gent ONT JUN 151 1927 “te Cy “Logica eww Division BX 1912 .B4 | Barry, oJ. GVeHe tt Tese—1oaie The parish priest Pi it) Pe, ee aa nw we i4¢ ma ¥ ve ie Digitized by the Internet Archive — in 2022 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library https ://archive.org/details/parishpriest0Obarr es —_— tee, CGN te PP UA | 19997 Yop oa l ‘S THE PARISH PRIEST™ set BY J. G. H’ BARRY, D.D., LITT.D. SELDEN PEABODY DELANY, D.D. NEW YORK EDWIN S. GORHAM, Publisher COPYRIGHT EDWIN S. GORHAM PERSONAL LIFE I. The Inner Life of the Priest ...... 10 B: The Intellectual Life of the Priest ... TLE The Social Life of the Priest ...... TABLE OF CONTENTS PREACHING AND TEACHING The Preparation of the Preacher ... [EVES OU MOL MODS, i sicsiia ile elena The Technique of the Sermon .... sermons, to Children ......0..... Classes and Instructions ........ Preparation for Confirmation .... Quiet Days and Retreats ........ PASTORAL WORK XI. XII. XITT. The Priest as) Pastor's... .0.0 6% pis Sinners and Confession .......... The Perfecting of the Saints ..... ThelPrisstiag sDirector Won siccuae The Mentally Sick rose Iie ea Parish Administration .......... The Discipline of the Laity ...... Advertising and Propaganda ..... SACERDOTAL FUNCTIONS ox POX TL. XXIII. XXIV. The Blessed Sacrament ......... Eixtra-Liturgical Devotions ....... Worship and Ceremonial ......... The Sacrament of Marriage ....... | 7 Wea is | ) a ny io biieg | 4 AVINGLS 4 » | | | . TAN Di tate mn Me oT ii BL ti | ) , Nh i } , i ht, : ] T i 4 5 } ) I i hi Vy ' Y ! | | 7 ” eV ale ) Mr DU) | , if ii j ? ! pl ie pens)! 3 | { giit ery gay yc} ty pa a pate Vi aha Hae ; j pete tit Mahal i ee Pa, rf t ) Ae 4 { y he : we! 44 ’ AY | \ \ - 7 } i 21) j Swe 4 jit ia ' ; / yh At) f \y { } i AE ea) 1 ; uf } ay pig) F ' | GLa ak vitae f H ; j f , U Ca0r ) K yi | Ean a : ‘/ | f rite : LPS Oe 1 M 7 ME jy) ‘ . . Aa j { ’ A Ae ! : iV tA j V} { | j 4 : ii uM 9 ' . ¥ | | . | Peery A PETRA Folia tha fl ( veh ef AE PAR Sh RIES ae mr 7 , f he n> Oe / CHAPTER I Tuer Inner Lirt or THE PRIEST THE young man not long from the Seminary and just ordained to the priesthood finds himself in charge of a parish and tries to understand what that means and what are the demands that are going to be made upon him. Of necessity he feels a sense of the awful re- sponsibility that is his, and asks himself with a keener appreciation of the situation than has been possible be- fore, what is his fitness to meet it, and how far his training has qualified him for his work. The words of the bishop’s exhortation are still fresh in his ears, im- pressing upon him at once the dignity and the responsi- bility of his vocation. ‘‘And now again we exhort you, in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye have in remembrance, into how high ‘a Dignity, and to how weighty an Office and Charge ye are called: that is to say, to be Messengers, Watchmen, and Stewards of the Lord; to teach, and to premonish, to feed and provide for the Lord’s family; to seek for Christ’s sheep that are dispersed abroad, and for his children who are in the midst of this naughty world, that they may be saved through Christ for ever.’’ : That is what the priest is called to. He has had that before him for years as the objective of his life. And as he stood before the bishop and heard his question, ‘‘Do you think in your heart, that you are truly called, according to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ. . . .to the Order and Ministry of Priesthood?’’ he readily an- swered, ‘‘I think it.’’ Now he is, so at least we picture him, in the empty church—his church—where he has 8 The Parish Priest been given authority to minister, and is reading over once more ‘‘'The Form and Manner of Ordering Priests.’’ These words especially press upon him. ‘‘We have good hope that ye have well weighed these things with your- selves, long before this time; and that ye have clearly determined, by God’s grace, to give yourseves wholly to this Office, whereunto it hath pleased God to call you: so that, as much as lieth in you, ye will apply yourselves wholly to this one thing, and draw all your cares and studies this way; and that ye will continually pray to God the Father, by the mediation of our only Saviour — Jesus Christ, for the heavenly assistence of the Holy Ghost; that, by daily reading and weighing the Scriptures, ye may wax riper and stronger in your Ministry; and that ye may so endeavour yourselves, from time to time, to sanctify the lives of you and yours, and to fashion them after the Rule and Doctrine of Christ, that ye may be wholesome and godly examples and patterns for the people to follow.’’ I have no doubt that the first Mass that the newly ordained priest will say will be a Mass of self-oblation, of entire consecration of himself to the work to which he believes that the Holy Spirit has called him. If his preparation has been at all adequate to his vocation it will be clearly before his mind that the result of his ministry, its effectiveness in God’s sight, will be the outcome of the sort of priest he is; that the first neces- sity of his opening ministry is that he be something, that he have ideals of priesthood that are adequate in his life. He will feel as he has never felt before his own inadequacy, his own immaturity in spiritual experience, the limitations and faults of his preparation, the ex- tent to which he has light-heartedly wasted time that The Parish Priest 9 should have been concentrated on his preparation. He will realize that he has taken advantage of the indiffer- ence of his bishop and of the very incomplete nature of the course prescribed for his training, to remain spiritually undeveloped and ignorant of much that he now for the first time completely realizes as his pressing need. He has handed over to him a cure of souls, so many unknown people whom it is his ‘‘bounden duty to bring. . . unto that agreement in the faith and knowl- edge of God, and to that ripeness and perfectness of age in Christ, that there be no place left among you, either for error in religion, or for viciousness in life.’’ With these things before his eyes and pressing upon his conscience he will naturally be thrown back to con- sider how he is to meet his newly and possibly lightly assumed obligations. He will perhaps in his first medi- tation in his new parish ask himself once more, and with a keenly aroused sense of the need of a complete answer, what it means to be a priest—what actually a priest is. He has heard of what is expected of a priest, he has been told what are his responsibilities, how he ought to conduct himself in view of them. But what is he ? What change was effected in him when, in the midst of the Mass, the bishop laid his hands upon him and gaid: ‘‘Receive the Holy Ghost for the Office and Work of a Priest in the Church of God, now com- mitted unto thee by the imposition of our hands. Whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins thou dost retain, they are retained.’’ What is a priest? The spiritual writers upon priesthood have for the priest this title—alter Christus, another Christ: a man therefore who has been brought into such relation to 10 The Parish Priest Christ that Christ manifests Himself through him in a special way. There is a true sense in which the priest is what Christ is and does what Christ does: so close is their union that their operation is one. Jesus Christ is a Priest forever, the One Mediator between God and man. By His One Sacrifice forever He has opened the gates of heaven to all who believe on Him; and because His sacrifice is for ever He forever holds the gates open and the way into the Holiest is clear. He ever liveth to make intercession for us, and His intercession is the pleading of the sacrifice made once for all upon the Cross. Looking through that door ~ —the door which the sacrifice of the Cross set wide— the seer of the Apocalypse beholds ‘‘and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain.’’ This Lamb Who is the eternal Sacrifice is also the ‘‘ Priest forever’? Who offers the Sacrifice: both Priest and Of- fering are one. But this which S. John beholds in heaven—this marvel of the Eternal Priest Who is also the Lamb of the eternal Sacrifice—is not simply a part of the glory of heaven reported to us for our encouragement, but is also a fact of the experience of earth. The Sacrifice that is there is also here, for there and here are one. The worship of the Church is on earth as well as in heaven: the Priest that offers there, offers here. The difference is that there the elders and the living creatures and the multitude of the redeemed see face to face; here we see in a glass, enigmatically. Here therefore the invisible Priest is made visible in one who is set apart to represent Him, in one who has been raised to union with Him and to participation in His Priesthood, so that the acts of The Parish Priest 11 the visible priest, rightly performed, are the acts of the invisible Priest, Whose medium of action the human priest is. What the earthly priest does rightly, that the heavenly Priest actually does. There is in fact only one priest in the full sense of the word; the human being is priest only by virtue of his being merged in Christ. When the priest baptizes it is Christ who bap- tizes; when the priest pronounces words of absolution it is Christ that absolves; when the priest offers the Sacrifice it is Jesus Christ who is at once Priest and Victim. The function of the priest is to be the visible instrument through which the Eternal Priest acts. These things we conceive our newly ordained priest, kneeling by the first altar at which he is called to minister, to be going over in his mind, trying to make them real to himself. This is what it means to be a priest; this is what he is called to; this is what the words of the bishop meant; this is what is implied in the questions he answered; this is the life before him—a priest for- ever, alter Christus! ‘‘Who is sufficient for these things?’’ he asks; and his answer is, as the answer of the Apostle, ‘‘our sufficiency is of God; who has also made us able ministers of the new testament’’ and there- fore ‘‘I can do all things through Christ who strength- eneth me.’’ He cannot, he realizes as he kneels here, plead unworthiness or inability—it is too late for that. Moreover by the fact of his ordination he has been made worthy and able, he has been, not endowed with a new office, but raised to a new state. Gifts of the Holy Spirit have been bestowed upon him that he may fulfil the vocation wherewith he is called. As the young priest goes on to think out how his im- maturity is to be ripened into the fulness and maturity 12 The Parish Privet’ of the priestly life, how he is to become the man who can represent Christ to His flock, how he is to gain the experience which is to give him the knowledge and wisdom to guide the flock over which the Holy Ghost. has made him overseer, the first answer to himself will be, ‘‘it must be done systematically’’; in other words, he will seek to prevent waste by imposing upon himself a rule of life. A rule of life of some sort is absolutely necessary if one is not to waste a great part of one’s time. In the case of the business man the rule is im- posed by the nature of his occupation: he has to spend a stated time in doing stated things; he cannot drop into his place of business when he feels like it, stay as long as he likes and do what appeals to him while he is there. Any business would fail in six months which is con- ducted with the lack of system which quite commonly is the reflection in a parish of the lack of personal discipline in the parish priest. To make calls when one feels like it, to get up a sermon when it can no longer be put off, is a clear indication of a lack of interior discipline in life. | A rule is not an end in itself; it is an instrument for the accomplishment of certain results. In itself a per- sonal thing, the form it takes will be imposed by the nature of one’s work. to school—a very good comment, by the way, on the failure of the school to interest any one. The parents will not resist this any more than any other day, prob- ably less. The school authorities can also be dealt with. After all, children are not yet quite chattel slaves of the state, though they are rapidly approaching that status. The arrangements for a children’s retreat are, of course, somewhat different from those for a retreat for adults. It is best to have quiet days for boys and girls separately. The age I am thinking of is from twelve to fifteen. Older boys and girls of sixteen to twenty should have days of their own. For the younger set with whom I am now concerned, I do not advise an early Mass for communions, but a Mass—preferably a sung Mass, sung, that is, by the children themselves— at say nine o’clock. This eliminates the need for break- fast and makes lunch the only meal needed. The or- dering of the day will, of course, vary with circumstances. I am suggesting one that I have found to work well. The opening address will be at the Mass, which means that the Mass, if sung, will last about an hour. From ten-thirty to twelve it is well that the children should prepare and make their confessions. Those who are not so engaged can be read to or talked to informally. At The Parish Priest 139 twelve, lunch, during which there will be reading. Neale’s Stories of the Saints are admirable for this purpose. There should be quiet after lunch til] one o’clock, and then it would be well to have a recreation hour. This permits relaxation and prepares the children for the afternoon. The hours from two to four are devoted to hymns and short addresses. At Saint Mary’s, where we have a number of altars, we conduct during the two hours what we call a pilgrimage. The altars are dressed and lighted, and we go from one to the other about the church singing, and at each altar have short prayers and an address. This constant movement and change prevents the children from getting tired and leaves them in good spirits at the end. We close the day with Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, I see no reason why, in a church without more than one altar, temporary stations of some sort cannot be arranged as places for the addresses. The children, of course, sit during the addresses. As this work among children is, in this country at any rate, in an early stage, I am appending to this chapter an outline of a children’s retreat which I hope may be suggestive. The children’s retreat is naturally much more difficult to handle than retreats for adults. If it is to be suc- cessful it needs careful working up in all its details. Children should be selected and prepared well before- hand. If it be possible to interest the parents, this should be done. Addresses should be very carefully thought out and illustrated and each one brought to a definite point of contact with child life. As one is starting a child on a new line of religious experience that may lead far if properly developed, it is. of the utmost importance that there should be no failure. An 140 The Parish Priest impulse and direction may be given to the child’s spiritual life of which he will long feel the influence. A very definite spiritual experience is possible for the child, and that possibility must be treated with all seri- ousness. We cannot estimate the good that can be done by the development of retreat work among children; but it must be understood that it is very difficult work which had better not be approached except by those who have tested their capacity to interest children and have prepared themselves in detail for the work. In fact, this work of retreats, in all its aspects, pre- supposes carefully trained conductors. Imperfect preparation in a sermon may occasionally be pardoned, it is in fact inevitable, but imperfect preparation of a retreat is unpardonable. We have no right to invite people to give up a day or a week-end and then waste the day because of slovenly work. I have known a priest, when setting out to give a retreat, rush into the study of a friend and borrow a set of notes on which to base his talks. He was a fluent talker and no doubt bluffed it through with some success, but nevertheless it was the sort of thing that ought not to be done. I have been at retreats which obviously had not been prepared in the way of carefully worked out notes, but merely turned over in the priest’s mind, in the form of a general line of thought. The result was that, while the first part of the retreat got on fairly