Today I would like to share with you something more personal than I usually would. I would like to tell you why I am a priest. Not how I became a priest, but why I am a priest. I suppose it’s something you probably don’t think of very often, but people often ask me why I became a priest.
First of all I believe that God called me to be a priest. There was a real sense of God calling me in this way and it was a persistent call. Although it was something both exciting and wonderful, it was also something scary and painful. I knew it would mean that I would not get married, which is a natural attraction for anyone. When people asked me if I did not want to be married, what I always say is that the calling to be a priest was stronger than the calling to be married, even though both were there. And that calling continues to be there.
The year I entered the seminary was the year when all the sexual abuse scandals began to break in Ireland. It started with my own bishop having had a child years before and it got steadily worse with all the other scandals. This made all of us in the seminary think a lot about why we were there. After I was ordained the scandals continued and the atmosphere in our society (in Ireland) was very difficult to work in as a priest. I know it was the same here in the US. Because of the way the media presented it, almost every priest was considered a pedophile, which was very difficult, as you can imagine. Why would I want to be part of an organization that tried to cover up such terrible scandals? The reason is simple, I believe.
I believe that Jesus Christ is Lord; that Jesus is the Son of God, the second person of the trinity who took on human flesh. I believe that this same Jesus sacrificed himself for us so that we could go to heaven when we die and be with our loved ones again. I believe that Jesus is present in the Eucharist, not in a symbolic way, but that it really and truly is the body and blood of Christ. Since I believe that is true, there could be no more extraordinary miracle to be part of as a priest. I always consider it the greatest privilege that I have as a human being and as a priest. It is always an honor and a privilege to be allowed go to the altar and celebrate the mass, even when I’m half asleep on a Monday morning, or when I humanly don’t feel like doing it. Sometimes it scares me when God reminds me that I am a sinner and struggle like everyone else and yet He allows me to do this for you his people, because He wants us to be able to receive him in Holy Communion. For all of us, that is an incredible gift. I do not understand it, but I believe it.
I also believe that God speaks to us through the sacred scriptures. God actually speaks to us in a very personal way and God has much to say to us. The scriptures were written by human hands, but they were inspired by God and that is why we never replace them with anything else. That is also why I continue to read them over and over again. What could be more important to hear than what God has to say to us?
I consider being able to hear confession as another great privilege. To be God’s instrument to bring his forgiveness and mercy to people is a wonderful thing, to see God healing people through me. That people will come to me as God’s instrument, is both humbling and wonderful to me.
As a priest I am called to people when they are sick and dying, to be at their bedside, even though I often do not know them and they will tell me things that they will not even tell their own families. I am asked to be there when families are going through great joys and sorrows.
Is it difficult? Yes. I have struggled with it every day since I was ordained 27 years ago. Twice I almost left. In fact one time I thought it was all over and I had even told people that I was leaving, not because I wanted to, but because I thought that I couldn’t handle the stress of it anymore; the daily hostility I was experiencing and the sense of isolation I felt in some of the places I was working. Yet each time the Lord called me back and showed me that He would take care of it and He did.
The prophets struggled in the same way and what they wrote is comforting. When the prophet Jeremiah is feeling unable to go on he says:
[The] word of the Lord has brought me insult and reproach all day long. But if I say, “I will not mention his word or speak anymore in his name, his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot. (Jer 20:9)
Another time when Jeremiah is on the verge of giving up, God pushes him to go on, not just to take a vacation, but to continue.
Therefore this is what the Lord says: “If you repent, I will restore you that you may serve me; if you utter worthy, not worthless, words, you will be my spokesman. Let this people turn to you, but you must not turn to them. I will make you a wall to this people, a fortified wall of bronze; they will fight against you but will not overcome you, for I am with you to rescue and save you.” (Jer 15:19-20)
I always find it comforting to see how most of the people who were called by God, tried to resist. They didn’t feel able, or qualified and they knew it would mean persecution.
The prophet Elijah was considered the greatest of the prophets. After working an incredible miracle of calling down fire from heaven to show up the false prophets of the pagan gods, Elijah then has to flee for his life, because the queen threatens to kill him. He travels a day’s journey into the desert and then he sits down and says, ‘I have had enough Lord, take my life, I am no better than my ancestors.’ He wishes he was dead. But instead of God telling him to take some time off, he wakes up to find food and drink beside him and an angel telling him to eat, as he will need it for the journey ahead. God pushes him to keep going.
It is normal for any of us to become discouraged every so often, but God is always the one to strengthen us and help us to keep going.
In the second reading today it says:
God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise,
and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong,
and God chose the lowly and despised of the world,
those who count for nothing,
to reduce to nothing those who are something,
so that no human being might boast before God.
In a mysterious way God seems to delight in calling and working through the nobodies of this world, so that it is all the more obvious that it is God at work and this is something He continually shows me.
The apostles were no different. St. Paul writes, ‘But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.’ (2 Cor 4:7)
What inspires me the most? Your faith and every priest I know will say the same thing. My lifestyle as a priest is conducive to being close to God, although that doesn't necessarily follow, but most people's lifestyle isn't. Working in the secular world can be a lot more difficult and that's why your faith in spires me.
My faith keeps changing and growing and the path is often difficult, but I believe it is the most important path we will ever be asked to follow and so by his grace I will continue. I would like to finish with this quotation where St. Paul is talking about his own life.
I believe nothing can happen that will outweigh the supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For him I have accepted the loss of everything and I look on everything as so much rubbish if only I can have Christ and be given a place in him. (Philippians 3:7-8)
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