Prophecy - Challenge and Comfort

PROPHECY - CHALLENGE AND COMFORT

Working for a summer in one of our Oblate parishes, I was living in the rectory with an elderly priest, a fine, saintly man. He had been ordained for more than 50 years and had, during all those years, been exemplary, honest, faithful, and generous. He was deeply respected. I was taken by his goodness.

One evening, I asked him: "Father, if you had your life as a priest to live over again, would you do anything different?" I was expecting him to say no, given his obvious goodness and fidelity. His answer surprised me.

"If I had my priesthood to live over again," he said, "I would be a gentler with people the next time. I would console more and challenge more carefully.

I was one of those people who was taught and who deeply believed that only the full truth can set us free, that we owe it to people to challenge them with the truth, in season and out. I believed that and did it for most of the years of my ministry. And I was a good priest, I lived for others and never once betrayed in any real way my vows and my commitment.

But now that I am older, I regret some of what I did. I regret that sometimes I was too hard on people! I meant it well, I was sincere, but I think that sometimes I ended up laying added burdens on people when they were already carrying enough pain. If I were just beginning as a priest, I would be more gentle, I would spend my energies more trying to lift pain from people. People are in a lot of pain. They need us, first of all, to help them with that!"

What the world needs first of all from us, the churches, is comfort, help in lifting and understanding its complexity, its wounds, its anxieties, its raging restlessness, its temptations, and its infidelities and its sin. Like the prodigal son, the world needs first of all to be surprised by unconditional love. Sometime later, and there will be time for that, it will want hard challenge.

(Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI)