You may or may not be aware that this past June, on the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Pope Benedict XVI proclaimed this to be the “Year for Priests.”  I must confess that when I heard this I was somewhat puzzled.  To my way of thinking, priests already receive more than enough attention in the Church.  What about Sisters, lay ministers, deacons, parents, children, I found myself thinking?  But the decision was not mine to make.  And I should be quick to add that the idea the Pope had in mind in declaring this special year was not to canonize priests or to put them on a pedestal but to get them—get us—to reflect prayerfully and gratefully on our calling and to encourage us to renew the commitment we made to God’s people on the day of our ordination.

              That makes sense to me.  A lot of sense.  And so does the thought that the Year for Priests can have meaning only in relationship to you, the holy and priestly people of God, whom we priests are called to serve.  Our priesthood has no meaning whatever apart from you. St. John Vianney, patron saint of priests, said it all when he wrote: “the priest is not for himself; he is for you!”   So the Year of the Priest is, in a sense, as much about the people we serve as it is about us.  It’s as much about you as it is about me.

              It’s now nearly 22 years since I came here to St. James to serve as pastor. That’s hard for me to believe.  It means that half the years I’ve been a priest have been spent here!  When I stop to reflect on those years I realize that they have been filled with graces beyond measure—graces I could never have imagined, and certainly never deserved.
Since it is the Year for Priests, and since you are the ones who have shared with me so patiently and so generously in the ministry here over the years, I thought I would use this occasion to reflect briefly with you on some of those graces.
 
This great Cathedral parish

              Any priest will tell you that serving as pastor of a parish is a priceless privilege. I think that must be especially true when it comes to being pastor of St. James Cathedral!  Any way you look at it, this is a pretty amazing community, but in all honesty, I get far too much credit for what St. James is and has become.  You are St. James, not me:

• you, our wise and faithful senior parishioners who make this place holy by your prayers and who model for all of us what fidelity means in the face of loneliness and diminishment;
• you, our ‘empty-nesters’ who could be taking it easy but who often travel here from significant distances to pray and to volunteer in many of our social outreach programs;
• you, our families with young children who give your all to your children 24/7, and allow us to partner with you in raising them in the ways of faith;
• you, our single parishioners who quietly, selflessly, and energetically make so many things around here happen;
• you, our young adult and young married parishioners who, despite all the statistics and despite society’s expectations, choose to claim your faith and to practice it;
• you, our wonderful teenagers, still relatively small in number but large in spirit , enthusiasm, and commitment;
• you, our young children in faith-formation who serve at our liturgies and sing your hearts out in our youth choirs.

All of you are St. James Cathedral!

              You come in many shapes and sizes; you come in every shade of color, you come from cultures beyond counting and nations beyond numbering.  You come with strong faith, you come with faltering faith, and you come seeking faith.  You come thirsting for truth and hungering for beauty.  You come with robust health and you come with failing health.  You come with full and happy lives and you come with sad and broken lives.  You come with substantial means and you come with no means at all.  You come with answers and you come with questions.  You come to this holy place and in coming here you make it holy.
 
A joy and a privilege

              Speaking personally, I want you to know what a joy and a privilege it is to serve as your pastor.  It’s humbling, too, and gratifying beyond words.  I can’t begin to tell you what an honor it is to be invited into your lives at pivotal moments, moments of celebration and great joy: baptisms, first communions, weddings; moments of challenge and great sadness: family break-ups, serious illnesses, deaths.  In both the joyous times and the times of great pain you allow me to walk with you even when I have little or nothing to offer, and you give me the kind of trust and confidence I could never possibly deserve.

              Over these years you have let me lead you in prayer and Eucharist and you have listened as I have preached the gospel, sometimes successfully but—as you well know—certainly not always!  You have been patient with my shortcomings, understanding of my failings, and supportive of my dreams.  You have let me be your teacher and your companion on the great journey of faith.   You have let me be your pastor – which is a pretty wonderful thing, even if a bit scary.  Which puts me in mind of some words the great St. Augustine spoke to his people in a homily more than fifteen hundred years ago: “Believe me, brothers and sisters, if what I am for you frightens me, what I am with you reassures me.  For you I am the pastor; but with you I am a Christian.”

              For me, that’s another way of saying that ministry is never a one-way street. It goes in both directions.  So many times over the years it has been your faith that has inspired mine, your hope that has sparked mine, and your love that has challenged mine.  That’s why I am absolutely convinced that anything I have been able to accomplish through my ministry here pales by comparison with all that I have received—received from you.
 
Graces & Challenges

              People sometimes ask me what my greatest joys are as a priest.  I tell them that my greatest joy is being able to gather with all of you Sunday after Sunday to celebrate the Eucharist in our magnificent Cathedral.  The power of those celebrations touches something deep in my soul and gives me life.  Typically, I am privileged to celebrate four Masses each weekend – sometimes six or seven if there are weddings and funerals.  I suppose that could be tiring but in all honesty, it isn’t.  It’s energizing and exhilarating.  It’s renewing and restoring.  It’s the heart of my life just as it is yours.  It’s the place where I meet God most directly and most powerfully and, of course, it’s also the place where I come closest to you because the Eucharist is the sacrament of love and unity, the very lifeline of the Church, the Body of Christ.  There are many other joys of priestly ministry, but this one surpasses them all.

              Are there pains in priestly ministry?  Of course there are.  Just as there are pains in your lives:  limitations, frustrations, failings.  There is the pain that comes from knowing that I let people down by not meeting their expectations, by not being there for them at a critical moment, the pain of coming to terms with my own personal inadequacies and failings, of making peace with the fact that while St. Paul may have been “all things to all people,” I certainly am not, and won’t be—nor should I even try to be!

              And then I would have to be honest and share with you that another source of pain for me is the realization that too many have yet to realize the great importance of our being together each week to celebrate the Eucharist.  I’m not talking, of course, about those who are unable to be with us due to illness or necessary work.  I’m talking about confused or unsettled priorities, or about a faith that has yet to grasp the absolute centrality of the Mass for our lives as Catholics, for without the Eucharist, we die.

              And then there’s the pain of the disappointment I sometimes feel in a Church that can be quick to speak but slow to listen; the disappointment I feel when I think of some current initiatives in the Church that seem to be turning back the clock on the Second Vatican Council which, to my way of thinking, was the greatest event in modern Church history, a divinely inspired roadmap for our future.  In my worst moments I find myself angered and disillusioned by some of these things; in my better moments I chalk them up to the ‘imperfectly perfect Church’ to which I certainly contribute my share of imperfections.  When I can manage this, the problems certainly don’t disappear but I gain courage to go on.

              And there are other pains, too:  there is the pain of loneliness which I feel at times, although I am sure it is no greater than the loneliness you experience, for loneliness is part of being human and can even be a blessing if it puts us in touch with our deep longing for God and for the completeness that only God can bring.
 
Year of the Priestly

              And now I must confess to you that this letter went on considerably longer than I originally intended.  If you have followed me this far, you deserve a good deal of credit!

              My prayer is that during the remaining months of this Year for Priests we will all grow together in our understanding of what it means to be the priestly people of God.  That’s the call each of us received on the day of our baptism; that’s the constant reminder that speaks to us silently yet powerfully in the inscription carved in stone around our baptistery:  You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people that you may declare the wonderful deeds of God who called you out of darkness into marvelous light!

              Year for Priests.  Year of the priestly.  We are in this together, my friends.  Let us continue to walk together in faith, hope, and love, serving the Christ among us who is in our midst as one who serves!

Sincerely yours in Christ,