Assignment

My Perception of Priesthood in Today’s Context

The seemingly bitter side of the reality: The other day I had a casual talk with one of the senior parishioners of the local parish. The conversation was about the celebrant of the novena mass for the day. And somehow unknowingly we started to talk about the priests. He told about a priest who quit priesthood and married, presently running a school. He is having a good family life with two small kids. This old man felt that it should not have happened, and I tried to explain to him in my own words so as to why it might have happened and why it possibly happens. I said, “its perhaps because he was not firm in his vocation, he must have not taken his spiritual life seriously.” I thought it was a good answer and that would satisfy my partner in conversation. But it was my turn now to be surprised and shocked on what he said next. He said, “It has nothing to do with vocation, the world outside is very challenging today and to live an easy and comfortable life, the boys join priesthood.” He might be wrong in his perception about priesthood today, but certainly the situation is not what it used to be before.

A link between God and people: The world is changing and so the concept and perception of priesthood today. I have always looked on a priest as someone who voluntarily gives up everything, including family, property, heritage and even his personal self, and stands as a mediator between God and the people. The need for the priests has increased to a great extent today as the people are slowly ignoring the importance of spiritual life and loosing the sense of sin, the state of being without God. What is most dangerous is that they don’t know all this, and there has to be someone who can remind them of their silliness and God’s love to them.

One who is much in demand today: In this consumerist and competitive world which follows the principle of ‘survival of the fittest’ the people are very busy in things that have no much value for the life to come. Religion has become the least priority except for those who are in the ‘evening of their life’ and preparing to meet their Creator soon. In fact people think, it is the last thing to care about spirituality and religion. The world is so fascinating that they don’t much feel the need of God in their lives. Today there is a dire need for someone exclusively appointed to lead them to God and Spirituality. That can be none other than a priest. Yes, a priest is meant to lead, to lead the people from worldliness to God, to lead people from consumerism and materialism to human values, lead people to feel the need to restore that image and likeness of God in them.

One who Lives God’s will: People follow the leader and a priest being a leader must look for his inspiration and strength in the leadership of Jesus himself. They say, “People may not follow what you preach but surely what you do.” It is easy to follow the one who does things than the one who just utters mere empty words. To lead the people to God, to make them feel the unconditional love of God, the priest himself must feel and live it first. Mere empty words do not produce any fruit. The priest has to be spiritual not just preach spirituality. Today there is increasing tendency among the priests to be busy in ‘the work of the Lord than in the Lord of the work.’ When disciples returned from evangelizing, Jesus asked them to come to a lonely place and spend some time in prayer. Even Mother Teresa, the more she worked, the more she spent time in prayer. There are numerous examples of priests who spent time in prayer and became the reason for many strayed souls to return to God. St. John Mary Vianney is one of them. To put it in a nut shell, a priest has to be a man of God so that he can lead others to become the people of God.

A Leader of the leaders: The world is much advanced today, and the people have great knowledge about things. A priest is meant to lead the engineers, advocates, managers, businessmen, peasants and people from all walks of life. Obviously he has to be all for all. That’s what Christ became. He became a friend to sinners, became a Guru to the intelligent and compassionate to the ignorant, forgiving to the offenders and became all to all, and a priest is called to be another Christ. I want to be a dynamic priest who is dearly loved by God and through whom God loves the world and world loves God.