The Pain of Priests Leaving Their Priesthood (Ken & Fr Cristino)

Welcome to our Advent Retreat! In this third Friday of Advent session, Father Cristino guides us through the wisdom of St. Alphonsus Liguori, reflecting on the call to sainthood and the pain of seeing a priest leave his priesthood.  

Transcript

Father Cristino welcome back to the third Friday of Advent good to have you back glad to be with you actually we did all these in a row so we have to be honest about this but I appreciate your time uh today St Alphonsus is talking about the religious vocation and so we're going to I'm going to ask you some thoughts about the religious life and some based upon his quotes but then to see if how they can also translate over to the sacrament of marriage St Alphonsus says finally let him who wishes to enter religion he means religious life resolve to become a saint and to suffer every exterior and interior pain in order to be faithful to God and not to lose his vocation okay so F firstly can you distinguish between what you think is an interior pain and an exterior pain so this is something that in our tradition we would classically differentiate between what we call Corporal mortification uh and spiritual mortification so Corporal meaning uh Corpus the body right so something that we do to let ourselves be physically Afflicted with some pain or discomfort uh I think people's minds automatically go to the classic image of someone whipping themsel or uh you know whatever the case may be but there's uh many other ways than just doing something as Extreme as that uh you can have a pebble in your shoe and notice that it's there and instead of stopping and taking it out right away to say I'm going to finish walking wherever I'm going and offer up this discomfort you know or you get into your vehicle when it's super hot or super cold and you say oh I'll give it a little bit before I open the window or before I turn on the F the heater uh whatever there's there's ways in which we can allow ourselves to experience some kind of discomfort that we notice physically uh maybe the most commonly accessed version of this is fasting letting those hunger pains in our in our stomach remind us uh that we should always be hungering for God so that's an external uh Corporal mortification and then spiritually there are things that we can do interiorly things that uh you don't feel them but they cause something in your soul you you notice that they they're creating a phenomenon within you that you can't really describe in physical terms and those have much more to do with the way in which we enter into our interior and spiritual life the way that we bear a humiliation uh the way that we're in a room where Maybe maybe we know the answer to something but instead of saying it we just keep quiet because we don't need to draw attention to oursel uh ways in which we have an internal disposition that no one possibly could know uh be those become ways that we can offer those to our Lord right that they don't have to be something that anyone else can participate in because we're just giving that only to him only he knows that that's happening within us and so those are the difference between the two and St alanas is saying that anyone who is going to live fruit fruitfully their vocation in this case he's commenting on those who are in religious life or consecrated life uh would need to have both of those realities of of internal and and external mortifications present in how they live fruitfully their vocation he also mentions that one needs to be resolved to become a saint in order to be a good religious as a vocations director for your dases what's your thoughts on that well I hope that all of my seminar want to be Saints uh and I'm so so edified to to really truly believe that they do I we have such remarkable seminarians in our dicese and across the board I think most vocation directors nowadays would say that they know they have really fine men who are seeking to be formed for the priesthood in their respective dases uh the priesthood asks a lot from us uh and there's a lot of time that goes into it now and it takes a long time to be ordained and there's not the the the social Acclaim that comes as it may have several Generations ago with becoming a priest uh you really sacrifice a lot and people don't necessarily understand and therefore they might treat it like oh that's a that's a waste or I don't know why you would bother doing that and so to be misunderstood and sometimes even kind of disrespected u in pursuit of that it takes a lot it takes an inner resolve to say I don't want this for any of these other reasons other than I believe believe that this is what the Lord is asking for me I want to serve him I want to serve his people I want to glorify him uh and so that in itself is is the beginning to the path of sanctity and sainthood and so I believe that and I'm I'm so grateful to have young men who are are pursuing the priesthood uh in our dicese and under my care who inspire me to want to be a better and a Holier priest so stasus mentions the resol to be want to want to be a saint at the willingness to suffer interior and exterior pains how does this translate also over to the sacrament of marriage well we always say that the sacrament of holy matrimony is a vocation in itself uh it is not some other