Reflections on the Priesthood

I started writing this five years ago, but typical of myself, I got distracted by something and moved away from it. Call it the Holy Spirit, but I was thinking of most of these guys recently.   Let's call it the story of the good guys. 

It's not often that someone's blog entry causes me to want to write my own reflections on priesthood, but it has happened. Yes, I am a woman and yes I can never be a priest, I have no desire or want to be a priest, however if I was a man that would be a different story. Seriously, I have said many times "if I was a boy this discernment thing would be so much easier, I'd know what I want to do." I believe St. Therese aka the Little Flower said that as well, I'm searching through my books on her to double check. I remember sitting in my dorm room thinking "Oh thank God I'm not crazy someone else said it."

Side note or a bit of a detour:  My mom for years as she walked me to grammar school would often tell me to say, "Little Flower in this hour show your power." Apparently one of my brother's teachers told him to say it so it was passed on to me. I often heard Bishop Patrick Ahern, God rest his soul, speak about St. Therese at the many confirmations I was at as a child that he officiated. He always told the confirmandi to read Story of A Soul, I was not confirmed by him, but a good few of my friends were and eventually I took his advice and actually read it. I actually have a picture with him that will always make me laugh as his exact quote was "we'll just say it was your second confirmation." because the picture was taken at my friend's confirmation which was a week or so after mine.  Of course that parish happened to have a statue of St. Therese so that's where he stood to take his pictures and she is directly behind us in the picture.  You could say this was the beginning of her watching out for me.  Therese has become one of my favorite saints and it took me a while to actually pick up her autobiography and read it, but I did probably because another priest suggested it, but more on him later.

The quote is not exactly what I remember, but I will type the whole thing simply because it can and has been taken out of context. The following quote is from Story of a Soul, the autobiography of St. Therese of Liseux.

"To be your Spouse, to be a Carmelite, and by my union with You to be the Mother of souls,should not this suffice me? And yet it is not so. No doubt, these three privileges sum up my true vocations. I feel the vocation of the WARRIOR, THE PRIEST, THE APOSTLE, THE DOCTOR, THE MARTYR. Finally, I feel the need and desire of carrying out the most heroic deeds for You, O Jesus. I feel within m soul the courage of the Crusader, the Papal Guard, and I would want to die on the field of battle in defense of the Church. I feel in me the vocation of the PRIEST. With what love, O Jesus, I would carry You in my hands when, at my voice, You would come down from heaven. And with what love would I give You to souls! But alas! while desiring to be a Priest, I admire and envy the humility of St. Francis of Assisi and I feel the vocation of imitating him in refusing the sublime dignity of the Priesthood. O Jesus my Love, my Life, how can I combine these contrasts? how can I realize the desires of my poor little soul? Ah! in spite of my littleness, I would like to enlighten souls as did the Prophets and the Doctors. I have the vocation of the Apostle. I would like to ravel over the whole earth to preach Your Name and to plant Your glorious Cross on infidel soil. But O my Beloved, one mission alone would not be sufficient for me, I would want to preach the Gospel on all the five continents simultaneously and even to the most remote isles. I would be a missionary, not for a few years only but from the beginning of creation until the consummation of the ages. But above all, O my Beloved Savior I would shed my blood for You even to the very last drop."


Looking back on my life I have met quite a few other wise known as a lot of priests and only a few have left a sour taste in my mouth, and for some reason it involved the Sacrament of Confession when they left that bad taste. Being told that what you are confessing is not a sin throws one, however it probably wasn't a sin, but having confessed pretty much the same thing to a different priest (who had been ordained 25 years at the time) at a later date and he treated it as such, actually he asked me an interesting question about it, so I dare to say that "inexperience" on behalf of the first priest is what happened, as he was literally ordained a month if that. Another priest corrected me very abruptly as I was discussing issues I had with a boyfriend about Pre-Vatican II, one is often nervous while confessing to begin with to be corrected in what one is saying really makes one nervous.

