Search
October 23, 2022: To Lead People to Heaven
-
Medical doctors we priests are not. If you’re looking for a physical prognosis, you may want to find someone with the letters M.D. after his or her name. There are many good ones out there. But, like any professional or non-professional field, there are a few who should retire also. Then there are those who reach retirement age who should never retire because of their expertise, their giftedness and their pleasantness. I think of Fr. Paul O’Connell, who at 87 years young, soon to be 88 (the speed limit in Germany), and how he will be going home to the Lord one day (hopefully not soon) with his boots on, as we say.
Again, we priests are not medical doctors. Although, throughout the course of a long priesthood, we priests become familiar with medical situations resulting from the closeness present when a parishioner, friend, or family member suffers through some attack ravaging their body. In my “short” priesthood thus far consisting of sixteen-plus years, I’ve been closer to illness and death, both natural and tragic, many more times than if I was still wearing the brown uniform of UPS, or retired from it. Likely, as a former UPS driver, I may have been the cause for others being injured due to the hurriedness of the job. It’s a very good thing that UPS as a company gives safety a top billing in how their drivers are to approach the work they perform each day. But medical situations and eventual death are not uncommon with any parish priest who cares for the well-being of his people, both those who attend and those who do not. I like to think we are ready and willing to be present for all medical emergencies whether directly or indirectly connected to our Parish. It is through this relationship of God’s people trusting a priest to bring prayers, comfort, and hope in times of trouble, as well as a priest becoming more familiar with medical situations that arise in their many different forms.
However, as good as we can be at guessing the prognosis of an ailing person, and many times we are very good because we’ve seen and dealt with it more than once already, we are not medical doctors who prescribe medicine or make accurate statements based on certain knowledge about what’s going on inside a patient’s body - the same body that Jesus will raise from the dead one day. I remember one very wise priest saying to me before I was ordained, “Know your limitations, and don’t go beyond them.” In other words, if you’re not qualified to be a marriage counselor, then don’t pretend like you are one. Do not go about thinking and acting like everyone can be a marriage counselor. For those who do, they are likely to do more damage than good.
This scenario played out one time early in my priesthood when a couple was having marriage issues. They were recommended to me by their friend who thought I would make for a good marriage counselor. “Go see Fr. Riley. He has lots of life experience. He can help you straighten out your marriage.” Well, they made an appointment with me without informing yours truly of what the meeting was going to be concerned with. Once the meeting commenced, it didn’t take long before I realized I was in over my head after listening to their back and forth for a few moments. Rightfully, I told them so. “You need a professional marriage counselor if you want to save this marriage,” I blurted. “You’re way past having an amateur listen to these issues and offer proper advice based on experience and knowledge. I’m not trained for this stuff.” Thank God for a wise priest offering wise advice to a seminarian a few years earlier. What he said to me back then stared me right in the face in that meeting. I suppose I could have tried to offer some commonsense advice about their marriage and its problems, but that would have been the selfish approach disguised in the virtues of caring and compassion. By the way, there seems to be a bunch of this nowadays; selfish approaches to life disguised in caring and compassion.
Most every priest is not a medical doctor, although we learn medical situations over the years we’re drawn into. Once in a while there’s a guy like Joe (I forgot his last name) I was in seminary with for a few years. Joe was from the Diocese of Trenton,, N.J. In his previous life before seminary, he was a medical doctor, leaving his practice to study for the priesthood. While never leaving his knowledge behind in the world of medicine, when Joe got ordained to the priesthood, he became what all priests are meant to be, a doctor of souls. He’s one of the few priests who could do both the medical and spiritual with accuracy and knowledge.
The central calling of the priest is to lead people to heaven through the Sacraments and the preaching and teaching of God’s truth. The truth found in the Scriptures and Holy Tradition of the Church, of course. Like medical doctors who search for cures and medicines that will assist human beings to live in better health, priests are meant to do the same regarding the spiritual well-being of the people they serve and guide towards Jesus. Meaning, in the ways of our Catholic faith. If we give our personal opinion concerning some aspect of the faith to someone who seeks advice from us, an opinion that contradicts our faith to some degree, then we offer God’s people hurtful advice for their souls as they seek their best to live out their faith in honesty. Our serious and solemn responsibility is to advise God’s people of the truths of our faith in matters of faith and morals, so that said person can make an important decision in their life without finding out later they were given the personal opinion of a priest rather than what our faith teaches. I’ve had a few of these pop up from folks who spoke words to me about advice given by a priest that was flat-out incorrect. There’s no joy informing a faithful Catholic trying to live out their faith in goodness and truth that a priest years earlier gave them advice that should have been the opposite of what was given. At times, in matters of faith and morals, you may wish to get a second opinion. It doesn’t cost anything, except for possibly a sub at Jersey Mike’s.
