Priests are often hard pressed to describe exactly what it
is that we do. A teacher helps us to
gain knowledge about a particular subject, a psychologist helps us solve
problems by fostering self-knowledge, a doctor cures illnesses by prescribing a
course of treatment. While the role of
the priest partakes of elements of all of these other professions, I’ve come to
believe that these are really quite peripheral matters.
The role of the priest is to confess what we cannot know, to
forgive what can’t be undone, and to bear witness to suffering that cannot be
cured. In other words, the priest is a
person who is willing to be useless for the sake of others. To be a priest is to be willing to walk
alongside others as they travel beyond the limits of the human into the
Mystery. In so doing, we try to
communicate something of the trustworthiness of the Mystery, and the
consolation – even healing – experienced in surrender to the Mystery.
The priest is not an expert.
She is someone who points beyond herself – beyond all expertise – to the
Mystery of God. All that the priest can
offer is this embrace of vulnerability, of uselessness, of simply being here
and now. At most, we can hedge this
vulnerability round with honor and look upon those we serve with soft eyes,
reflecting back to them the image of God revealed there.
Wendell Berry expresses this beautifully in the character of
the Rev. Williams Milby, as seen through the eyes of his wife, Laura.
As the knowledge of this
depth of suffering grew upon her, Laura understood, as she had not before, the
gravity of her husband’s calling, for she saw that it was to this suffering
that he was called. As he sank
inevitably into it or as it rose inevitably out of its depth, its quietness and
darkness, to meet him, she saw not only the gravity of his calling but its
authenticity. For Williams Milby had the
gift of comforting. He carried with him,
not by his will, it seemed, but by the purest gift, the very presence of
comfort. And yet even as it was a
comfort to others, it could be a bafflement and a burden to him. His calling, and the respect accorded to it,
admitted him into the presence of troubles he could not mend . . . It was plain
to him – and Laura knew this – that he was always hopelessly in debt to his own
ministry, for he could not give all that he wanted and longed to give. He was needed, even so, and what he had to
give, and more, was continually asked of him.
People were glad to see him coming.
They called him to come. They
were glad to have him around when they did not need him, just for the assurance
that he would be at hand when they did need him.[1]
What is more, the
claim upon the priest is not limited to the members of the congregation, to the
Church. In fact, were it so limited, it
would diminish her capacity to point beyond herself to the Mystery, for the
Mystery far transcends the Church. Laura
comes to understand this, though not always readily.
And when, having done all
he could do to help a family through a quarrel or an illness or a death,
performing services he was not paid for and could not have been paid for, he
might never hear from them again, let alone see their faces for the courtesy of
one Sunday among his hearers. Laura felt
herself wounded with sorrow for him and anger at them for their
ingratitude.
“It’s not right!” She cried to him once, breaking for that once
into his silence about it. “It’s just not right!”
“No. It’s not right,” he
said quietly, and he gave her his smile with which he sought to quiet her. “But it’s all right.”[2]
A priest will spend
hours with a couple in premarital counseling, never to hear from them again
after the wedding. She will baptize many
babies whose parents will never trouble with church on a Sunday morning
thereafter. She will hold the hands of
many a lonely, or frightened, or dying person, known to her alone and never to
her credit. “But it’s all right.”
Priests walk
alongside those whose tragedy and whose joy (Berry forgets this part) demands a
witness. It is just too big not to be
shared. It is just too awful or too
wonderful to be contained by anything less than the Mystery that transcends and
comprehends us all. And so, we call the
priest. Not to teach us, or solve our
problems, or cure us, but to accompany us over the edge into the abyss, into
the Mystery. And, in so doing, to hint
at the image of God within us that makes us – all of us – so worthy of such
lavish attention.
A priest is someone
whose gift it is to remind us, always and everywhere, “It’s all right” – not by
their words, which quickly devolve into cliché – but by their presence. By their very uselessness, they are made
usable for God.
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