“Thank you for your witness and for your service. Thank you for the hidden good you do, and for the forgiveness and consolation that you bestow in God’s name. … Thank you for your ministry, which is often carried out with great effort, with little recognition and is not always understood.” These are the words of Pope Francis in his letter to the priests of the diocese of Rome, published on August 5.

It is a striking message for all the People of God, but especially for those called to priestly ministry in the Church. Pope Francis tells priests he is journeying with them and is close to the joys and sorrows, the bitterness and consolations in their ministry.

He emphasises the need for all to strive against “spiritual worldliness”, defined by Henri de Lubac, in his book Meditation on the Church, as “the greatest danger for the Church – for us, who are the Church – the most perfidious temptation, the one that always resurfaces, insidiously, when the others are vanquished”.

Spiritual worldliness is a way of life that reduces spirituality to an appearance, leading people to exercise a role clothed in sacred form but empty of the true spirit. Francis says it happens when people allow themselves “to be fascinated by the seductions of the ephemeral, by mediocrity and habit, by the tempt­ations of power and social influence… by vainglory and narcissism, by doctrinal intransigence and liturgical aestheticism, forms and ways in which worldliness hides behind the appearance of piety and even love for the Church, but in reality consists in seeking not the Lord’s glory but human glory and personal well-being.”

Clericalism is a symptom of a priestly and lay life tempted to live out the role and not the real bond with God and brethren

The pope focuses especially on clericalism, a specific form of this spiritual worldliness. Clericalism makes ministers feel superior to others, placed “above” and separated from the rest of God’s people. Francis quotes what a priest once wrote to him: “Clericalism is a symptom of a priestly and lay life tempted to live out the role and not the real bond with God and brethren.”

One assumes a “clerical spirit” by living one’s calling in an elitist way, wrapped up in one’s own group, erecting walls against the outside, developing possessive bonds regarding roles in the community, cultivating arrogant and boastful attitudes towards others. The symptoms are indeed the loss of the spirit of praise and joyful gratuitousness.

Pope Francis explains that the antidote to worldliness and to clericalism is to look at the crucified Jesus, who accepted humiliation to raise us up from our falls and to free us from the power of evil. In this way, looking at Jesus’s wounds, at his humility, we learn that we are called to offer ourselves, to make ourselves broken bread for the hungry, to share the journey with the weary and oppressed. We are called to be servants of the People of God, and not masters, washing the feet of our sisters and brothers, and not trampling them underfoot.

May God purify us from spiritual worldliness and clericalism, and help us seek pastoral paths inspired by his Spirit, and move forward humbly in our ministry, with enthusiasm and courage.

 

j.galea.curmi@maltadiocese.org