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well I'm just back from Ireland where I
had the privilege of giving the retreat
to the priests of Dublin I gather with
about a hundred of these these good men
at the near more hotel which is up near
the border with with Northern Ireland
and it was a great five days and I share
with them themes around Pope Francis
speaking to priests I told them that
about a year ago I was I was invited to
write a preface to a book that was on
this theme and when I wrote that preface
these themes kind of stayed my mind I
decided to construct a new retreat based
on them so that was the first time I
gave it I wanted to share it now some of
these motifs from what I told the
priests of Dublin the number one theme I
said in Pope Francis as you listen to
him speak to priests is the encuentro
right the encounter with Christ so clear
in Pope Francis what I've said many
times before that Christianity is not a
philosophy or an ideology it's not a
social theory not a set of ideas
Christianity is a relationship to a
person it's a friendship and if we don't
have a friendship with Christ we can't
share that friendship and evangelization
is precisely that it's not sharing ideas
primarily that could be part of it it's
sharing a friendship so I said to the
priest
you know think of the Rose window your
friendship with Jesus has to be the
central dynamic of your life if it is
the rest of your life will come into
harmony around that Center the encounter
with Christ number one the second theme
you get and it's it just you know jumps
off the page when you read Pope Francis
to priests and bishops is simplicity of
life I think it's fair to say nothing
has has grabbed the attention of the
world about Pope Francis more than his
gestures in the direction of simplicity
of life whether it's paying his own bill
at the you know clerical house in Rome
it's driving
little Fiat around I remember when he
appeared in Washington I was there I'd
just been named a bishop and he spoke to
all the American bishops then we came
out on the front steps of the Cathedral
in DC and there were all these limos and
SUVs and very formal looking vehicles
lined up and you know important people
kept coming out getting into them and
finally the Pope comes out and it was
like a joke cuz he was he got into this
clown car this little tiny Fiat as he
did the bishops all kind of
spontaneously broke into laughter and
the Pope kind of shrugged his shoulders
but that's what he does is he makes
these provocative gestures and so I told
the priest I think especially now at a
time when the church is kind of under
the gun a lot of suspicion especially in
a place like Ireland that a return to
evangelical basics is a good thing so
simplicity of life and I invited them to
look at their lives and under a number
of rubrics you know how many clothes we
had what kind of cars we drive how we go
on vacations etc but that living simply
has a evangelical power I like this line
I cited it to them from Pope Francis
he's citing his spiritual father
Ignatius of Loyola who said poverty is
the wall and the mother of the
consecrated life why a wall because it
keeps out worldliness why a mother well
because it gives birth to greater trust
in God so I offered that little image to
them 13 preaching look in evangelii
gaudium he has a whole section on
preaching it pops up over and over again
in his talks to bishops and to priests
one of his typically of Pope Francis
one-liners and he said everybody suffers
from preaching priests from having to
prepare sermons and the faithful from
having to listen to them and so he's
asking priests to to work on their
preaching my point to them was good
Christian preaching always has this
quality of surprise of novelty because
it's good news
again Christianity is not like the other
philosophies and religions in that it's
not just sharing truths
ideas about God and the spiritual life
as correct as they might be it's sharing
news something happened
so the kingdom of God is at hand jesus
said meaning himself or the first caring
man ik creatures it's the resurrection
of Jesus from the dead that's why they
wanted to grab the whole world by the
shoulders and shake them and say there's
something new so I urged these priests
of Ireland to make sure there's that
quality of novelty surprise of news
announcing in all their preaching a four
themed missionary discipleship so that's
a it's now a kind of catch phrase of
Pope Francis but my point there was here
he's most in continuity with his papal
predecessors with benedict xvi
especially john paul ii and then behind
them vatican ii which is as my great
spiritual hero francis George always
said was a missionary council
it wasn't about resolving doctrinal
anomalies there weren't any john xxiii
said that it's not like the council of
trent or the council of kelsey nor
Nicaea that we're trying to resolve
great doctrinal issues vatican ii rather
wanted to let the light out right bring
the lumen the light of Christ to the
Gentiles to the people hence lumen
gentium the great statement on the
church I said Francis it seems to me is
right in continuity with that and I
quoted that wonderful thing from the
talk he gave in the general
congregations in advance of his election
as Pope and many say it's what got him
elected when he said that you know the
world wants Turks that goes out from
itself
that goes to the periphery a-- the
peripheries and i further made the point
with the Irish priest he's not just
talking about the economic peripheries
but rather what he calls the existential
periphery the places where people are
alienated from God you know where
there's great ignorant about the
religious life etc so to go out to go
out he is that wonderful image he said
of the oil of your ordination becoming
rancid unless you allow it to to drain
down if you want all the way to the to
the edges of your garments
you know that it goes out from you to
the world otherwise it becomes rancid
and self-referential I also shared that
