SPEAK UP! I CAN'T HEAR YOU!

One of the better compliments that you can give a priest is telling him some months after a given homily that it has been on your mind. People may say that they enjoyed a homily on the way out of the church, sometimes as a matter of rote – I’ve had people tell me that even when I wasn’t even the one preaching – or that they like a priest’s homilies in general. But that something sparked a period of thought in your life, or caused some discussion among your family members, or is a thought that stuck with you over the past month or so, letting him know that is a compliment. It says that what he said was worth saying and was listened to and that it had some effect.

A priest sees little of the effects of much of his ministry. He might help someone out of a jam or a spiritual problem and when the problem is gone, so is the person. The priest is not needed anymore. Many a newly engaged couple is so happy Father so and so would do their wedding, but rare is the couple that comes to mass a few month after the honeymoon to say thanks or to say, “Things are going great with us! We are so happy to be married!”

This is not by way of complaint! A good formation program prepares its future priests with the warning that you will not see the results of much of your work. It goes with the territory and reminds the priest that what happens in the life of a Christian is not so much his work as it is that of the Holy Spirit. In other words, get over yourself.

But it is a good thing to keep in mind when you are contemplating mentioning a matter of faith to someone. Who knows what seed you might plant? Even if you are rebuffed, will the thought start to germinate? You might never know what even a little action on your part might blossom in another individual.

Take this example. One of the reasons many men give who thought of the priesthood but did not enter the seminary is that nobody ever suggested it to them. They did not feel the community thought them worthy. When I was a very young alter boy I used to come off of the sanctuary during morning mass and one or the other of the very old ladies would hand me a dollar from time to time and say, “Some day you would make a great priest.” I would say thank you very much and pocket the dollar.

But it worked.

Well, it played a huge roll in my thinking about the priesthood. And those ladies would have never known the effect of their actions. But it doesn’t matter. They acted. They trusted. And so must we.