Oct. 17, 2010: 29th Sunday Ordinary (C)
The other day I was in a restaurant with some friends. No sooner we sat ourselves down, we noticed the obvious intrusion all around us. Every nook and cranny of the place was packed with 50-inch TVs. Even when I tried to look directly into the face of my friend to talk, I was inevitably drawn to the moving images behind. Halfway into my conversation, I lost my train of thought and then found myself watching the game on TV. The greatest challenge that night was paying attention to the person sitting only a few inches from me. Literally it was a battle for my short attention span. But the same thing can happen when we have one small 13-in TV in the kitchen when our family is trying to eat. There is something about the moving images on the screen, no matter what the size, that distract us to be elsewhere rather than to be present to those we're trying to talk to.
In contrast, this week I was invited to have breakfast with the cloistered Carmelite nuns where I was making my annual retreat. There were eight of us at their long dining table, and somehow we all managed to be present to each other, caught up in just one conversation and attentive to each other's needs. As I was sipping my coffee mug that was now half empty, I noticed that a sister was standing next to me ready to pour some more coffee. 'How did she know,' I wondered. It was as if the sisters anticipated each other's needs, even before the need was verbalized.The images of a restaurant filled with distracting TVs and a quiet breakfast meal with Carmelite nuns came up as I prayed with the readings for the this Sunday. In the First Reading there is a situation like the distracting restaurant scene happening, where the victory of the battle is hinged upon the full attention of a single person praying and interceding before God. Moses is asked to stand on the top of a hill with his hands raised. As long as he had his hands raised up, praying and interceding intently, Israel had the upper hand on the battle against their enemy, Amalek. What would happen, then, if we placed in front of him a 50-in TV with the LSU or Saints football game on? Israel would be decimated, wouldn't they? Why? As he raised his hands, Moses was in God's presence asking Him face to face for the victory. The moment Moses redirected his attention back to himself, becoming self-absorbed, thinking to himself how tired he was and not paying attention to God, Moses stopped imploring for the grace necessary for his people. What was the result? His people suffered.
I wonder sometimes what are the effects of my prayer or lack of prayer for the benefit of parishioners. When I get self-absorbed, distracted by the world, and neglect my intense, silent prayer, do my parishioners suffer like the Israelites did when Moses got tired of imploring and let his hands down? When I moved into the rectory, I noticed that a holy card was taped on the bathroom mirror. I think Fr. Paul Gros put it there. The card reads:
If a priest is a saint, his people will be holy
If a priest is holy, his people will be good
If the priest is good, his people will be fair
If the priest is fair, his people will be mediocre
If the priest is mediocre, his people will be bad
Prayer and holiness are inseparable. Each priest has a duty to be filled with holiness, for we are to bring the love of Our Lord Jesus to all of His children. Through this holiness, we priests must love, be attentive to each other's needs like those Carmelite sisters, and serve God's children. How are we priests to be filled with holiness? Through intense, silent prayer. It is during intense, silent prayer that we are in union with Our Lord's Sacred Heart and Blessed Mother's Immaculate Heart.Mother Teresa was asked about whether a priest should be holy. She replied:
Jesus said: “Be holy as the Father is holy.” And holiness is nothing special for a priest; it’s a duty for a priest to be holy because he comes in such close contact with Jesus. How holy his words must be, how holy his life must be, how holy his touch must be, if he has to be that living sacrifice on the altar. Especially that holiness, a living holiness that will be able to allow Christ to live His life in him. Holiness for the priest is that complete oneness with Christ so that He can live His life in him, praying in him, working in him, being one with the Father in him, that’s the holiness that is his. There’s no comparison; the only comparison, the only competition a priest can have in holiness is Jesus Himself because he has to be so completely one with Him that Christ can really count on him and live His life totally in him, and that His Father can love the world through him.
Our Lady is the Mother. She was, she is, and she will always remain the Mother of Jesus; and Jesus said: “Who is My Mother? My Mother is the person who does My will, who does the things that are pleasing to the Father.” And no one can please the Father more than a priest. Therefore, she is the closest to a priest.
For just as she helped Jesus to grow, so she also helped the Church to grow in the beginning. She was left behind for so many years after Jesus ascended to heaven, so that she was the one who formed the Church. She is the one who forms every priest. And no one can have a greater claim on Our Lady than a priest. And I can imagine she must have had, she still has, a very tender love, a special protection also, for every priest, if he only turns to her. But to be able to really be a priest according to the Heart of Jesus you need much prayer and penance. A priest needs to unite his own sacrifice with the sacrifice of Christ, if he really wants to be completely one with Jesus on the altar. And then his life of sacrifice, his life of penance, must complete Jesus’ because as St. Paul had said, we must complete the things that are missing in the sufferings of Christ.
And this applies to all of us as well as the priests. As Mother Teresa said, "Holiness is the simple duty for each one of us, for we have been created for greater things, to love and to be loved. Holiness is not the luxury of the few." So all of us need a time away from the distracted world like that restaurant with 50in TVs everywhere. All of us need intense, silent prayer in our lives. All of us need Blessed Mother to form us into the likeness of her Son whom we receive at every mass. If a husband is a saint, his family will be holy. If a wife is a saint, her family will be holy. If a grandfather or a grandmother is a saint, their grandchildren will be holy. If an uncle or an aunt is a saint, their nephews and nieces will be holy. If a godfather or a godmother is a saint, their godchildren will be holy.
