Prayer for Priests

Seeing how prayer helps us forgive and correct

06/20/2019

Matthew 6:7-15 Jesus said to his disciples: "In praying, do not babble like the pagans, who think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them. Your Father knows what you need before you ask him. "This is how you are to pray: 'Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.' "If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions."

This morning I need to ask you for something that you ask me for all the time, namely, prayer. I need you, the laity, to pray for me, a priest. Why? Next Tuesday evening at the gathering called “Pints with a Priest” at Fort Chaffee Brewing Co., I will give a presentation on the clergy sexual abuse scandal. Many observers inside and outside the Church would contend this crisis constitutes the single greatest scandal to hit the Catholic Church in the United States. A national poll showed that 37% of Catholics were contemplating leaving the Church in the wake of this scandal. I need your prayers, therefore, so next Tuesday I say what the Holy Spirit wants me to say to keep Catholics from jumping ship, so Catholics will not jump out of the Bark of St. Peter, the Church.

A couple of weeks ago I received a gift from Bishop Robert Barron, auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles. I felt pretty special getting a gift from a bishop, that is, until I realized he sent it to every priest in the country. That was still pretty special. It was an advanced copy of his new book called, Letter to a Suffering Church: a Bishop Speaks on the Sexual Abuse Crisis. The bishop calls it in French a cri de coeur, a cry from the heart from a man who deeply and desperately loves the Church. He enumerates the evils of sexual abuse in chilling detail and, believe me, his description is not for the faint of heart. He doesn’t pull any punches.

But then he goes on to state why we should stay Catholic. He writes: “I would like to present the treasure, which is the life of Christ available in and through the Church.” He goes on: “We do indeed have to look hard at the wickedness in the Church today; but we also have to be clear-eyed about the beauty, the veracity and holiness on offer in that same Church.” And then he concludes: “The vessels are all fragile and many of them downright broken; but we don’t stay because of the vessels. We stay because of the treasure.” And to be even more explicit, he elaborates on six treasures you can only find in their fullness in the Catholic Church: (1) God the Father, (2) God the Son, (3) God the Holy Spirit, (4) the Mystical Body of Christ (the Church), (5) the sacraments, and (6) the saints. So, I beg for your prayers as I try to share this treasure of faith transported in earthen vessels, the all-too-human priests. Please pray not only for this priest who has to speak, but for all priests whom Jesus has called to enrich the world with his treasures of grace.

In the gospel of Matthew today, Jesus gives his disciples (and us) the Lord’s Prayer. You will recall Jesus is right in the middle of his spectacular Sermon on the Mount, found in Matthew chapters 5,6, and 7. There are seven petitions that make up the meat of that prayer, but by far the most challenging one is “forgiveness.” Our Lord teaches and prays: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” And as if anticipating his disciples’ doubts and difficulties about that particular petition, he reiterates it after the prayer. He states: “But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions.” In other words, one of the purposes of prayer is fraternal forgiveness. We must forgive each other. But this forgiveness should go hand-in-hand with fraternal correction, which Jesus adds later in Matthew 18. That, it seems to me, is one of the great goods of prayer: it allows us to balance both fraternal forgiveness and fraternal correction. And we need both to deal adequately with the clergy sexual abuse crisis. When you pray for your priests, God will give you the grace of fraternal correction and also the grace of fraternal forgiveness.

My friends, how are you coping with the clergy sexual abuse scandal? Evidently, you are among the 63% of Catholics who are staying in the Church if you are hearing or reading these words. But you should also think about why you are staying. That is, always remember the treasure of God’s grace carried in the earthen vessels of human priests. But more than think (with your head) you should pray (with your heart). Pray for fellow Catholics so that they do not throw the baby out with the bathwater. And please pray for priests that we practice what we preach.

Let me leave you with this telling little anecdote. One day Napoleon Bonaparte boasted that he would destroy the Catholic Church. Cardinal Consalvi shrewdly answered the diminutive dictator: “Oh my little man, you think you’re going to succeed in accomplishing what centuries of priests and bishops have tried and failed to do?” In other words, Jesus promised in Matthew 16 that the gates of hell would not prevail against the Church, and neither will the scandals of priests.

Praised be Jesus Christ!