well, as soon as the conductor became tired his mind ceased to work well and you felt the creaking of the machinery, and the result was a distinct let-down. That is disastrous be- _ cause, for one reason, the retreatants are growing tired and need to be helped and not to be pulled down with the struggling mind of the leader. I am very strongly The Parish Priest 141 of the opinion that, no matter what facility a man may have in address, he should at least make clear outlines of his meditations to insure that he has something to say and that it is worth saying; and this is important from another angle, because it is only by such careful preparation that the priest can adequately illustrate his material. In beginning a retreat work in a parish, one may very likely have to begin with small things. Only a few will answer our appeal, but if the work is rightly done it is sure to grow, and people will find that they can gain from a retreat what they cannot well gain else- where. A priest who can give effective retreats will find in them a work which brings great satisfaction and which offers him opportunities which he will with difficulty find elsewhere. And I may once more emphasize what I have dwelt upon in other connections, the vital need of the under- standing of spiritual theology by the priest who aspires to conduct retreats. Both dogmatics and morals will have their place in retreat meditations, but they will come in in subordination to the theory of the spiritual life. We are aiming at the spiritual development, the developed experience of Christians, and this can effec- tively be done only by those who are skilled interpreters of spiritual science. A great conductor of retreats is a spiritual artist of a high order. We cannot all hope to attain that degree of perfection; but any priest, by study and in the light of his own experience interpreting that study, ought to make himself competent in the matter. There is no more useful work to which he can devote himself. 142 The Parish Priest Retreat for Children The First Period. (9-10) Sung Mass and Address. IJ. The Second Period. (10-12) Instruction by the Sisters. Rosary or Reading. Include in this period preparation for and mak- ing confessions. III. The Third Period. (12-1) Lunch and rest. The Fourth Period. (1-2) Recreation. The Fifth Period. (2-3:30) The Pilgrimage. IV. Vi. A. B. C. D. K. First Station. The Font. Baptistry trimmed with flowers. Ad- dress, hymn, renew baptismal vows. Second Station. The Lady Chapel vested in red. Hymn. Ad- dress on Confirmation. Dedication to the Holy Spirit as Spirit of purity. Third Station. S. Joseph’s Chapel, vested in purple. Hymn. Address on Penance. Acts of contrition. Fourth Station. High Altar, vested in white. Hymn. Address on Eucharist. Acts of faith, hope and love. Fifth Station. Chantry vested in black. Hymn. Address on Unction. Prayer for a good death. VI. The Sixth Period. (3:30-4) The Lady Chapel. Vested in white. Exposi- tion and Thanksgiving. CHAPTER XI Tue Priest As Pastor THE pastoral side of the work of a priest is admirably set forth in the Prayer Book Form for the Ordination of Priests. There the Bishop exhorts those who are to be ordained to have in remembrance unto how high a dignity and to how weighty an office and charge they are called: That is to say, to be Messengers, Watchmen, and Stewards of the Lord; to teach, and to premonish, to feed and provide for the Lord’s family; to seek for Christ’s sheep that are dispersed abroad, and for his children that are in the midst of this naughty world, that they may be saved through Christ forever. Later on the Bishop exhorts them as follows: See that ye never cease your labor, your care and diligence, until ye have done all that lieth in you, ac- cording to your bounden duty, to bring all such as are or shall be committed to your charge, unto that agree- ment in the faith and knowledge of God, and to that ripeness and perfectness of age in Christ, and that there be no place left among you, either for error in religion, or for viciousness in life. Here we have, clearly and concisely depicted, the pastoral ideal. The priest, to whom has been committed the cure of souls, must conscientiously strive to bring all who are within the reach of his influence into effec- tive union with our Lord. This is not to be done pri- marily through preaching, but through individual love and care. The faithful shepherd ‘‘calleth his own sheep by name and leadeth them out.’’ ‘‘He goeth before them, and the sheep follow him; for they know his voice.’’? He is urged always to keep before him the example of his 144 The Parish Priest Lord, who said: ‘‘l am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep.’’ It is this personal contact with human souls that is one of the most influential factors in the priest’s work, so far as his external activities are concerned. His prayer life, of course, comes first in importance. It is a common and excusable misconception of the duty of a priest which lays stress chiefly upon his adminis- trative obligations, the organization of his parish, or even upon his preaching. But unless he can become the respected and trusted friend of most of the men and women and children in his parish, he will never achieve or maintain any deep or lasting influence in their lives. Broadly speaking, there are two ways in which the priest may carry on his work with individuals: one is by going to see them, and the other is by inducing them to come to see him. I propose to consider these two methods in turn and to suggest under each head some of the difficulties that stand in the way, and how they may be overcome. Human nature being what it is, and the conditions of modern life, especially in our cities, being so complicated, it is by no means so simple a problem as it may appear on paper, either to go to see people or to make it possible for them to come to see us. First, let us consider the duty of the priest to go out among his people and become intimately acquainted with them in their homes. We are often urged in books on pastoral work to make regular and systematic house to house visitations in our parishes. That sounds sensible and practicable, but have we realized the enormous ob- stacles that stand in the way? If a priest goes out for The Parish Priest 145 an afternoon to make pastoral calls on about ten dif- ferent families or individuals, he will find possibly two of them at home. Most of them are either at work or in school or out for a walk or visiting friends or shop- ping or attending the matinee or the movies. This situation has reference chiefly, of course, to the women and children, for one does not expect to find men at home during the afternoon. Occasionally one is fortu- nate enough to find the head of the family at home and has an interesting chat with him and his wife. It is always a surprise in a city like New York to see how many men are apparently at leisure at all hours of the day. Some of them doubtless are out of jobs and some of them work nights; but the vast numbers of them in our parks and squares and on the streets and in the theaters and at baseball games during the afternoon, indicate that there are more gentlemen of leisure in the community than one ordinarily supposes. And then too, the number of women who are the bread winners of the family is amazing. Therefore under modern urban conditions one is almost as likely to find a man at home in the afternoon as his wife. Theoretically, it would be an admirable thing to call in the evening when one may find the whole family at home. There again the facts do not often fit the theory. In the first place, people are just as likely to be out in the evening as in the afternoon; and in the second place it is difficult for a priest to find enough free evenings in the week to make any calls. After subtracting the evenings on which he must be in or about the church for services or to attend guild meetings or classes of instruction, and the evenings on which he is invited out to dinner by kind parishioners, there are often no evenings left 146 The Parish Priest for parochial visiting. Another handicap in the way of house to house visiting is that almost every day a busy parish priest is obliged to make special calls on people who are ill or in some trouble or anxiety, or he must attend to pressing parochial business. He is in- deed fortunate if two or three afternoons of the week are not taken up with committee meetings of one kind or another. That seems to be one of the favorite forms of passing the time in these days of organization and efficiency. In spite of the difficulties, however, it is the highest pastoral wisdom for a priest to attempt every year to make a house to house visitation of his parish, even though it results only in his leaving his card at the door, or ascertaining the latest address to which the family or individual has moved. At any rate, his parishioners will know that he has displayed sufficient interest in them to hunt them up; and it is comforting and reassuring to Church people to know that their pastor is looking after them and really keeps them in his thoughts and prayers. The other way in which the priest is to maintain individual contact with his people is by making it pos- sible for them to come to see him. Many of our clergy do this by keeping regular office hours. If that plan works well, it is justified. I am convinced that it often supplies an opportunity for kind-hearted priests to be exploited by cranks or feeble-minded or insane persons. The people that he really wants to reach do not come to his office. I have found through an experience of many years that by being in church without fail every Satur- day afternoon from four until six and every Saturday evening, and on the days before great festivals, many people will come to me with their questions, perplexi- The Parish Priest 147 ties, doubts, and troubled consciences. Special appoint- ments may be made at other times for those who cannot come on Saturdays. There is a distinct value in seeing people in the church. It is much less embarrassing for most human beings to sit behind a priest in a pew in a dimly lighted church than it is to sit face to face with him in his study or office, often brilliantly lighted. There igs an added safe- guard in choosing the church as the place for the inter- view when women are concerned. We must avoid every appearance of evil; and it often happens that a priest lays himself and his profession open to suspicion when he receives women in his study or office for private interviews. It is far better for him and his reputation and far more comfortable for the women themselves, if they talk to him in church where people are going and coming and no possible suspicion can arise in their minds. Even in the case of men the church may be the best place. A man will often talk more freely to a priest in church than when face to face with him in his study. There are no doubt many men who, as the priest knows well, can best be received in his study.