MY
Parish life is very different from seminary life. You might say, "Hold on, isn't seminary supposed to prepare you for life in a parish?" And you'd be right. I'm sure after more time in seminary, and when I'm closer to ordination, I'll be better prepared. But seminary is designed after a monastic schedule - it's designed to teach you to pray, work, and live in community. It's not designed after a parish schedule. I'm in Athens, Ohio, for the summer, staying with two priests who juggle several churches and Ohio University campus ministry. I'm used to praying the Mass. I'm not used to praying five Masses a weekend.
Dedicated, focused, liturgical prayer is physically and mentally draining. "My sacrifice - a contrite spirit. A heart, contrite and humbled, You will not spurn." The priest urges us to "lift up your hearts" and "we lift them up to the Lord." In the Mass we unite ourselves to the one sacrifice of Christ, and in the Mass we die with Him. I usually feel it midway through the Eucharistic prayer of my second mass on a Sunday. My attention is slipping. Reverent posture is getting pretty uncomfortable. The significance of the presence of God isn't the first thing on my mind anymore. By the end of the third mass, I can only hope that training and practice are preventing me from becoming a distraction, and that the symbolic nature of the liturgy points back to God in a way that my disposition can't. In parish life, one priest covering multiple Sunday masses is often an unavoidable necessity, even if it would be more prayerful for the priest (and his seminarian shadow) to celebrate only one. One time, during a live-in discernment retreat at the Josephinum, one of the guests we were hosting collapsed in one of the pub's armchairs and said, "How are you guys still awake? You wake up before dawn to pray, and then you have classes and meetings nonstop through the day, Holy Hour in the evening, and yet you're still cheerful and socializing in the pub late into the evening with us? How do you do this day after day if I'm tired after only a couple days?" None of us had a good answer for him. Frankly, I don't think I knew how I did it. It's a stressful schedule for sure, but it's also a schedule that's natural to the state of life God has called me to live. God is a good Father, and he doesn't ever give us a task without giving us the tools to complete it. To plagiarize St. Paul, "God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it." (1 Corinthians 10:13) I was in a car with the pastor after a long First Communion Mass, a reception, and another Mass. I really wanted to ask him how he does it. How he stays prayerful after hours of liturgies. How he keeps the sacred special even though it's such a prevalent part of his life. How he remembers that every Host really is the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ after distributing to the 500th person that day. Suddenly, I remembered my interaction with that live in guest, and I immediately knew what the pastor's response would be. "I can do all things in Him who strengthens me." (Philippians 4:13)
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"How are you guys still awake? You wake up before dawn to pray, and then you have classes and meetings nonstop through the day, Holy Hour in the evening, and yet you're still cheerful and socializing in the pub late into the evening with us? How do you do this day after day if I'm tired after only a couple days?""
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Chug and Debbie
6/8/2023 08:44:42 am
To be young!
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