Closeness to other priests
Closeness to God, closeness to the Bishop and closeness to other priests. It is precisely on the basis of communion with the Bishop that a third form of closeness emerges, the closeness of fraternity. Jesus is present wherever there are brothers and sisters who love one another: “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them” (Mt 18:20). Fraternity, like obedience, cannot be a moral imposition from without. Fraternity means choosing deliberately to pursue holiness together with others, and not by oneself. As an African proverb, which you know well, says: “If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go with others”. Sometimes it seems that the Church is slow, and that is true. Yet I like to think of it as the slowness of those who have chosen to walk in fraternity. Also accompanying those who are least, but always in fraternity.
The signs of fraternity are those of love. Saint Paul, in the First Letter to the Corinthians (Chapter 13), has left us a clear “roadmap” of love and, in a certain sense, has pointed out the goal of fraternity. Before all else, to learn patience, the ability to feel responsible for others, to bear their burdens, to suffer in some way with them. The opposite of patience is indifference, the distance we create with others, so as not to get involved in their lives. Many priests experience the drama of solitude, of loneliness. We can feel undeserving of patience or consideration. Indeed, it can appear that from others we can expect only judgment, not goodness or kindness. Others seem unable to rejoice in the good things happening in our lives, or we ourselves seem unable to rejoice when we see good things happening in the lives of others. This inability to rejoice in the good of others – and I want to emphasize this – is envy which is very present in our circles; it is an obstacle to the pedagogy of love, not merely a sin to be confessed. Sin is the end result, it comes from an attitude of envy. Envy is very present in priestly communities. God’s word tells us that it is a destructive attitude: through the envy of the devil, sin entered the world (cf. Wis 2:24). Envy is the door for destruction. We have to speak clearly about this: envy exists in our presbyterates. It is not that everyone is envious, no, but the temptation to envy is there at hand. We need to be attentive, for from envy comes gossip.
In order to feel part of the community or “group”, there is no need to put on masks to make ourselves more attractive to others. We have no need, in other words, to be boastful, much less tobe inflated or, worse yet, to be arrogant or rude, lacking respect for our neighbor. There are also clerical forms of bullying. If there is one thing a priest can boast about, it is the Lord’s mercy. For conscious of his own sinfulness, weakness and limitations, he knows from experience that where sin abounds, love abounds all the more (cf. Rom 5:20). This is the first and most reassuring message that he brings. A priest who keeps this in mind is not, and cannot be, envious.
Fraternal love does not insist on its own way, or yield to anger or resentment, as if my brother or neighbour had somehow cheated me of something. When I encounter the meanness of others, I choose not to harbour a grudge, to make that my sole basis of judgment, even perhaps to the point of rejoicing over evil in the case of those who have caused me suffering. True love rejoices in the truthand considers it a grave sin to offend truth and the dignity of our brothers and sisters through slander, detraction and gossip. These originate in envy, to the point even of slander in order to get a position. And this is very sad. When we ask for information in order to appoint someone a Bishop, many times we receive information poisoned by envy. This is a sickness of our presbyterates. Many of you are formators in seminaries; you should bear this in mind.
We should never, on the other hand, allow fraternal love to be considered utopian, much less a trite phrase useful for awakening warm feelings or stilling disagreements. No! All of us know how difficult it can be to live in community, or in a presbyterate – a saint once said that community life was his penance – yet how difficult it is to live alongside those we have chosen to call our brothers and sisters. Fraternal love, provided we do not make it saccharine, redefine it or diminish it, is the “great prophecy” that we are called to embody in today’s throwaway society. I like to think of fraternal love as a “gymnasium of the spirit”, where we daily take stock of our progress and check the temperature of our spiritual life. Today the prophecy of fraternity has not faded, but it does need heralds, men and women who, while conscious of their own limitations and challenges, let themselves be touched, challenged and moved by the words of the Lord: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn 13:35).
Fraternal love, for priests, cannot be restricted to a small group, but finds expression in pastoral charity (cf. Pastores Dabo Vobis, 23), which inspires us to live that love concretely as mission. We can say that we love only if we learn to express love in the way that Saint Paul describes. Only the one who seeks to love remains secure. Those who live with the syndrome of Cain, convinced that they are incapable of loving others because they themselves feel unloved and unappreciated, end up living always as restless wanderers, never feeling quite at home, and precisely for this reason all the more exposed to evil: hurting themselves and hurting others. This is why love among priests has the role of safeguarding, of safeguarding each other mutually. I would also add that when priestly fraternity, closeness among priests, thrives and bonds of true friendship exist, it likewise becomes possible to experience with greater serenity the life of celibacy. Celibacy is a gift that the Latin Church preserves, yet it is a gift that, to be lived as a means of sanctification, calls for healthy relationships, relationships of true esteem and true goodness that are deeply rooted in Christ. Without friends and without prayer, celibacy can become an unbearable burden and a counter-witness to the very beauty of the priesthood.
A priest needs to have a heart sufficiently “enlarged” to expand and embrace the pain of the people entrusted to his care while, at the same time, like a sentinel, being able to proclaim the dawning of God’s grace revealed in that very pain. Embracing, accepting and showing his own impoverishment in closeness to the Lord is the best means to learn gradually how to embrace the neediness and pain that he encounters daily in his ministry, and thus to be conformed ever more closely to the heart of Christ. That, in turn, will prepare the priest for another kind of closeness: closeness to the people of God. In closeness to God, the priest grows in closeness to his people; and conversely, in closeness to his people, he experiences closeness to his Lord. And this closeness to God – this gets my attention – is the first task of Bishops, for when the Apostles “invented” deacons, Peter explained their role and said: “But we” – the Bishops – “will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word” (cf. Acts 6:4). In other words, the first task of a Bishop is to pray; and a priest must take this up as well: to pray.
In the words of Saint John the Baptist, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (Jn 3:30). Intimacy with God makes all this possible, for in prayer we realize that we are great in his eyes, and so, for priests close to the Lord, it is easy to become small in the eyes of the world. There, in that closeness, we no longer fear to be configured to the crucified Jesus, as is demanded of us in the Rite of Priestly Ordination. This is very beautiful yet we often forget it.