Denver Catholic

19 DENVER CATHOLIC | JUNE 25-JULY 8, 2016 On being a 'Father to the Fathers' N ine years ago I made an appointment with Arch- bishop Charles Chaput to talk to him about a parish concern. Archbishop listened very patiently to me, and then he told me that he was going to ask me to become the Vicar for Clergy for the arch- diocese. It came as a total surprise to me and I was unable to respond. Over the last nine years I have learned a lot about what it means to serve as Vicar for Clergy. When people ask me what I do, and I tell them that I am the Vicar for Clergy, the expression on their faces is usu- ally one of bewilderment. Often times I tell them that I'm like the Human Resource person for the priests and deacons, and that seems to satisfy their curiosity. Certainly, in a certain sense that does explain the job of attending to the health, education, placement and general employment concerns for priests and deacons. However, I have discovered that the "job" is much more than applying policy to partic- ular situations, or advising priests about their health insurance or what they should do to prepare for retire- ment, all of which are important. This ministry is really about trying to be a "Father to the Fathers." Even as I write those words they seem strange to me: how can one possibly be a father to the priests of an entire archdiocese? It also seems presump- tuous on my part to think that I could be formed, educated, mature, and su©ciently wise to be a "Father to the Fathers." It's about accompanying them in their journey. The challenge of being a priest in today's world is a great one indeed. A priest in a parish faces many challenges that touch on almost all aspects of human life. On a daily basis the priest can find himself as the "first responder" to a family in grief over the loss of a loved one. He can find himself placed in the role of ethicist as he tries to advise a family that is trying to decide about life support for a dying family member. He can be a catechist as he teaches a group of young people about maintaining a life of purity. He is often the "confessor" as he listens to the broken-hearted and those who carry heavy burdens from their past. And he is the administrator, managing parish budgets and fixing leaky roofs. Not too long ago I had the joy of celebrating a confirmation in a local parish. It was beautiful celebration, but as I was leaving I noticed the pastor with a mop and bucket in hand as he was going to clean up a mess. He just looked at me smiled and said, "Such is the life of a pastor!" How does one be a father to these fathers? They too carry within their hearts hurts and disappointments, and they carry within their hearts great joy for things accomplished, or times when they witnessed the joy of conversion happen in the life of a parishioner. To be a father to them is to support them and to walk with them. It's not to have all the answers, but rather to help point them in the direction that will help them in their journey. The call to be a father is exactly that, a call. One does not take this on his own initiative, for if done in that spirit it will lead to pride and a hunger for position rather than seeking to be an instrument in the hand of the Lord. Being a "Father to the Fathers" is not just a job, but a ministry, and the path the Lord has provided for his own reasons to help further his plan. That same truth is true in the life of each priest whether he is pastor, parochial vicar, working at the sem- inary or in the chancery or engaged in advanced studies or ministering in the military. Our mission is not about us, but about the Eternal Father whose love we seek to reveal. Please keep priests in your prayers that every day our hearts may be renewed by the Heart of Christ. Guest Column Monsignor Bernie Schmitz serves as the Vicar of Clergy for the Archdiocese of Denver. MSGR. BERNIE SCHMITZ asks the woman at the well for a drink, thereby inviting her to generosity. When she balks, citing the customary taboos, Jesus says, "If you knew who was asking you for a drink, you would have asked him, and he would give you living water." This, I told the priests in Rome, is a pithy expression of the cen- tral principle of spiritual physics, what St. John Paul II called "the law of the gift." As St. Augustine knew, we are all wired for God, hungry for absolute reality. But God, as St. John knew,is love. Therefore, to be filled with God is to be filled with love, which is to say, self-emptying. The moment we receive something of the divine grace, we should make of it a gift and then we will receive more of the divine grace. In a word, our being will increase in the measure that we give it away. This is the "water welling up to eternal life" that Jesus speaks of. God wants not merely to bind up our wounds; he wants to marry us, to make us "partakers of the divine nature." The third principle I identified is that the divine mercy is demanding. I told the fathers gathered in Rome that we tend to understand the proc- lamation of the divine mercy accord- ing to a zero-sum logic, whereby the more we say about mercy, the less we should say about moral demand, and vice versa. But this is repugnant to the peculiar both/and logic of the Christian gospel. As Chesterton saw so clearly, the Church loves "red and white and has always had a healthy hatred of pink!" It likes both colors strongly expressed side by side, and it has an abhorrence of compromises and half-way measures. Thus, you can't overstate the power of the divine mercy, and you can't overstate the demand that it makes upon us. Jesus tells the woman that she comes daily to the well and gets thirsty again, but that he wants to give her the water that will permanently quench her thirst. St. Augustine accordingly saw the well as expressive of concupiscent or errant desire, the manner in which we seek to satisfy the deepest hunger of the heart with creaturely goods, with wealth and power, pleasure and honor. But such a strategy leads only to frustration and addiction and hence must be chal- lenged. Indeed, Jesus shows that the woman exhibits this obsessive, addic- tive quality of desire in regard to her relationships: when she says that she has no husband, Jesus bluntly states, "yes, you've had five, and the one you have now is not your husband." This is not the voice of a wishy-washy relativ- ist, an anything-goes peddler of pseu- do-mercy and cheap grace. Rather, it is the commanding voice of one who knows that extreme mercy awakens extreme demand. Finally, the divine mercy, I told the priests, is a summons to mission. As soon as she realizes who Jesus is and what he means, the woman puts down the water jar and goes into town to proclaim the Lord. The jar symbolizes the rhythm of concupiscent desire, her daily return to worldly goods in a vain attempt to assuage her spiritual hunger. How wonderful that, having met the source of living water, she is able to set aside her addictions and to become, herself, a vehicle of healing for others. The very best definition of evangelization that I've heard is this: one starving person telling another starving person where to find bread. We will be ine¦ective in our evange- lizing work if we simply talk, however correctly, about Jesus in the abstract. Our words of proclamation will catch fire precisely in the measure that we have been liberated and transformed by Christ. Could I ask all who read these words to pray for the priests who gathered in Rome this past week? Beg the Lord that we might all become bearers of the divine mercy. Monsignor Bernie Schmitz likens his position as Vicar for Clergy to being a "Father to the Fathers." PHOTO BY DANIEL PETTY/DENVER CATHOLIC

• Cover