I loved the image his play on the scene
from the book of Revelation when Jesus
stands at the door knocking and everyone
reads that of course as Jesus wants into
our hearts and we have to let him in and
you know true enough but Pope Francis
says I see it almost the opposite that
Jesus wants to get out that he's been
cultivated in our inner life but now
he's knocking the door to be let out
into the world so that whole extroverted
periphery emphasis next theme I talked
about was mercy and of course it's
fundamental than Pope Francis
misericordia right the the the heart
that feels for the suffering of the
world but here's a point I made it's
wrong I suggested to read Pope Francis
the Pope of mercy as a sort of
namby-pamby you know anything goes don't
worry
you know relativism and I said that's
the wrong way to read him know why
because the master image behind this
theme of mercy is the field hospital
right so the Pope says the church is
like a field hospital but what does that
mean that means a place where people go
for immediate attention for deeply
serious wounds it's when people come
staggering off a battlefield and have to
have their their major wounds dealt with
this is not someone that thinks I'm okay
and you're okay and everything's just
you know hunky-dory this is someone who
realizes there are a lot of deeply
wounded people in our postmodern
situation not superficial you know paper
cuts but with deep life-threatening
wounds I mean I see it every day and the
work I do in the internet people who are
deeply alienated from God think of all
these young people drifting away or
walking with resolution away from the
church those are people who need a field
hospital so that's the merciful face of
the church I told the priests of Dublin
next thing I looked at was laudato si
the Pope's great encyclical on you know
on the environment but see I said right
away to them don't read it as the Pope's
letter on global warming I mean say what
you want about that and the Pope might
have his own views on global warming but
to me to see it that way is to miss an
extraordinary forest for one rather
tiresome tree
what's laudato si about it's about the
contextualization
of our Anthropology of our human story
within the far greater story of God's
creation and here I said this is not
some contemporary trendy liberalism this
is something very ancient deeply
biblical that the human vocation I said
is to be a priest who leads a chorus of
praise that's made up of all the
material creation so I revisited the
book of Genesis as as the elements of
creation come forth from God as a kind
of liturgical procession at the end of
which come human beings whose job now
and we Catholics know this who comes at
the end of the liturgical procession but
the one who leads it right so human
beings are meant to be the priests if
you want of this great hymn of praise
offered by creation to God right
praise orthodoxy literally is the human
vocation and so I urged the priests to
think of their priesthood within that
context and here again go back to Pope
Benedict who is Cardinal Ratzinger
talked a lot about the cosmological
dimension of the mass the mass is not
just our little community turned in on
itself you know even were celebrating
itself rather it's this great act of
praise on behalf of the community and on
behalf of the whole cosmos so I tried in
this talk to pull out a lot of those
those implications last one I talked
about that famous or even infamous
speech the Pope gave to the Roman Curia
in 2014 where he talked about the
pathologies of the priesthood you know
he went through a whole slew
of them I talked about I think it was
six or seven for now I'll just mention
one this pathology what he called
spiritual Alzheimer's every it's a
beautiful idea it's that a lot of
priests the Pope said will lose their
memory of what first brought them to the
church and to the priesthood and to
Christ I said to the priests of Dublin I
said look it everybody in this room we
all had a moment in life when we fell in
love we fell in love with the Lord and
His Church we might have been little
kids it might have been in high school
or maybe in college but at some point
you fell in love and that love led you
to give your whole life as a priest what
can happen the Pope said I think he's
right about this is as we move along we
can have spiritual Alzheimer's that we
forget what it was that first led us and
I I rehearsed for the Dublin priests
that scene from brother Sun sister moon
and I said now look I know it's kind of
a trippy movie you know but that scene
of the great Alec Guinness playing
innocent the third and there he is
completely in sconce tan his in his
vestments with the miter in his head and
he's surrounded by all this panoply and
so on the Cardinals and their great hats
and into the palace come Francis and his
his disciples you know with their dirty
feet and their threadbare clothes and
their in their wild hair and everything
and and they shocked everyone in the
room but then it's it's Alec Guinness
who removes all these fest mints and
then in this simple white you know alb
comes down the steps and eventually
kisses the feet of Francis much to the
shock of the whole court but then he
says to him you know you remind me of
the idealism that first brought me into
the priesthood which has now been
covered up and it's beautifully
suggested by the vestments that encase
him like a coffin you know that it's
been covered up by all this panoply and
pomp and Church administration but
you've reminded me of what first made me
fall in love so I told the Dublin priest
I think it's a good exercise for all of
us priests to remember to remember
what that was lying okay I said a lot of
other things to these these good men
please pray for them pray for all
priests you know these these good men
who have given their lives to serve the
church and I hope in some ways they
benefited from these these insights from
Pope Francis
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