state of life that we just tolerate because that's how more people are generated through procreation uh it is endowed with its own dignity we say that marriage uh is actually the very first thing that God ever instituted the institution of of marriage even precedes the institution of the church and so there is a beautiful endowment of of dignity and sacredness contained within it and therefore is also a path to Holiness and every every couple knows implicitly whether or not they would put it in these terms what it means to be willing to suffer uh internally and externally interiorly and exteriorly out of love for your spouse uh you know not grabbing the blankets off of your spouse who's rolled over and pulled them all on to herself at night you say well I'll make do or I'll put on a sweater you know that that is a beautiful exterior mortification that you would say you know if my if my wife is comfortable and she's resting I don't want to disturb her you know I shouldn't pull them pull those covers back no Canen I'm sure and Janelle didn't ask me to bring this up just to be clear but you know that that's that's a way which you would have to be able to say how can I do this and then equally there's many many ways that interiorly a spouse has to be prepared to suffer uh where they maybe feel uh disregarded or not listened to or uh they know that their their spouse is having a bad day and so with Grace and with patience they they seek not to uh get equal with them or to compare and say you think you had a bad day well what do you think happened here but instead to say how can I try uh through whatever little gestures to make my husband or wife feel better and and to feel loved uh despite whatever's happened to them today those are ways that require the very same uh willingness to endure pain whether they be exterior interior that will produce the same uh effects of Holiness uh in married life and the same way that in religious life we ought to also strive to do the same I'd like to shift gears I was going to read the quote but I'll just summarize it later St alus talks about the person who is unwilling to suffer those interior and exterior pains and maybe doesn't have a great resolve to be a saint uh really runs the risk of losing their religious vocation and uh the they discredit themselves and they it's hard he describes how it's hard for them to get back on track with their relationship with God um I think there has been and many our Watchers are very aware of the the different scandal within the church and maybe some personal failings that some priests have and they end up being quite public and a lot of time it's we focus on how that might hurt the lady I want to set that aside more of a personal question to you have you had a brother priest that you know leave the priesthood and number two if that is the case how does that affect you as a as his a brother priest in the priesthood well I certainly have I I know men who have left the priesthood uh and I've known to varying degrees you know some with whom I would say I was especially close and others who maybe I wasn't very close to them but I knew them or worked with them or and in more recent times we even hear of priests who uh undergo some kind of sanction or they end up being suspended from their Ministry or whatever the case case may be it's it's not sadly it's not an uncommon experience to endure the pain of watching a brother no longer be right there with you shoulder toosh shoulder in the battlefield uh and uh that is it is a source of pain partly because I am then left wondering have I failed my brother somehow oh you know it's easy to say oh he obviously was not doing enough interior and exterior mortification in order to preserve his vocation that's probably true and part of why that is true is because you can't really use the word enough we don't talk about enough in our in our lexicon as Christians we always strive to do more and better we've reflected upon that also uh but the enough in the case of one who has lost his vocation could equally be turned back to those who surround him because we don't live our vocation by ourself we can't uh I I am so richly blessed by my brothers in the priesthood uh who care for me who think of me who reach out to me uh you know I've it's happened numerous times where at the end of a really long week when I had something really difficult in the middle of the week that has weighed on me and depressed me or frustrated me that one of my brothers who knows what's going on a few days later will reach out and say hey I've been thinking of you how are you doing how did that go how do you need to talk just feeling cared for and supported by my brothers uh helps me be able to live my vocation better and so I'm I'm less inclined to diagnose how one of my brothers who has left the priesthood failed on his own part to guard and defend his vocation there's nothing I can do about that if that's the case but it does prompt me to ask how how could I have supported him better or differently and therefore how must I on an ongoing basis moving forward make sure that I continue to support and Surround my brothers with love and attention that I ought to show them so that we can continue to help each other in our little portion of the Lord's Vineyard well thanks for your thoughts today appreciate it for sure