and a man of action. A priest must not spend so much time on the mountains that he does not descend to the plains to interest himself in the struggle of God's people for justice and peace. Nor must he be a man who never lifts up his eyes to the mountains whence shall come his help. Nor must he be a landlubber. Like his fellow priest, Peter of the Gospels, he must be ready to obey his Master's command to launch out into the deep and to let down his net for new catches. He is a man who has a strong sense of tradition in his heart, but with his eyes wide open for what is emerging before him.

At the present time two features mark spirituality in general and priestly spirituality in particular. First, there exists a desire or a need for more prayer, personal and community. Groups coming together to reflect on the apostolate, support groups, prayer groups are familiar features of life in the Church at the present time. Second, personal and community prayer is not looked upon as an evasion of the world, but rather as an encounter with God that will result in a more practical solicitude for the needs of contemporary society and mankind. An incarnational spirituality and a spirituality of service are consequences of a more intimate contact with God. The apostolic mission of the priest with all its implications is seen as flowing from the fact that he has in fact been chosen "from among men and ordained for men in the things that appertain to God." (Heb 5:1).

At the end of this rapid, generalized and cursory review of some of the spiritual changes in a priest's spiritual odyssey in thirty-five years, let me stop and fix our sights on what has not changed. "To live is to change," wrote Cardinal Newman, "and to live perfectly is to have changed often." We have lived through changes and we ourselves have changed and have been changed for the better, if for no other reason than that for those who love God "all things work together for the good." (Rom 8:28). For all our limitations, failures and compromises in the priesthood, there runs like a golden thread through these thirty-five years an unbroken and deep desire to love God, to become less unworthy of the vocation to which we have been called. So for that reason we can be confident that the changes and emphases in priestly spirituality have in the mysterious design of God's Providence been working for our good.

What has not changed is the fact that Jesus Christ has not gone back on His choice, a personal one, of us to be priests. Again, I can still hear Tom Cleary citing over and over again Our Lord's words: "You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and I have appointed you that you should go and should bring forth fruit, and that your fruit shall remain." (Jn 15:16). Whatever changes may have taken place, the Mass still remains central to our personal lives and those of our people. So do the sacraments and, above all, the deep need of our people to hear from us about God, His life, His love, His commandments and the eternal truths. "What this parish needs is a minister who knows God more than by hearsay," was an observation made by a Protestant who was engaged in a process of selecting a new minister for the parish. More perhaps than ever do the people wait to hear the authentic voice of a priest who has climbed the mountain of God in prayer. For all the changes in these past thirty-five years, the priest does remain a man of power, power given to him by Jesus Christ through the imposition of the hands of the bishop who ordained him. Sound unchanging priestly spirituality will make a priest live daily in an awareness of that theological fact.

The word change is a vogue word today, because it corresponds to the reality of change with which and within which we must live our lives. Let not change unsettle us unduly. The church's ministry from first century Israel to twentieth century Ireland is a story of change: varying emphases, new ways of serving and caring for the Body of Christ. Draw comfort from this observation of Cardinal Bernadin of Chicago to his priests:

People are not looking for religious leaders who can solve all their problems or answer all their questions. Often they know the answers already or they know their problem has no immediate solution. More than anything else people look to us who minister to them for our presence as loving, caring and forgiving people. They want our help in their efforts to handle pain and frustration. They look to us for understanding; they seek a sensitive and consoling response to their hurt feelings; they need the spiritual comfort we can bring through our ministry of word and sacrament. They want someone who will pray with them, whose presence will remind them that no matter what their difficulties might be, God really loves them and cares for them. They want assurance that God will never abandon them. This is the preferred style of spiritual leadership in our day. (Origins 1982, Vol. XI pp. 65 ff.)