An early start

It’s just after 9PM on June 30th here in Ottawa.  The great national orgy doesn’t begin formally for another three hours or so.  It’s rainy and sort of cool, though pleasant enough for me, personally, as that’s how I like it.  Nevertheless, in this great capital of ours one can already hear the frequent explosions of incompetently-administered fireworks and the slurred, drunken singing of someone who’s been at it for the last hour.  Every so often one can even hear the distant sound of that tuneless Spanish soccer chant that is my generation’s poor excuse for joyful noise.  It comes like an infant’s murmur, soft and ominous.

To bitterly mutter that I hope they all die would be uncharitable and wrong, and not a little bit unnecessary anyway because of course they all will.  It’s just awfully hard to work through William Law’s 1728 masterwork exhorting me to a devout and holy life with all these distractions.

I’ll simply keep at it, I guess, and wistfully look forward to my new apartment – to be moved into in August – in which my bedroom is in fact a subterranean cave with no windows.  That should be quiet.  Oh yes it should.

An anniversary and a new year

The indispensable Brian Vissagio of Saint Superman has now been posting his content for a full year, his blog having been started (partially) in response to the Holy Father’s declaration of the Pauline Year, which is just now wrapping up.  Congratulations, Brian, but don’t get too comfortable with that several-thousand-hit lead over yours truly; I’m back on the wagon and determined to catch up.

Incidentally, and as many of you will already be aware, Benedict has proclaimed the upcoming year to be the “Year for Priests,” in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the death of St. John Vianney, the patron saint of parish priests.  It would be a good idea even apart from this anniversary – what better way to follow up a focus on evangelism and public ministry than with a focus on pastoral work?  I hope that the results of the upcoming year will prove helpful both to priests at large and to those discerning their vocations; while I do not (and never shall) count myself among them, the appalling heroism with which they must so often face the circumstances of their work is inspiring indeed.

St. John V, as quoted by Benedict, really…  well, he really seems to like priesthood:

“Without the Sacrament of Holy Orders, we would not have the Lord. Who put him there in that tabernacle? The priest. Who welcomed your soul at the beginning of your life? The priest. Who feeds your soul and gives it strength for its journey? The priest. Who will prepare it to appear before God, bathing it one last time in the blood of Jesus Christ? The priest, always the priest. And if this soul should happen to die [as a result of sin], who will raise it up, who will restore its calm and peace? Again, the priest… After God, the priest is everything! … Only in heaven will he fully realize what he is”.

Benedict’s response at first seems like something of an understatement (“These words, welling up from the priestly heart of the holy pastor, might sound excessive”), for there’s much in there that frankly horrifies on a superficial reading.  The key is to understand that St. John V is describing something relational rather than causal, or at least not causal in the direction that it seems.  He says, for example, “without the Sacrament of Holy Orders, we would not have the Lord.”  Obviously he does not mean that if it weren’t for Holy Orders there would be no God; priests do not create God.  What he’s saying is that where you find the one, you will necessarily find the other; God and the Sacraments go hand in hand.  Each of his statements has a relational implication that must be acknowledged: the priest welcomes and feeds your soul, but he does not create or give you your soul; the priest prepares your soul for God and bathes it in the blood of Christ, but he is not God and he is not Christ.  For the priest to do the things he does there must be God, first and foremost, as the Subordinating Other (if I may express something so beautiful in such lame terms).

Whatever the case may be, times are hard for priests – for reasons alternately legitimate and dubious – and we would do well to remember them, both as a body and as specific individuals, in prayer and thanksgiving.  I’m sure the coming year will offer many opportunities for both.