My second step toward seminary and priesthood
12/13/2023
My second step toward seminary
and priesthood came with a second blinding insight that may seem obvious at
first, but is not as obvious as the nose on your face, namely, seeking God’s
will rather than our own. My best friend growing up, David Beck, and I were
discussing what we wanted to do after college. We were both philosophy majors
at the University of Dallas, which meant we were learning more and more about
less and less, a lot of theory and very little praxis. David was not sure what
path he wanted to pursue. Today he is the campus doctor at the University of
Arkansas in Fayetteville. I, however, said confidently: “I want to be a
philosophy professor and get married and have ten kids!” My vocational feet
were faltering after that first step I had taken back in high school.
But then I continued: “I have a
feeling, though, God may be calling me to the priesthood. If only I knew what
God wanted, I would be happy to do it.” Then David rephrased and reflected my
words, so that I could hear myself talking. David is a master of reflective
listening. He answered: “Well, it is probably better to want to do God’s will
but not know it, than to know God’s will but not want to do it.” And we both
laughed as we remembered the poor prophet Jonah who needed a whale to convince
him to do God’s will. And as St. James would write in the New Testament: “Be
doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves” (Jas 1:22). In
other words, David helped me see there is often a sharp difference – even a
conflict – between what I want and what God’s wants. I want to be a teacher;
God wants me to be a preacher. Why is this insight important?
Well, because how do we usually
go about making major decisions about our career path, or the person to marry,
or the place to raise a family, etc.? We try to figure out what we really want.
And even if we consult others (or even the horoscope), in the end it is my will
and my plans that I am trying to execute. I tell young people today who might
be thinking about the priesthood: The worst question you can ask yourself is do
I want to be a priest? Rather, ask yourself: does God want me to be a priest?
Can you hear the difference between those two questions?
How differently we might approach
questions about marriage, career, where to raise a family if our first question
was always: “Does God want me to marry this person, does God want me to pursue
this career, does God want me to live in this community?” Our Hispanics use a
phrase that constantly keeps God’s will paramount, saying: “Primero Dios”,
meaning, “God’s will first.” Or, as we say in the South: “God willing and the
creek don’t rise.” And so when God is not willing or the creek does rise, that
is better than my plans. That is, what God wants and what I want can be – and
often are – two different things. Before I can choose his will I must know it
is rarely synonymous with my will.
With a little reflection, we see
that God’s will and our wills are in conflict not infrequently. For example,
God wants us to get up when the alarm rings the first time, but we want to be
lazy and sleep in. God wants me to have only two olives in my martini, but I
want to have three martinis. God wants us to go to Mass every Sunday, but we
want to watch football all day. The eyes of our wants are always bigger than
the plate of God’s will that has been prepared for us. Humanity is like the
defiant little toddler who loves to shout, “No!” to everything God the Father
asks of us.
C. S. Lewis described this stark
contrast of wills memorably in his book The Great Divorce (my favorite Lewis
book). He wrote: “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say
to God: ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, ‘Thy will be done.’ All
that are in Hell, choose it” (p. 75). Maybe that is why a baby is born with
clenched fists – clutching tightly to his own will – while an old man dies with
his hands open, saying in effect, “Thy will be done,” like when we open our
hands to pray the Lord’s Prayer and say, “Thy will be done.”
Jesus concludes his masterful
Sermon on the Mount in both Matthew and Luke with the parable of the two
foundations, which could also be called the parable of the two wills. (Mt
7:24-27). We know the parable well: a wise man builds his house on a foundation
of rock, while a foolish man builds on a foundation of sand. In both cases
rains fall, floods come, and winds blow and buffet the two houses. And, we can
easily guess the outcome for both builders: safety for the first and disaster
for the second. Even though Jesus says they build "on my words", our
Savior's words and actions are interchangeable. His word is his will.
Jesus’ point, I believe, is that
the wise man desires to know God’s will and therefore builds his house on the
rock of God’s eternal plans that are solid and rock-like. The fool, on the
other hand, constructs the house of his life on the shifting sands of his own
opinions. How so? Well, what I wanted to do as a twenty year-old may not be
what I want to do as a forty year-old, when I hit my mid-life crisis, and want
to marry my younger secretary. This is why all good decision-making begins by
seeking God’s will above our own, knowing they are not the same, and even
having a healthy suspicion of our own wills as tending to selfishness and sin.
Why? Because the rains, the floods, and the winds are coming.
Now, let me return to this second
step of discernment and apply this important insight of choosing God’s will for
a man called to the priesthood. A few years before ordination I attended a retreat
in Braintree, Massachusetts given by priests of Opus Dei. They have a
reputation for being super-conservative, but they are also super-smart. One
elderly priest, who only gave one brief talk, made a passing remark that I have
never forgotten. He explained that throughout seminary formation a young man
tries to hear God’s voice calling him. At best, however, he is only guessing
that God wants him to be a priest.
But on the day of his ordination,
he hears God’s voice not only in his heart but with his own ears. How so? Well,
the ordaining bishop, after making sure the candidates are properly prepared,
solemnly states: “Relying on the help of God and our Savior Jesus Christ, we
choose these, our brothers, for the Order of Priesthood.” In that moment of the
liturgy, a bishop speaks not only with the authority of the apostles – of which
he is a successor – but with the authority of Christ himself. Hence he employs
the “royal we.” And a young man finally hears aloud what he has believed and
hoped for years, namely, that God has chosen him for the “Order of Priesthood.”
Primero Dios, indeed.
From that marvelous moment
onward, all doubts, fears, anxieties, uncertainties, insecurities, etc. are
laid to rest in every priest’s heart. Each ordinand henceforth knows he is
doing God’s will and is building on solid rock, and not on the shifting sands
of his own will. Even if later a man decides he cannot fulfill the duties of
priesthood and the promise of celibacy and leaves the public ministry, the
Church may relieve him of pastoral care and the obligation of celibacy, but she
does not, for an instant, renege on her conviction that God has called this man
to priesthood. Divine Providence is not so fickle. In other words, a priest is
not returned to the lay state – and the common parlance of laicization is a
misnomer – but is relieved of his public duties of administration of a parish
and the sacraments. As it says in Psalm 110:4, “The Lord has sworn and will not
waver: you are a priest forever in the manner of Melechizedek.” On the chalice
I use at Mass are inscribed the Latin words, “Tu es sacerdos in aeternum,”
meaning, “You are a priest forever,” which by the way, means even in heaven,
where God’s will is fulfilled flawlessly.
End of Act 2
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