Today His Excellency Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone ordained four men into the priesthood at St. Mary's Cathedral. I did not get a chance to attend, but those who did said it was like heaven on earth. The four, from left to right, are Fr. Mark Doherty, who will serve at St. Peter's in San Francisco and as part-time Chaplain at Sacred Heart High School; Fr. Roger Gustafson, who will serve at St. Hilary in Tiburon; Fr. Andrew Spyrow, who will serve at St. Raphael in San Rafael; and Fr. Tony Vallecillo, who will serve at St. Matthew's in San Mateo and as part-time Chaplain at Serra High School.
(The news that two of the good young priests will serve as high school chaplains is very heartening to anyone who has been following California Catholic Daily's recent expose of the catastrophic state of the departments of religious studies at S.F. Archdiocesan High schools. CalCatholic's site was hacked but you can read the google cached versions of some the stories
here,
here,
here,
here,
here, and
here.)
Archbishop Cordileone's homily for the Mass of Ordination is below.
“PASTORAL CHARITY, THE HEART OF THE VOCATION OF THE PRIEST”
HOMILY – MASS OF ORDINATION TO THE PRIESTHOOD
June 7, 2014
(Readings: Jeremiah 1:4-9; 1 Peter 5:1-4; John 10:11-16)
Introduction
The earliest
examples of Christian art we have are wall paintings found in the catacombs of Rome. There we see the first image of our Lord
depicted in Christian art: the figure of a young man with a lamb on his
shoulders and feeding lambs at his side – precisely the image of the Good
Shepherd which we hear Jesus ascribe to himself in the Gospel reading just
proclaimed. From the very beginning,
this has been one of the most beloved images our Lord uses to describe himself in
the gospels.
Pastoral Charity
It is a beloved
image which goes all the way back to Old Testament times: there, through His
prophets, God refers to Himself as the Shepherd of Israel. But God had human instruments. Recall the story of the choosing and
anointing of David to be king. He was
the youngest of Jesse’s sons, not even present when the prophet Samuel came to
him to determine which one of Jesse’s sons God had chosen. No, David was off tending the sheep. He is the shepherd-king; the role of a king
is to rule, to govern. But the kings of
God’s people were to govern as a shepherd caring for his sheep. This is indicated even in the very language
spoken by God’s original chosen people, in which the word that means “to rule”
also means “to shepherd.” We just prayed
the most beloved of all psalms: “The Lord is my shepherd.” In Hebrew, this means, “The Lord rules me.”
Now, this might
sound quite strange to our ears, we who are English speakers in this
contemporary culture. But let us think
again of who this Good Shepherd is who rules us: “A good shepherd lays down his
life for the sheep…. I know mine and
mine know me … and I will lay down my life for the sheep.” This is good!
It is also how we make sense of the fact that in our religious tradition
the head is the servant.
I am very
grateful to the faculty of Saint Patrick’s Seminary for the formation they give
to our future priests. I am grateful for
many things, but one of them is the solid grounding the seminarians receive in
the foundational document on priestly formation, Pastores dabo vobis. There,
St. John Paul II explains at length the key to understanding how it is that the
head is the servant: it is pastoral charity.
He explains that Jesus presents himself as the Good Shepherd because
“[h]is whole life is a continual manifestation of his ‘pastoral charity’” (n.
22). Jesus lives out this pastoral
charity through the compassion he shows to the crowds, feeding them spiritually
and physically, healing them, teaching them, and, ultimately, offering his life
for them through his death and Resurrection – literally laying down his life for
them. This pastoral charity of Jesus gives
to the priest the very meaning and definition of his identity: “By virtue of
their consecration, priests are configured to Jesus the good shepherd and are
called to imitate and to live out his own pastoral charity” (n. 22).
Charity is love
in action, the practical, concrete ways that love is lived out and realized. For the priest, the highest expression of
this kind of love in his vocation is his pastoral
charity, which John Paul defines as “the virtue by which we imitate Christ in
his self-giving and service.” He says
that pastoral charity “is not just what we do, but our gift of self, which
manifests Christ’s love for his flock.
Pastoral charity determines our way of thinking and acting, our way of
relating to people. It makes special demands on us” (n. 23; emphasis added).
It makes special
demands on us. Those special demands
manifest themselves in a whole myriad of ways: how the priest spends his time, his
attention to detail in caring for the people of God, meeting them in their
moments of need, instructing them, preaching to them, leading them in divine
worship, being truly and totally present to them. This is the way in which he lives his Priesthood
with integrity, the way in which he fulfills what John Paul calls “the
essential and permanent demand for unity between the priest’s interior life and
all his external actions and the obligations of the ministry” (n. 23).
Total Gift of Self
For the priest, a
most particular and great demand which pastoral charity requires of him is
priestly celibacy. I fear that this
ancient discipline of the Church is sorely misunderstood and under-appreciated
in our time, seen as just a practical provision so that the priest can have
more time to do his job, or, even worse, as something oppressive. Rather, this is a way in which the Church
seeks to preserve our understanding of the truth that the Priesthood is a
vocation, and not simply a job.
