CAPG's Blog 

You are My witnesses, saith the Lord, and My servant whom I have chosen: that you may know and believe Me, and understand that I My self am. Isaias XLIII, 10.

The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips: he walked with Me in peace and in equity, and turned many away from iniquity. Malch. n, 6.



When the faithful throughout the world gather round their altars to hear the Gospel preached to them, or to partake of the Bread of Life, those words of the Savior come home to them, "Where there are two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them." (1 St. Matt, xviii, 20)  words which assure them that His sacred Presence is with them and will continue with them until the end of time. The kind and loving Lord is with us not merely in the words that teach us how to live but rather in the spiritual Food that makes us live.

It is at the Eucharistic Banquet especially, during which we incessantly nourish our souls and gather in spiritual strength, that He truly lives with us. And yet His adorable Presence is not visible to us, but hidden under an impenetrable sacramental veil. This alone is a marvelous condescension on the part of our loving Master. The fact that He is living with us, that He is watching over us, that He is perpetually interceding for us, that His Holy Spirit is influencing our thoughts, words and actions all this is more than poor sinful men could hope for.

But the kind Master was not satisfied with this. He knew that if we had to look ever and only with the eyes of faith, a feeling of longing and incompleteness would soon take possession of our souls, just as the Jews after a time began to loathe the heavenly manna and longed for other food, and He has given us further evidence of His presence and protection. For this purpose He has made us members of a visible society, His Church here on earth, and appoints visible representatives to take His place and look after our interests. These representatives are His pontiffs, His bishops and His priests, with whom He shares His power, and through whose visible agency He continues the ministry of souls, a work which He Himself discontinued as a visible task when He ascended into Heaven. It was preferably to these representatives that His first Pontiff, St. Peter, addressed the words: "Be you also as living stones built up, a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God and Jesus Christ."

In the design of our Great Shepherd, who likened His Church to a sheepfold, and for its more effective government, this visible Church is divided into minor folds, called dioceses. These again are divided into many subordinate ones, called parishes, every one having at its head its own visible shepherd, the parish priest.

It is easy to gauge the dignity of the man who is placed over one of these subordinate folds, not simply because he works directly for souls, nor because his hands are consecrated to the service of the altar thousands of others share these privileges with him but because he is officially delegated to watch over a certain portion of the great flock, and shares his pastorship with him who was named by Christ Himself to feed the lambs and the sheep. His right to govern is ratified by the Church; she reserves to the parish priest certain jurisdiction over souls which she does not permit others to exercise unbidden; that is to say, even though others have the spiritual power to help souls by conferring the Sacraments, they have not the authority to use it.

Seeing that the Church singles out and confers special privileges on these delegated shepherds, it follows that she desires the faithful to respect not merely the privileges themselves but also the persons who possess them. Our Church teaches us that our parish priest is an ambassador of God, that he is among us as His visible representative. And since we respect God we should respect His ambassador; since we love God with a grateful and tender love, we should show a similar love for the ambassador who represents Him. We listen to God and obey Him when He manifests His will; should we not also submit our judgment and will to him who shares God s authority and who commands in His name? Three duties, therefore, are imperative on us all in our relations with our parish priest, namely, respect, love, obedience.

It is necessary in the present age to insist on the first of these duties, because sectarian hatred of the priestly character tends to show itself, preferably against those who are pastors of souls. If it can succeed in casting contumely on the shepherds, the faith of the flocks is soon weakened, for even Catholics are influenced by evil reports. And this is precisely the end the enemy aims at. Happily in our days the priestly dignity is worthily borne by those who are invested with it; our pastors and leaders of parishes are men who are admirable in their zeal and abnegation. We see among them young men with a long life of service still before them, who fully realize their position and the obligations attached to it, and who are consequently working with a will for God and souls. We see among them other men whose years of strenuous watchfulness have stretched into decades, venerable priests with hair whitened with age, who stand with their hands raised like those of Moses, mediating with God for the flocks entrusted to their care. This is no fanciful picture; every diocese in our country possesses such men; and to show them respect is paying a tribute to their personal virtue as well as to their sublime office. It is not merely their priestly character, which entitles them to our veneration, but their upright lives; and their many acts nobly done call for the respect of all noble minds.

