This Vigil of Pentecost 2013 is the 44th anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood. In 1969, however, the Vigil of Pentecost fell on May 24. For my first Mass one of my aunts made for me a bright red chasuble with matching stole, a plain creation unlike many of the more traditional looking vestments that are popular today. Three concelebrants joined me - Fr. Bill Cleary, a priest of the archdiocese of Indianapolis, who had been our associate pastor when I was growing up; Fr. Pat Smith, another priest of the archdiocese who taught Scripture at Marian College where I earned my B.A. degree; Fr. Bill Thurmer, a priest of the archdiocese of St. Louis, pastor of Our Lady of Mercy Parish in Hazelwood, Mo., where I served as a deacon while studying at Kenrick Seminary. A classmate - Pat Malone, now a retired priest of the Diocese of Wichita - served as deacon for the Mass. A first cousin - Barbara Binder - made her first communion during the Mass at age 8.
Though now a Jesuit I am engaged in the formation of college-age men discerning vocations to the diocesan priesthood. It's a job I never sought and one I wasn't sure I could do. The work is tiring and I am available to our seminarians 24/7 (I do take one day off each week). Still I find the last three years to be some of the richest of my priesthood.
That's not because of the work. It's because of the seminarians who have renewed my hope in the ideals of human nature and my belief in the never ending and constantly challenging grace of God.
Our numbers the first year I served in the college seminary included three veterans of recent U.S. wars - two had been in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. Two had sustained wounds in battles and knew both fear and death. Along with these three late 20s aged men were nearly two dozen more who had just finished high school or who were in their sophomore, junior, or senior year. The contrasts and the issues were mountainous.
Still all were there because they thought they might be interested in becoming priests. In my three years so far, about two-thirds have continued on to major seminary. I feel certain that some of them will continue on to priesthood. To ponder that I might have even a minimal part in their accomplishment is an astonishing thought to me.
I was ordained in a year when we struggled to be considered "just like everybody else" and we wanted our friends and families not to put us on pedestals. Whether they did or not, the intervening years have certainly shoved us from those places of honor. Part of that has to do with revelations concerning church scandals. An additional part, however, has to do with our becoming more human and, in some cases, becoming more holy. Priests should not be put on pedestals. We are indeed human beings as the rest of humanity. Yet we are still singled out for a work that is like no other. And, if everything else has worked, we have developed a relationship like no other, a relationship with Jesus Christ, who must be the central focus of our lives if we are to be at all worthwhile.
Last summer I participated in a three-week seminar for seminary spiritual directors. I was blown away with a course on the spirituality of the diocesan priesthood. None of the content had ever been available to me when I was in seminary formation. Had it been so, I might never have made my own choice to leave diocesan priesthood after 16 years to become a Jesuit. The spirituality of the Society of Jesus offered me so much more than I knew as a diocesan priest.
I am able to share what I learned last summer with our college seminarians. But I am also able to enrich my own priesthood now because of what our seminarians continue to teach me. Their humanity mirrors my own. Their desire for God excites me. Their failures remind me of my own. I am grateful that the Lord has sent me to them so that I might give them my life - incomplete though it may be.
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