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NFPC 2006 Convention President's Address
Minneapolis, Minnesota
April 25, 2006
Father Robert Silva
These are the words of Pope Paul VI as he began the first session he chaired of the Second Vatican Council. He says:
“Let there be no other guiding light for this gathering but Christ, the light of the world Let the interest of our minds be turned to no other truth, but the words of the Lord, our one master Let us be guided by no other desire, but to be unconditionally loyal to him. Let the only trust which sustains us come from those words of his, which shore up: ‘…and behold I am with you forever, even to the end of the world.’”
These are sustaining words for you and me. As we weather the storms of these years of priestly ministry; during these times when we are being asked to re-evaluate, to re-vision, to look at how it is that we practice ministry and who we are as priests of Jesus Christ; we need to turn back to Paul VI’s words, to keep our eyes focused on the One who sustains us, the One who has called us, the One in whom we have been ordained, the One whose ministry of priesthood we share.
It is a turbulent time in our lives. There is no question about it. One of the things that have pained me as I’ve gone around the country to speak with groups of priests is how anguished priests are. I must confess that when I see surveys that show how happy we are, I get a little perturbed. I find it difficult to reconcile some of the surveys’ conclusions with what I’ve experience when I come to you and speak with you about your priestly life on retreats and convocations. We are not real happy. There is a great deal of hurt that is felt. We should not deny that we are struggling with the fallout from the sex-abuse scandal. We are struggling with the relationships we have with our bishops. We are struggling with the relationships we have with each other. For us to have to sit down with a spoken intention of presbyteral community, even to have to say it, is indicative that there is something out of kilter, something tilted in our presbyterates. We are convinced and convicted of our priesthood. But, we are struggling.
Where do we go when we begin to experience this kind of dis-ease?
Pope Benedict XVI proclaims: “God is love.” That is the first thing we have to say: “God is love”! At the Easter Vigil, Pope Benedict says, “Christ is risen because God is love.” At the Easter Mass of Resurrection the Pope again says: “The resurrection of Jesus is a explosion of love, which breaks the indissoluble bond between dying and becoming.” He says that sin is the refusal of love, is not wanting to be loved, is not loving.
I want to encourage us to paste Benedict’s words across our foreheads: “Christ is risen, because God is love.” Let that be the filter through which all of our priestly self engages the world around us.
The dynamic force of Love that comes from deep within us reaches out to embrace the communities that surround us, the individuals who suffer, those who are dying, those who hurt, and those who experience joy. It is the force of the priestly Spirit of Jesus that moves through us to draw people into the transforming love of God. As priests, this is how we engage those with whom we minister and the world in which we live.
Christ, then, sustains us, as Pope Paul VI’s words indicate, because Christ is the love of God embodied. And God lives in us, and God is love, and we must be love. I’m not talking about the romantic love seen in so many of our movies. I enjoy movies about romantic love; however, that’s not what I’m talking about. Again, I am talking about the love, the dynamism that begins deep within us which is the movement of the Spirit who is Love, who has taken hold of us. The Spirit then leads us because of our priestly ordination to live our lives––some of you have heard me say this before––the Spirit leads us to embody love in such a way that we lead our lives fixed at the point of the Cross. The Cross is our center because it is that kind of love that transforms us. The love of Jesus is an entrance into a Death-Resurrection Mystery and it is what we must live.
We are often confronted with acts that are contrary to love, acts performed even by brother priests. These acts can bring about great distress and discouragement. Let me give you two examples: Once again I read in the morning newspaper an account of another priest who has sexually abused a child; or, I receive a phone call from a diocese far away from here, saying, “Bob, one of our brightest and best pastors has just been removed, what can we do?” Please God we, ourselves, do not get caught up in such dramatic, problematic sin. However, when we, ourselves, lose the fervor, when we get out of bed in the morning and we’re simply exhausted, tired, and our vision begins to blur, what is it that lifts us up?
“Christ is risen, because God is love”! We enter again, not in some meaningless meandering through tasks of the day. Rather, we engage once again in living out the Mystery of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus. And in the ebb and flow of living the priesthood of Christ, every moment and every encounter is transforming and life-giving. “Christ is risen, because God loves us.”
Today, as a Federation of Priests’ Councils, we cannot allow ourselves to be simply an organizational process. What we must be is a ministry of love.
When we talk about how we live; when we talk about how to pay compensation; when we talk about health policies and retirement; when we talk about the priest shortage; and when we talk about all the issues, we always must keep ourselves located in the context of our priestly ministry, which is to proclaim and to live, “Christ is risen, because God is love.”
For example, the addressing of the rights of priests is not some arbitrary thing that we do because we’re selfish, or because we want to be heard, or because “my God, this is my right.” When we speak to the protection of the rights of priests we speak to the issue of love, love that is life giving. The rights of a priest are there to sustain him as life-giver in his priestly ministry. All that the Federation does must be done in context: “Christ is risen, because God is Love.”
It’s been six years since I have come to serve you. It has been a labor of love and I want to thank you. I have not much more to say except that you are good holy men. May your holiness sustain you.
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