Respect alone, while praiseworthy, is not all that is due to those who, in the mind of the Church, are the fathers of our souls. It is to the parish priest as to a spiritual father that our love should go out. A dutiful child loves him to whom he owes the preservation of his physical being, and he is looked on as an ingrate among men who would withhold his love from the one who provides him with the temporal necessities of life. The parish priest fills a similar role in the spiritual world, and he should have a share in our love. The word "gratitude" is expressive of the just appreciation of a gift. And yet do we always appreciate at their just value the spiritual gifts that come to us through the shepherds of our souls? Baptism, whereby we are made true children of God; absolution, whereby our sins are wiped out; direction, whereby our foot-steps in the rough road of the spiritual life are smoothed down; Holy Communion, whereby our souls are fed and strengthened are all gifts that come to us through the ministrations of our spiritual guide; they surely entitle him to our gratitude and love. We can never hope to give adequate return for favors such as these the things of heaven are not purchasable with gold or silver but we should try to repay, in our own human way, by a grateful thoughtfulness, that is, by the tribute of our prayers and by a genuine affection, the long hours of fatigue in the sick room and in the tribunal of penance, and the other works of the sacred ministry. In return for his labors in our behalf, gratitude for our parish priest should urge us to contribute joyfully to his support, and to soften the roughness of his life by adding to his frugal comforts. The true shepherd of souls looks for very little in this world; one of his chief rewards here below is the affection of his people.

Obedience is the natural outcome of respect and love. We are ready to obey him whom we respect and love, and this is the best way of showing our third and last duty. Our parish priest has been lawfully named a shepherd over a portion of the flock of Christ. He commands with an authority which comes down to him in an unbroken line, through pontiffs and bishops, from the Saviour Himself, who said, "Go teach all nations. . . He who hears you hears Me." When our parish priest, therefore, counsels, urges, commands, he does so with the sanction of the Universal Church and of its Founder whose ambassador he is.

Nor should we be chary in rendering homage to his authority or obedience to his wishes. The privileges of the pastor of souls is to teach by word and example. When he teaches he presupposes a spirit of submission to his voice not only in things that are obligatory, or otherwise commanded, but even very often in things that may be left to our own initiative. Naturally, the advice of one who is teacher and father at the same time, and whose vast experience gives his words a special cogency, should be listened to with becoming respect and submission. This is the dictate of sound common sense. It does not take a philosopher long to decide whether it is more reasonable that the head should obey the other members
of the body or that the body should follow the direction of the head. In all organized communities there must be a chief who rules and directs. When subordination to leadership is lacking the logical result is anarchy of thought and action. Insubordination and opposition, even in minor matters, are always the sources of great evils; in a parish they only too often lead souls to disaster.

It is also our duty as Catholics and as members of Christ's flock, to cooperate with those who are placed in spiritual authority over us. The interests of the Church necessarily demand a certain amount of lay action from her members; to labor for the salvation of souls should surely not be the exclusive privilege of the clergy. Happily, there are many who fully appreciate this truth; there are, in every parish, laymen who are willing to work with their pastor in things affecting the glory of God, and who thereby give both God and His ambassador ineffable consolations. Those laymen have not the sacerdotal halo on their brow, nor have they ever tasted the austere joys of the sacred ministry; but they are the unselfish helpers of God s priests, all the same, and they may look for their share in the reward reserved for those who have been formally chosen for the work of the sanctuary.

If it should happen, that the obligations of family, or state, or age, or health, prevent our lay-folk from cooperating actively in parish work, their zeal should not for that reason be rendered inactive. In prayer they have a powerful lever which they may use whenever they wish. Let parishioners, therefore, pray for their shepherds, that God may preserve them in health and actuate the zeal which their ministry calls for. Let parishioners pray for the works of their pastors, that these works may be meritorious in the sight of the Most High. Sad, indeed, should be the plight of a shepherd of souls who on the Day of Judgment would be forced to say: "Unhappy man that I am! I too have worked among the flocks; yet I am a castaway." If we respect, love and obey our pastors, we shall have done at least our share to prevent such a catastrophe.

Source: Fireside messages : adapted for reading in Catholic homes by Rev. E.J. Devine, S.J.