In Pastores dabo vobis, St. John Paul makes
a particularly compelling statement on the rationale for this extraordinary
commitment of the priest. He says:
It is
especially important that the priest understand the theological motivation of
the Church’s law on celibacy. Inasmuch
as it is a law, it expresses the Church’s will …. But the will of the Church finds its ultimate
motivation in the link between celibacy and sacred ordination, which configures
the priest to Jesus Christ the head and spouse of the Church. The Church, as the spouse of Jesus Christ,
wishes to be loved by the priest in the total and exclusive manner in which
Jesus Christ her head and spouse loved her. Priestly celibacy, then, is the gift of self
in and with Christ to his Church and expresses the priest’s service to the
Church in and with the Lord [n. 29].
Total and
exclusive: this is the love of spouses, which opens us up to the true meaning
of the priest’s commitment to celibacy.
As John Paul also says in this passage:
In … celibacy,
chastity retains its original meaning, that is, of human sexuality lived as a
genuine sign of and precious service to the love of communion and gift of self
to others. This … makes evident, even in
the renunciation of marriage, the ‘nuptial meaning’ of the body through a
communion and a personal gift to Jesus Christ and his Church which prefigures
and anticipates the perfect and final communion and self-giving of the world to
come.
This is a
profound truth of our human nature: chastity exists for the sake of communion,
it enables the individual to live his or her vocation as the way God calls that
individual to love according to what love truly is. In the words of John Paul II – to cite that
phrase of his used here and which he used repeatedly in all of his teachings,
and is the key to understanding his thought – the true meaning of love is the “gift
of self.” The free and total gift of
self is what love is and is how we attain true happiness in life, and chastity
is what enables us to get there. This is
why, when treating the three evangelical counsels (poverty, chastity and
obedience), the Second Vatican Council taught that, of the three, chastity is
preeminent (Lumen Gentium, n. 42).
For the priest
this means that his pastoral charity, as expressed and lived out in his
priestly celibacy – a total and exclusive gift of himself to Christ’s bride,
the Church – is paramount to all he is and does.
Vocation
This brings into
everyday reality those “special demands” that pastoral charity places on
him. That is, it doesn’t simply remain
at the level of theory, but is played out in very real, concrete ways for the
sake of his own personal holiness, so that he can then in turn sanctify his
people. It is one’s vocation that brings
the demands of love down into the concrete.
Perhaps the
prophet Jeremiah already foresaw this at the time of his call, and therefore is
why he was resistant to that call. He tried
to find excuses to get out of it – he doesn’t know how to speak, he’s too
young, and all that. But in the end he
can’t fight it; as with everyone else, God put that vocation in his heart at
the very first moment of his existence, and to turn away from it would be to
violate his very identity, no matter how high the price. And for Jeremiah, that was a very, very high
price.
So it is with
the priest: the priest whose Priesthood has become a job has turned his back on
his vocation, he has become the “hired man, who is not a shepherd” whom our
Lord describes in the Gospel, who “works for pay and has no concern for the
sheep”; he does not see the sheep as his own, and when he “sees a wolf coming [he]
leaves the sheep and runs away, and the wolf catches and scatters them.” This can happen easily, even
imperceptibly. This happens when those
special demands seem just overwhelming; it is then that the priest becomes stingy
with his time, stingy with his affection, selective in what he does. He easily refuses to suffer for the sake of
the Gospel, in whatever form of suffering that might take, whether simply
inconvenience or ridicule or loss of popularity. Ultimately, the priest ends up not knowing
his people. Yet, charity is love, and
love means presence. When you love
someone, the most important, most delightful, thing is simply to be with them. The essence of pastoral charity is pastoral
presence.
In his homily at
the ordination of priests a month ago, Pope Francis cited the well-known sermon
of Saint Augustine on this point. He
said:
[C]onsider what
St Augustine said regarding pastors who seek to please themselves, who use
God’s sheep to feed and clothe themselves, to invest themselves with the
majesty of a ministry they knew not whether it was of God. Finally, participating in the mission of
Christ, Head and Shepherd, in filial communion with your Bishop, seek to bring
the faithful together into one single family, so that you may lead it to God
the Father through Christ in the Holy Spirit. Keep always before your eyes the example of
the Good Shepherd who came not to be served but to serve, and who came to seek
out and save those that were lost.
Conclusion
I would like to
take this opportunity to thank all of our priests in the Archdiocese who do
precisely that, who keep the example of the Good Shepherd before their
eyes. In the opportunities I have had to
be with you in your parishes, I have seen your pastoral charity in action, your
presence to your people and the positive rapport you have with them. I have been encouraged by the love our people
have for their parish and their priests, and their energetic commitment to the
wide array of ministries in which they are involved. Thank you!
And to you, my
dear brothers and sons who are about to be ordained priests: it is now for you
to continue this legacy. You are no
longer your own. No, you now belong to
Christ and his Church; you belong totally and exclusively to Christ’s bride, with
all that this vocation demands. You will
live this out in concrete, day-to-day ways with those brothers and sisters of
yours you are called to serve with your pastoral charity. Love them with the love of Jesus Christ, and
at all times live, proclaim and witness to his truth in charity, in compassion,
laying down your life for them as the Good Shepherd for his sheep.