The bad tastes are far outweighed by the overwhelming number of awesome priests I have met. For as long as I can remember there has been a priest "watching" over me. While I was in grammar school and in the Bronx Fr. D now Msgr. Dervin would also remind me that I was baptized on the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. I've said before that my baptismal feast and name have often helped me be as feisty as I am when it comes to defending the unborn and ending abortion. Fr. D often included me in parish events for the parish school kids as my school didn't have a parish attached to it. To this day not a feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe goes by that I don't think of him.  The last time I saw him was a memorial Mass for one of my brother's friends who was killed on Sept. 11th.  That Mass was a home coming for all of us because most of us had moved away and out of the Bronx, but we all returned and it was as if we never left. Typical of the Irish we mourned and then partied.  I'm always amused by the comments I get at these things because I am so much younger than my brother, but Fr. D's comment was along the lines of little Mary is not so little any more.  I said no I'm not.  But there will always be a part of me that is little and that remembers being scared of priests because I didn't get what they did yet.  Fr. Dervin was one of the first to break that barrier.

In high school I got my first experience of dealing with a newly ordained priest, Fr. Geno aka FG would guide me through high school and continues to pray for me when ever I ask. FG was my first young priest, he's the same age as my brother so it was strange to have a priest that young, granted he is 12 years older than me, but it was still young. Having recently reconnected with Fr. Geno it's easy to see and remember why I loved him in high school, and the nice part about now it that in the way I have grown in my faith, I can see how FG has grown in his priesthood. Fr. Geno started our parish's youth ministry and it was there that my faith would grow and be nurtured in the "it's ok to be religious" form. Fr. Geno would also tell me one year, "you have some big shoes to fill next year, so I tend to say it's all his fault for when I get up on my "be Catholic soap box."  Fr. Geno not only busted the barrier of scary priest down, he helped me to realize that priests are human just like the rest of us. So much of my faith can be attributed to my parents who raised me in the faith and made sure that I was also educated in it, but it was under FG that I begin to look outside the classroom and church and see the idea of universal church.  Fr. Geno has given me more than I could ever ask for.  As my high school graduation present and because they couldn't send me to Catholic high school, my parents sent to World Youth Day in Paris.  It was here that I got to see JP2 for the first time and here were the grace of God began to sink in shall we say.  It was in Paris that I realized how much I cared about my faith and that I was there to see the Pope and nothing else, which for a 17 year old was pretty damn impressive considering. FG would later give me another blessing of being in Rome for the Beatification of John Paul II. Now FG is literally down the road at the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist as rector, and still a part of my spiritual life. 

In college I would attempt to look for a reminder of FG and youth group and found it in Fr. Bill. Fr. Bill was the "Irish version of Fr. Geno" as I described him to someone from high school. Fr. Bill was a whole 4 years older than Fr. Geno making him a young priest still. Fr. Bill and I had a lot in common including a similar background, liking the Mets, and well being feisty Irish-Americans. Fr. Bill would strengthen the love that I have for St. Therese and see me through the "coming to understand and love being Catholic" phase of my faith. Fr. Bill would help me with some of the more difficult times in my faith, the times where I would actually question and wonder why I was Catholic. Nothing helps like a priest who knows how to deal with a crazy Irish American and her feisty ways. My first experience with Padre Liam as I call him, was hearing a knock on the campus ministry doors and watching this priest blow into our Small Christian Communities meeting.  I don't know if I will ever forget the priest clad in jeans and a t-shirt and how much he affected my life. My years at SHU were wonderful and I wouldn't change them, but they were a far cry away from easy.   I found myself fighting the administration and professors on the Catholic identity of the University, thankfully there was a priest whose office in the corner who knew how to tell me it's ok, this is allowed and you are right.  I know the parishes and schools that have had the pleasure of having him as vicar and pastor and the schools that have had him as campus minister were and are truly blessed for knowing him.  We may not be as close as we were, but I still know how to find him. About when I started to write this, Fr. Bill was celebrating his 25th anniversary as a priest.  Neither of us had seen each other in years, but the friendship is still there.  He was also one of the first guys I told about my mom's death.  Technology is a blessing in that we are now only a text away from each other.  

