The Priestly Vocation. Bernard Ward
is no danger of the virtue of poverty being lost sight of by the Church. The whole attitude of the clergy and devout laity affords opportunities of charity to the poor. Not only do they practise almsgiving to a degree far beyond any question of strict duty, but many of them give themselves to personal work among the poor, which is more valuable than silver and gold, while the modern active congregations of nuns are fully appreciated especially for the work that they do among the poor. One of the most sanctifying phases of a priest's life is his close contact with the poor. The man of the world at best looks upon them as persons to be pitied, to be relieved, to be helped; in modern times, they teach them to combine together to insist on the betterment of their state—a movement with which, if carried on with proper responsibility and care, the Church is in full sympathy. But so long as the world goes on, so long there will be poor people in it, and to the Christian, still more to the priest, the natural attitude is something bordering on reverence for the poor; for to them Christian virtues such as humility, work, self-denial, obedience, come almost naturally as the accompaniment of their state. Their very necessities almost compel them to seek comfort from God in prayer. Many of the poor indeed neglect these advantages and make their poverty a source of discontent and even murmuring against Divine Providence in this regard. Equally a rich man may practise poverty of spirit; but it does not come easily. "How hardly shall they who have riches enter into the kingdom of God." 18
While however a priest easily understands the sanctifying effects of poverty in others, there is a real danger that he may fail to appreciate it in himself. The anxious and worrying effect on the mind, the continuous trouble as much as the self-denial necessitated by the conditions of his life seem to interfere with his power of prayer and with the proper sanctification of his duties. Yet in truth the facing of such conditions may react in a far more sanctifying way than the prayers and devotions which they impede: the prayer of a poor man in anxiety and distress, even though a distracted prayer, may be more efficacious than the ordinary prayer of the man in comfortable circumstances.
Thank God, in England there is no chance of a priest being anything else than a poor man. But there are degrees of poverty amongst us according to the missions at which we are stationed and other circumstances; and from the fact of the general state being inevitable, we are apt to lose sight of its value and long for positions where we have to practise it less rather than more.
It is well for us then to think over and apply to ourselves the fact that Poverty as such should be looked upon as a true blessing, to be desired as the ordinary means by which our lives may be raised up and made like to that of our Divine Master. True, indeed, our wish should be for whatever surroundings will best enable us to carry out the work which God has destined for us individually; and whatever He sends us, we joyfully accept. But so far as we have any wish or longing, the blessing we should prefer should not be riches, but poverty, for that make us more like to Him.
It is just here, when we come to reduce theory to practice, that our state contrasts with that of a religious. In one sense—and a true sense—they practise the virtue in its fulness, and we should never underestimate the spirit of self-sacrifice necessary in order to have nothing that they can call their own. But in another sense, religious poverty may be easier to practise than that with which a secular priest is faced. For their wants are always provided for, and they are free from the anxieties of poverty with which we are familiar. St. Ignatius gives it as one of the fruits of whole-hearted sacrifice in the Society, that it relieves its members of all care. They live indeed in what may be called in the words of Pope Leo XIII "frugal comfort," such as befits men who are poor; but they are free from anxiety. For St. Alphonsus it was not enough that his subjects should use things that are cheap; but he wished that they should be rough and common things, so that the spirit of poverty might not be wanting. And many inconveniences distinctive of poverty are common to all religious. But so long as their order or congregation exists and flourishes they need have no care or anxiety for themselves or their future.
Our poverty, however, is of a totally different type, and our dangers of a different nature. The life of a secular priest may be full of care and anxiety on the question of money—difficulty of making ends meet, support of church and school, perhaps the weight of a capital debt, good works languishing for want of means—the poor dependent on him—and so forth. He will wear a threadbare coat, and deny himself any food or comfort that are not absolutely necessary for the sake of his people and his work. This is a poverty more wearing and apparently less sanctifying. Poor jaded human nature longs to be free from care and anxiety, and we easily lose sight of the supernatural power of poverty. We look on it as the unfortunate accompaniment of the existing state of Catholic England; we fail to remember that it is one of the great sources of blessing on it. Hence the anxiety of some priests to be placed on better missions, with more pay and less work, a hope for better days in recognition of past services and so forth.
