Priests After Christ's Own Heart
by Fr. Roger Landry - June 26, 2009
When Pope Benedict announced on March 16 that he was declaring a Year of the Priesthood, my first reaction was total joy.
I love these ecclesiastical years which do for the Mystical Body of Christ what the traditional practice of a particular exam accomplishes for a believer's spiritual life: they're an opportunity for the whole Church together to focus on one specific aspect of our journey of faith that, with improvement, will influence and impact everything else. I was thrilled to be ordained ten years ago today during the Year of God the Father. The next year the Church marked the great Jubilee of our Redemption. In 2002, we lived the Year of the Holy Rosary. In 2004, we observed the Year of the Eucharist. Since last June 28, we've been celebrating the Year of St. Paul. Each of these ecclesiastical holy years has nourished me as a priest and I believe has strengthened the Church as a whole.
So I was understandably greatly excited when I read in March the headline that the Pope was declaring a Year of the Priesthood, not merely because I think such years are generally wise and beneficial, but also because it is the right time for the Church to focus once again on the positive gift and mystery of the ministerial priesthood.
It's a surprise to no one that the image of the priesthood has taken severe blows in recent years. The primary reason is because of the scandalous sins of about four percent of priests that wasted so much of the good will and respect earned over decades by the hard work and sacrificial love of most of the other 96 percent. But the image of the priesthood has also been taking a continuous hit from the ideologies in contemporary culture that view the radical commitment a priest makes to God for others as benign lunacy, the all-male celibate priesthood as evil rather than admirable, and the very notion of a priestly caste as antiquated and antithetical to modern understandings of equality. Those, moreover, who look at the Church as the great enemy of "progress" — understood as guiltless sexual license and unfettered access to abortion — often have focused their execrations on men in black, who, other than the Pope, are the most easily identifiable and iconic "hate-mongers."
It's time, in short, for a needed rehabilitation. Every reform in the history of the Church has begun with a renewal of the priesthood. The resurgence of the Church in our day cannot occur without such a reformation.
I was also thrilled that Pope Benedict said he had intentionally chosen to year in order to mark the 150th anniversary of the dies natalis of St. Jean Marie Vianney. Not only do I, like most priests, have a devotion to the holy Curé of Ars — whom Pope Benedict this year will declare the patron saint of all priests — but I was running an Annual Seminar for Priests in April specifically on this sesquiscentennial and what priests today can learn from him. I could see that Pope Benedict's announcement would likely draw more priests interested in the Seminar, and it did, which I considered the first fruit of the year! I also thought a year centered on the example of the Curé D'Ars would provide the occasion for lay people to come to the person and wisdom of this great French priest, who was God's simple and heroic instrument to renew the Church in 19th century France after the devastations of the worst aspects of the French Revolution. Beginning next week, I will accordingly start in this space a series of articles on the relevance of St. Jean Vianney for Catholics today in the Diocese of Fall River.
My third reaction to the news, however, was not as positive. As I read down the news story, I anticipated that the Year would begin on August 4th, the precise 150th anniversary of St. Jean Vianney's birth into eternal life. The article, without explanation, noted that it would begin on June 19th. I began to wonder whether anyone in the Vatican had checked the date and remembered that the Year of St. Paul wouldn't finish until June 29. Not only has the Church never had overlapping Jubilee Years, but I thought that by inaugurating the Year of the Priesthood on June 19, the attention of Catholics would be drawn away from the home stretch of the Year of St. Paul, precisely when I hoped all of us would be focusing on the end of St. Paul's life and learning from him how to continue to fight the good fight, finish the race and keep the faith.
When I flipped my calendar to June 19th, that's when what the Holy Father was doing, however historically anomalous, started to make sense. He wanted to inaugurate the Year of the Priesthood on the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart, which since 2002, has been the World Day of Prayer for the Sanctification for Priests. Pope Benedict wanted the focus of this year not to be a 365-day pep-rally for priests, but, rather, a year of intense prayer for priestly holiness. In his March address, Pope Benedict said that the purpose of this year is "to encourage priests in their striving for the spiritual perfection on which, above all, the effectiveness of their ministry depends."
This is a year in which priests above all are called to seek "spiritual perfection." The Holy Father points out that the real effectiveness of priestly work — the sanctification and salvation of God's people — depends not merely on what a priest is able to do ex opere operato through the sacraments; it also depends on his personal holiness, ex opere operantis, which constitutes the priest's most effective proclamation of the Gospel. Pope Benedict's decision to start the Year of the Priesthood on the World Day of Prayer for the Sanctification of Priests is meant to keep the whole Church focused precisely on what the real goal of the year is.
The choice of the start date also shows us clearly that Pope Benedict believes that the standard for priestly holiness, for sacerdotal spiritual perfection, must be the love that flows from the Sacred Heart of the Eternal High Priest. St. John Vianney, in a famous statement that will only become more renowned this year, said that the "priesthood is the love of the Heart of Jesus." During this year, ministerial priests are called to strive — supported by the prayers of the faithful — to allow their priesthood to become the incarnation of the love of the heart of the Lord, so that Christ's love may penetrate all their priestly life in a similar way to the manner in which the person of Christ acts through them in the sacraments.
When Pope Benedict inaugurated the Year of the Priesthood at Vespers last Friday in St. Peter's Basilica, he spoke about the connection between the priesthood and the Sacred Heart. "How can we fail to remember," he asked the priests of the world, "that the gift our priestly ministry springs directly from [Jesus'] heart?" He said that this was why he had wanted to inaugurate the Year for Priests on the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to set before priests "the mystery of the heart of a God who is moved and pours out his love on all humanity, [who] does not give up in the face of ingratitude and not even in the face of rejection by the people He has chosen." Priests are part of God's persevering love for the world and are called likewise, even in the midst of similar ingratitude and rejection, to be the ministers of that love, n.
St. Jean Vianney was a priest who instantiated this indomitable love of the Heart of Jesus. This is a year in which all priests in particular, supported by the prayers and encouragement of the faithful for their sanctification, are called to say with the Holy Father, "O Sacred Heart of Jesus: Make my heart like unto thine!"
Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.
