still remember it as if it were yesterday.
But it was many years ago when I was young and new as a “Father.”
He, a medical student; she, still in high school.
H, full of himself and with no faith at all; she, religious as her
parents. Sunday Mass,
“Bless-me-Father,” magical-kind prayers and solutions.
The conversation started innocuous enough until he came around what he
had always had in mind to say to priests but had never had the chance to before.
“Excuse me for saying so, but I think you guys are useless
professionals. There’s nothing
you priests do that a psychologist, a lawyer, a judge, or a sociologist
couldn’t do and better. The
priest is a little of all that and, at the end, you are nothing special.
Yours is a jack-of-all-trades kind of profession and master of none…
Perhaps, you’d be more useful if you were a psychologist, or something.”
Was it worth it to be a priest all these thirty-some years, to be consecrated to God and the Church, particularly as a missionary priest? It was more than worth it, but I say this in the light of faith.
I felt the sting, but was able to keep calm, and said only: “Some day, perhaps, you’ll need a priest. On that day, I’ll explain why someone who could be all you say chose to be “just a priest.”
When she was eighteen and he about thirty, they started to live together. She got pregnant, and he took her for an abortion. They were not ready to assume responsibility yet. But something went terribly wrong. A hemorrhage betrayed them, and their little world came crashing down. Pressure from all sides, anger, even death threats, and her problem which was becoming life-threatening. Scared and in tears, he came looking for me. “Do something!… If not for me, at least for her who believes in you.”
I went, and did. I calmed down her parents, and her brother who was ready to kill him; I calmed down the girl with words of faith and of forgiveness, and heard her confession. Five days later, she was on her feet again, able to eat something, and out of the hospital.
He came to thank me for the peace I had given back to them all. And he promised to get married within a few months, because after all, “I know how much she means to me now,” he added.
We are still friends. He has a little grandson, now. And he is a very responsible doctor. More than that: he believes in God!
Was it worth it to be a priest all these thirty-some years, to be consecrated to God and the Church, particularly as a missionary priest? It was more than worth it, but I say this in the light of faith. I don’t ask questions about success. I ask about being fruitful. I can only say I have sought to bear good fruit, both here or in Brazil, with the scattered and simple people of the Amazon or in the overcrowded bairros of Sao Paulo. I have stumbled and failed many a time. I have sinned, and sought God’s mercy. But being a missionary priest of God is my identity. I pray that it be ever more my joy.
Was it worth it? It was worth it to the point that I’d like to go to seminaries and schools, and shout it to all who are thinking of becoming priests, to the young, and not so young, who may be wondering and searching, and to young priests.
In the afternoon of my life, when “snow has fallen on my head to sty,” I thank God that I never really regretted God’s call to me. Oh, I have had difficult moments, and I have questioned “the worth of it all!” But deep down I have always felt the inner joy of serving the Lord and the Church as a missionary priest. May God’s grace keep me faithful, and joyful, and fruitful, until the end.
(From Xaverian Mission Newsletter)