Eugene the seminarian reflects on the meaning of priesthood in an abandoned Church:
The number of seminarians has risen considerably this year; I really think we are close to a hundred. Among the candidates we pride ourselves on, we can point to a Polish aristocrat of the same age as myself, the eldest son of an immensely rich family; his father has 24,000 vassals or serfs.
Religion finds here some small consolation for the sheer panic, or to speak more plainly, the utter dismay with which our self-styled good society fled its sanctuary: she sees ranging themselves beneath her forsaken banners a few individuals who, over and above the priestly character of J.C.’s ministers, naturally command respect in view of their education and birth.
So do not grudge, dear mama, do not grudge this poor Church, so terribly abandoned, scorned, trampled underfoot but which even so was the one who gave birth to us all in J.C., the homage that two or three individuals out of the whole of France (a small number I count myself happy to be one of) wish to pay her of their liberty and life.
And what reason could you possibly have for wanting me to delay any longer from committing myself, and devoting to the Spouse of J.C., which this divine Master formed by the shedding of all his blood, every moment of a life I received only to use for God’s greater glory.
Letter to Madame de Mazenod, 11 October 1809, O.W. XIV n. 61
Oh the literal mind, the walls and barricades we erect, that without our even realising it, erode our view and even our experience of life and even of God. This morning I read and I reread the words of Eugene, without really experiencing them. I took the literal sense of them and started to almost try to ‘lessen’ what Eugene was saying by focusing on a few specific words such as “…naturally command respect in view of their education and birth.” You’ve got to be kidding me – someone naturally commanding respect because of their status at birth – as in royalty type of thing? Whoa! What am I trying to run away from here?
Yesterday during Mass, for reasons that are too long to go into in this place, I felt within myself a crumbling of some of those very walls. I found myself in a place of deep awareness of God within me and was able to look at one of my failings, not with a sense of shame or even guilt, simply with a sense of this is a part of me, almost like an understanding of it, an acceptance of yet another facet of my being. In speaking of it here and now is hard for it so shows my smallness in some ways, but it is not something that I can simply think of and then wash it away without speaking of it for if I do that then it will become buried behind even higher walls only waiting to see the light of day at a later time.
I listened to someone speak of a family member who had given their life to God as a religious, as a priest and how awesome that was. And it was true every bit of it. And I realised that I have been holding back from acknowledging that fullness of goodness and love in some others. It was not overt but it has surely been there within my thinking, my reacting and even in how I respond and love. I can only hope that it has not hurt others as it has limited me. It has from time to time, in some ways affected how I look at and respond to the “Church”, religious, clerics and all those around me. Again not overtly but it has been there to colour things. It has lessened how I respond to You God and even to all of creation even though I was not conscious of it. I think that there was a hidden fear that if I acknowledged them and their way of living which on the surface appeared to be very different than mine it would somehow lessen me, lessen what You have been and are calling me to. Another of the secrets I have held within me, a character flaw so to speak, hidden and masked behind anger and fear that I was not ‘good enough’. I know that sounds incredibly petty and small, so not worthy of the lavish love You pour out upon me but I think there is truth in what I can finally see. Humbling in the least to admit to.
Another wall, another barricade down, but now I need to step over the crumbled pieces of it (rather than to rebuild) and to move forward. And the beauty of it all is that I do not have to do it alone, for as a step away from the darkness I find myself in the shadow of Your love, a little freer, a little more aware of the beauty that You have bestowed upon me. The dawn is just moments away and I go to greet it singing very softly; “…In the tender compassion of our God the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.”