After college I came home to a parish that I wasn't in love with, that I didn't want to be at and then all of a sudden a second FG came into my life. Fr. George come to St. Anthony's as pastor. I had know Fr. George from my high school days as the other priest whose parish had a large youth group. Fr. George became the priest that listened to me as an adult, who would treat me as an adult. FGH as he has become know as, is one of those guys that still says hi after all these years.  Every Chrism Mass I try to say hi to him.  This past Chrism Mass I happened to say hi to the former pastor in front of the current pastor and I still wonder what Fr. Ray thought seeing the smile and hug I got from FGH.  More on Fr. Ray later, but both of these men are my favorite pastors.  Fr. George was the priest that allowed me to be an adult in the Church and he helped as much as he could to get me a ministry job.  I'm still working on that one, not really, I have given up looking for that "dream ministry job" as nothing as ever come from it.  FGH may not realize it but he's another priest that I've known of longer than they have known me.  I first met Fr. George at a youth ministry event that his parish and Fr. Geno's parish were doing together.  I still laugh thinking about how FGH signed an email "FG" and I said Fr. George I love you but I have an FG already so he quickly changed it to FG2 to which a friend and I made FGH to go with his initials.  It's now a running joke to shorten the priests names to initials.

Along with Fr. George there are a few vicars who were at the parish that I love and miss .  Fr. Kevin who I currently see whenever I see Bishop Serratelli comes to visit.  Fr. Brian (Sullivan) became the vicar I missed the most.  I don't know why but Fr. Brian's departure from the parish hit me hard.  Fr. Brian became the priest I turned to for confession and advice and well we just got a long.  Fr. Roberto, my Cuban vicar, is another one that I miss, but that's because he and are the same age and well when he cam to the parish, he was newly ordained and English wasn't his first language, so with some help we quickly became friends.  

Fr. Ray has actually taken the spot of favorite pastor.  We don't see eye to eye on some things, but we do share a love of liturgy done correctly. Mom always said you would stand in the snow to hear his sermons.  I certainly wouldn't stand in the snow to listen to him, but he is a great priest. He has the personality of a rock, but deep down the friendliness is here.  I guess in a profession where you move so much you have to put up some barriers before you get too close to anyone.  Fr. Ray is one of those priests who has been a priest forever so nothing fazes him. 

There have been priests that come into my life at times and come and go.  Fr. Paul Manning is one of those.  He's another one of the knew Fr. Geno back in the days guys.  Fr. Paul took over for Fr. Geno as Vicar of Evangelization for the Diocese and thus became the priest that was there for my Certificate in Catholic Evangelization program.  Fr. Ray may not say much but his actions speak loudly, as Fr. Paul invited the pastors of those of us in the program and Fr. Ray did show up.  While I am not nearly as active with St. Paul's as I was, I did get to meet another awesome priest Fr. Derek though it.  Fr. Derek gave me some insights into life as a catechist.  

I have what I call my on line priests, Fr. Jim Chern, his last name has to be included as I know a few Fr. Jims. Fr. Jim is the priest I interact with the most of Facebook and without fail if the homily at the parish wasn't the best, I end up reading Fr. Jim's and it's usually a home run.  Fr. Jim and Fr. Bill kinda go together as they are both involved in Campus Ministry and are good friends.  

I'm saving the best story for last.  My best friend, Charlie.  Charlie will be the last entry in the story of the good guys because I might as well publish this thing.  About 8 years ago I met Charlie as we were helping out with the parish youth ministry program. Within that first year, Charlie let us know his intentions of wanting to be a priest.  I have never seen the Church move that quickly. Six years of education and with one year of priesthood under his belt, Charlie is one of the best priests I know.  It was a joy to take that journey to ordination with him and I can't wait to see what he does with and in his priesthood. 

All of these guys have played a part in my journey as a Catholic.  Fr. Bill is just a text message away, so Charlie and I have a feeling these two will be very influential on the rest of my spiritual journey.  

Yes, my life would have been easy if I was a boy, I would have most likely become a priest.  Being a priest isn't an easy choice and the current crop of seminarians is showing the JP2 generation isn't going to be knocked down and that they have opinions.  Please continue to pray for good, holy, vocations, and good, holy priests.