What is to be our remedy? How are we to learn to love our poverty, to realise its power for good, to make it, as it can be made, the greatest source of our sanctification?
The answer to all these questions is one and the same. Our life must have about it the notes and characteristics of the poor men that we are. It must be a life of humility and self-effacement, hardiness, and of work; there must be no self-indulgence; and, above all, we must surrender our liberty to the call of duty. Let us consider these points in detail.
1. A poor man does not think of himself individually; he knows that he is only one of a multitude of human beings similarly circumstanced. He has to work for his living, and is willing to put up with whatever his lot may be, provided he can earn what is necessary for the support of himself and those who depend on him. He does not resent being slighted: he looks upon it as his natural lot. Nor does he put forward his own wishes or opinions. He only desires to be able to go his way and do his daily work. Our Lord was in this, as in other things, our model. He had lived nearly thirty years at Nazareth, and all that his fellow townspeople had to say of Him was, "Is not this the carpenter?"—as though to say, "Is he not like any other carpenter?"– "How came this man by all these things?" (St. Mark vi. 2, 3.) In like manner a priest with the spirit of poverty will seek no notoriety, will not wish to be known from his fellow clergy, but will only seek to be allowed to live the daily life on the mission, and to share its blessings. He will look on the ordinary rough usage of life merely as incidents to be expected, while he pursues the end of his calling, the acquisition not of temporal, but of spiritual riches: the "unum necessarium," so far as he is concerned.
2. A poor man does not seek after self-indulgence. If money is spent on himself, he has to do additional work to earn it: this thought is a perpetual stimulus to self-denial. In similar manner, to a priest on the mission there is plenty of such stimulus. Such small sums of money as may pass through his hands are wanted over and over again for the relief of the poor around him. Their needs are ever present, and appeal loudly and forcibly to him. If he is a rector, the expenses of the mission have to be met, and they are often increased by having to find interest on mortgages or capital debt, sometimes leaving little or nothing for personal expenses or salary. Here necessity to some extent asserts itself; but not altogether. A priest in a so-called comfortable mission has the physical power to make himself very comfortable. He can furnish his rooms well, so that they appeal both to his artistic sense and to his self-indulgence: he can spend money enough to give himself the best of food, without sinning against justice or defrauding anybody; he can save money enough for a first-rate holiday once a year. His work may languish, though he does all he is bound to do, and no one can make a complaint against him.
Yet he is living a life unworthy of his state, and one which will not bring any blessing on him such as the sanctification of his flock. Where is his spirit of poverty? Has a poor man always plenty of good food? Does not his work sometimes suffer from his forced abstemiousness? Can he give himself a holiday of the nature indicated? Truly many a man of the world would envy the comfortable life of a priest who has lost the spirit of poverty. A zealous priest on the other hand will strive to live economically. His measure of food is just that which will support him and enable him to do his work efficiently: his measure of comfort 19 will be that which he needs for his work. If he be in a well-to-do mission, he will willingly save what he can for the relief of the poor at his doors. If he is on a poorer mission, or if he is a junior priest, he
St. Mark x. 23.
The question of how to furnish one's rooms must be always a personal one for each priest to settle. To some, the advantage of an attractive room, artistically decorated, both as to furniture and pictures, may be a help towards their work, and induce them to spend time among their books which might otherwise be frittered away. But the effeminate or even luxurious method of furnishing that one has occasionally seen is hard to defend in a priest's room. Cardinal Vaughan ends his book on
"We have but one caution to offer, and that is, not to furnish your room as though it were a lady's boudoir. Indulgence in this kind of taste tells unfavourably upon a Priest's own character and stamps the man in the judgment of others" (