Articles on Vocation and the Priesthood
Continuing our series of articles written by priests about their priestly life
A Priest's Story - 12
I was recently attending a social club do, a karaoke evening. After I sang Ken Dodd's "Happiness" the presenter told me not to give up the day job, adding "but he only works one day a week". It is only on a Sunday (Saturday evening included) that the wide picture window allows the community to share in the priest's central and significant work, the Eucharist, Holy Mass.
Who sees the baptism of a day-old baby in danger of death at 6am? Who is there when consolation is stripped of words when visiting the family whose son committed suicide? And when am I to find the time to complete the findings of a complicated marriage case? The hours are what you make them. 65-70 hours wouldn't be unusual - that's a long day! And still there's more unfinished than finished.
My call into priesthood crescendoed as a pharmacy student with a strong feeling during adoration of the Eucharist that God wanted me for something; became stronger on retreat when wearing an alb serving the Easter vigil, wondering if... not daring to complete the sentence with "I'll ever wear one as a priest". After making a commitment (the word Yes being somehow important) the decision was confirmed the following day when my mother asked me what I wanted to do and if I had thought about it & we both knew what "it" meant. I met with a spiritual director, vocations director, selection conference panel and bishop's panel (about 15 of them firing questions across the tables). The hardest part wasn't the yes but which direction? Foreign missions, religious community, diocesan? A week in Lourdes helped answer that.
I have the second of two parish council meetings this week tonight, and a somewhat ecumenical funeral tomorrow, and I have not finished my day off yet. What sustains us in this ministry, and without which the pro-life work, the preaching, the visiting, the marriage & baptism preparation work, funeral visits and sick visits would be empty, is time with God, the great, the good in deep prayer, open to discerning his will in the midst of the chaos.
There is much I could write about working with addicts, or 6 years amongst the Maasai in Kenya, (but this submission is late as it is)
Who is there at the baptism of a brain-damaged day old child? His parents of course. Who is there when lost for words with a family bereft of their mentally ill son? His family. They are the people who matter at that moment, and that is where Christ is to be found. As a fellow priest and I entered a social gathering, one parishioner commented that it felt like God himself had come in with us. The short term pay may not be brilliant but there aren't many jobs where you get that reaction. Now there's a boss you can look up to!