Being one of the six hospital chaplains at Mater Dei Hospital gives me a golden opportunity to reflect about death and its meaning. The mystery of death and dying has been of great benefit to me to appreciate the unmerited gift of my ministerial priesthood.
As I accompany the dying on their journey to Heavenly Jerusalem the precious words of my fellow Capuchin, St Leopold Mandić who, together with the other Capuchin saint Pio of Pietrelcina spontaneously come to my mind: “A priest must die from apostolic hard work; there is no other death worthy of a priest.”
Considering Pope Francis’s huge emphasis that we priests should leave our comfort zones to shepherd the people who have been entrusted to our care by Divine Providence, how timely is St Leopold’s holy observation. For that matter I would like to delve deeper into the meaning of St Leopold’s thought by referring to three successive homilies the current Pope delivered during the annual Chrism Mass at St Peter’s Basilica.
In his homily on March 28, 2013, Pope Francis reflected on the image of anointing and the priesthood. This is what the Argentinian Pontiff meant of the apostolic hard work we priests are expected to do.
“We need to go out, then, in order to experience our own anointing, its power and its redemptive efficacy: to the outskirts where there is suffering, bloodshed, blindness that longs for sight, and prisoners in thrall to many evil masters.
The fullness of the gift of the priesthood, which no one can take away or increase, is an unfailing source of joy
“It is not in soul-searching or constant introspection that we encounter the Lord: self-help courses can be useful in life, but to live by going from one course to another, from one method to another, leads us to become Pelagians and to minimise the power of grace, which comes alive and flourishes to the extent that we, in faith, go out and give ourselves and the Gospel to others, giving what little ointment we have to those who have nothing, nothing at all.”
Hard apostolic work instills in us priests Gospel joy. In the homily of Chrism Mass of April 17, 2014, the Pope said that this kind of joy penetrates “deep within our hearts, it has shaped them and strengthened them sacramentally”.
Moreover the Pope said that “the fullness of the gift [of the priesthood], which no one can take away or increase, is an unfailing source of joy: an imperishable joy which the Lord has promised no one can take from us (Jn 16:22). It can lie dormant, or be clogged by sin or by life’s troubles, yet deep down it remains intact.”
Finally, hard apostolic work is also missionary in character. In other words, it means that “our anointing is meant for anointing God’s holy and faithful people: for baptising and confirming them, healing and sanctifying them, blessing, comforting and evangelising them”.
But how can a priest rest? In a homily delivered on April 2, 2015, the Holy Father offered two answers to this question. First by being with Jesus: “Whenever a priest feels dead tired, yet is able to bow down in adoration and say: ‘Enough for today Lord’, and entrust himself to the Father, he knows that he will not fall but be renewed.”
Second by being with the people he serves. “There is what we can call ‘the weariness of people, the weariness of the crowd’. For the Lord, and for us, this can be exhausting – so the Gospel tells us – yet it is a good weariness, a fruitful and joyful exhaustion.
“The people who followed Jesus, the families which brought their children to him to be blessed, those who had been cured, those who came with their friends, the young people who were so excited about the Master… they did not even leave him time to eat. But the Lord never tired of being with people.
“On the contrary, he seemed renewed by their presence (cf. Evangelii Gaudium, 11). This weariness in the midst of activity is a grace on which all priests can draw. And how beautiful it is! People love their priests, they want and need their shepherds!”
Are we ready to rest from our hard apostolic work by being close to the Lord Jesus and the people we serve?
Fr Mario Attard is a Franciscan Capuchin brother and a chaplain at Mater Dei Hospital.