Throughout the Scriptures, we read and are taught that only God knows the secrets of the human heart. So true. We all take guesses at what’s held within a person’s heart at times. Sometimes we may be correct, other times not. Some expressions of the heart are quite obvious, others are much subtler. God alone knows our hearts with pinpoint accuracy, and every thought we will ever think that flows up to the mind from the heart down below. Whereas as a medical doctor (cardiologist) will see the physical parts of a human heart and what may need to be fixed, a doctor of souls (priest) is meant to be at least somewhat good at reading the heart of those whose presence we are in, based on information they share with us, and then help draw them closer to God. Again, this is a serious and solemn responsibility we take on at ordination. In our personal priestly prayers, every priest in the world should pray for the humility and obedience it takes for all clergy to be helpful to their flock, and not a hindrance to a person’s devotion and faithfulness to Christ Jesus. I shudder to think of the state of my own soul if I were to intentionally offer conflicting advice to someone seeking the truth of our faith and what it teaches. I would be fortunate to make it to Purgatory.
With God’s word in the Scriptures teaching us that God alone knows the deepest recesses of our hearts, this truth can be advanced and understood in more ways than one. First, it tells us – for better or worse – that there’s nothing we can hide from the living God. Even the remotest thought held within our hearts and minds immediately becomes fully clear to the Lord. We can fool ourselves and others if we so wish, but God is not fooled, nor is God a fool. It serves our faithfulness to God if we simply accept this basic understanding of the depth of God’s knowledge. May we not pretend to have full access to God’s knowledge, which is the sin of pride in all its ugliness. But we are very capable, as rational beings, of grasping and living the fact that God knows every ounce and atom of our being. And secondly, God knowing the deep recesses of our hearts computes to us having a Creator who can and does love us more deeply, unconditionally, and infinitely more than any person we know and love. This is the good side of God knowing the fullness of our hearts. If we think of a person we know and love with all our hearts (and hopefully you three or four readers can do this), understanding how deep such love is felt, and then place it aside of God’s love for us… well, God wins the love contest, shall we say. And by millions of miles, no less. Again, this offers us a sampling of the depth of God’s love for his most prized creation.
Not only priests, but all Christians are to bring love into the lives of those we know and don’t know. We are to be servers and servants of each other’s hearts. Once in a while we can get it right medically, for those who are qualified or have gained experience. We know our limitations, I pray. But all of us are to build up the hearts of others where no limitations apply, and allow God to perform the deeper “surgery” of knowing every minuscule and large event that occurs in our hearts. This job belongs to Him alone, for He's the only one who is qualified.
PEACE
One of the most significant biblical texts highlighting the meaning of peace in a Christian context is found in the Letter to the Ephesians, wherein Jesus is identified as our peace.“But now in Christ Jesus you once were far off have become near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, he who made both one and broke down the dividing wall of enmity” (Eph 3:13, 14). This text not only mysteriously identifies Jesus as our peace but also relates peace with peacemaking. Through the shedding of his blood, Jesus made peace by breaking down the barrier of hostility.
The “enmity” directly referred to in this Ephesians text was that between Gentile and Jew in those earliest years of Christian life. However, the profound theological understanding of this text situates all Christian peacemaking in the death and resurrection of Jesus - the paschal mystery.
In the various Easter stories of the Gospels, time and again Jesus meets his followers with the greeting “Peace.” In Jesus’ own Hebraic understanding, this greeting of peace, of shalom, spoke to a fullness of peace and wholeness permeating every facet of a person's life. These Easter stories indicate a special eagerness on Jesus’ part to gift his disciples with the shalom he had made possible through his sufferings, death, and resurrection.
The Pauline letters continued this beautiful greeting of the risen Jesus. At the beginning of those letters the earliest Christian communities read, “Grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” From The New Dictionary of Catholic Spirituality