Some years ago when I was in college, a friend of mine asked if I wanted to read a book that would—spiritually speaking—“kick my butt” [you’d have to know him]. Hesitantly, I said “yes,” because, well…how else can you answer a question like that?! If you say “no,” you sound like a spiritual chump, don’t you? I bought the book—The Soul of the Apostolate by Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard, OSCO—but I’ll admit that it sat on my bookshelf for a little while as I pondered whether I was really ready to take on something that would challenge me as my friend thought this might.
Truth be told, I was very much looking to grow in my spiritual life at the time, but I also wasn’t sure I was ready for how the Lord might challenge me in that way—what He might call me to give up or take on for His sake and the sake of my sanctity. So when I was ready, I picked up the book, and rather than kick my butt, it opened my eyes. It did challenge me, but it challenged me to pursue sanctity with more of my life than I was devoting to it at the time. I’m the type of person who never remembers specifics from a book, but I can almost always remember the impression a book left on me, and this book’s lasting impression has been the importance of the interior life, by which is meant our inner spiritual lives that no one else sees but us and the Lord. We aren’t meant to and cannot sustain our spiritual lives if all our life is “activity”; we can and we must take time to enter into personal prayer with the God who made us. Without it, we are like plants trying to survive without water. We may fool ourselves into thinking we’re doing pretty well with all our activities, and indeed we may be doing well for a time, but if we do not take the adequate time to be alone with the Lord, all of it will whither and fade.
I do remember reading one thing specifically that has stayed with me all these years and very much followed me into priesthood; it’s what Dom Chautard called the “Spiritual Law of Causality.” In it, he states:
If the priest is a saint, the people will be fervent;
if the priest is fervent, the people will be pious;
if the priest is pious, the people will at least be decent;
if the priest is only decent, the people will be godless.
The spiritual generation is always one degree less intense in its life than the one who begets it in Christ.
I remember that, perhaps, because it has inadvertently become a guiding principle of my priestly life. As a priest, for the sake of my people, I must strive to be a saint. If not, well, I give my people license to be mindless of God. Granted, Dom Chautard did not mean to imply that people can’t become holy without saintly priests, but I think what he speaks is true: people rise up to emulate the example of their leaders, pastors, and guides. While I’ve been your pastor here at Our Lady of Lourdes, I’ve striven to the best of my ability to be the saint that the Lord has called me to be. I’m not perfect—far from it, in fact—but I know that the Lord has been operative in my soul in a beautiful way since I’ve been here among this beautiful community. For the mistakes that I’ve inevitably made along the way, I offer my sincere apologies. As a priest attempts to be “all things for all people,” we without a doubt fall short of the needs of some. As the saying goes, “you can’t please everybody.” Nevertheless, I can earnestly say that I’ve given it my best, endeavoring to love and to lead as Christ Himself would. When I was not, I ask your mercy and your prayers: that I would be the saintly priest that my next parish too will need.
The law of spiritual generation, though, doesn’t apply just to priests. It’s true of us all. To the extent that we are influencers to the people in our own lives (our children, grandchildren, coworkers, students, employees, etc.), you can replace “priest” in Dom Chautard’s words to whatever your vocation, role, or occupation might be. The Church begs you: be the saint that God calls you to be, so that others too might fervently know God.
I also want to take this opportunity to say “thank you.” This was my first assignment as a pastor, and I’ve so appreciated your kindness and your patience with me. From the beginning, I’ve felt the Spirit of God alive in our community, and I will sincerely miss the faces that have become like my own family in God. I feel as though my heart has grown to embrace a thousand new children here at Lourdes. I won’t stop loving or praying for you just on account of a change of pastorate. I look forward to carrying you with me to the altar of God wherever I may be, and I can’t wait to hear from you and see you all from time to time when the Lord grants that our paths may cross.
It strike me that a Christian goodbye is never really goodbye. For us Catholics, we believe very much in the communion that is effected among us through the Eucharist. Our worship is a real anticipation of heaven, when all of us are united again in the presence of the Lord. In that way, the Eucharist holds us together in ways beyond the physical reality, beyond our own ability to comprehend. So as I part you all, a little goodbye: thank you; I love you; you will be in my prayers; and I will see you in the Eucharist!
Keep spreading joy!
Fr. Friedel