EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is taken from a series of homilies given by Bishop Edward K. Braxton to seminarians at St. Joseph Seminary in the Archdiocese of New York in 1987. They were later compiled into a book entitled “Saint Augustine of Hippo: A Man for All Seminarians.” Although prepared for men studying for the priesthood in mind they offer to all of us points to consider in our own vocations.
Scripture Readings: Is. 42: 1-7
Jn. 12: 1-11
“The chief priests planned to kill Lazarus too, because many Jews were going over to Jesus and believing in him on account of Lazarus.”
Ronald Reagan can count on one thing for certain when he leaves the White House. There will be a flood of biographies analyzing every detail of his presidency. He may very well contribute an autobiography of his own. Friends and foes alike would be amazed if any one of these books made no mention whatsoever of the Iran Arms affair. The event was of such magnitude that no biographer could expect to be taken seriously if he or she omitted it. This is especially true because of the close relationship between the President and some of the key players in this controversial affair.
The Lenten scriptures frequently remind us of the close relationship between Jesus of Nazareth and Lazarus of Bethany. Certainly, the resurrection of Lazarus was an event of great magnitude in the public life of Jesus. Yet, no mention is present in the Synoptic gospels. Scholars speculate as to why it is found only in John. It may be significant that John and Lazarus had a similar relationship to Jesus himself. Perhaps John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, the one who rested his head on his chest while they were at the table, was particularly sensitive to the close friendship between Jesus, Lazarus, Martha and Mary. That sensitivity is apparent in today’s gospel in which a special banquet is prepared by the close friends in honor of Jesus in Bethany. The gospel tells us that Martha served Jesus, Mary anointed and perfumed his feet, and Lazarus reclined at table with him. Every time Martha, Mary and Lazarus are mentioned in the scriptures, it is obvious that Jesus had a very special relationship with them. They were not mere acquaintances. He cares about them very deeply. He loved them. The only mention of Jesus crying, other than the Agony in the Garden, is when he weeps at the tomb of Lazarus.
Some Christians give the impression that they are uncomfortable with the idea that Jesus had genuine, personal, human relationships. They would rather suggest that he maintained a detached, impersonal, universal love for all people. He could not have had friends in the ordinary sense of the word. Yet, if Christ, in his earthly life, was a man like us in all things but sin, then it follows that he must have had real and genuine friends. He must have entered into the complex web of human emotions and entanglements that are necessary for an authentic relationship. He may have taken great comfort, support and understanding from Martha, Mary and Lazarus as he went up to Jerusalem for the momentous final week of his earthly life.
As each one of you already knows well, your response to the fundamental need and desire for friendship is a reality you must integrate into your life. Much of that integration, though by no means all of it, will take place during your formative years here in the seminary. In time you will come to appreciate the paradox of your fatherhood when you realize that in your parish you are the welcomed guest of every family, but you are a member of none. We each know, at the time of our ordination, that our commitment to presbyterial ministry is such that we are forsaking the wonderful joy, fulfillment, and companionship of a wife and children. We also know that our love for the Church, our personal relationship with Christ, our love for God’s people, the support of fellow priests and the laity, and God’s grace itself strengthen us for this commitment.
However, some priests seem to have concluded that in order to be faithful to our ministry and in order to avoid becoming too close to anyone, the priest should be a loner, with no significant relationship with anyone. They have even suggested that this is an imitation of Christ himself. This has resulted in an implicit psychology and even a cryptic theology of the priest as the mystical cowboy.
According to the “theology” of the mystical cowboy, the priest is not unlike the enigmatic hero in Jack Shafer’s justifiably celebrated novel Shane. Shane rides into town, finds out who the bad guys are, runs them out of town, has a glass of milk, and then rides off into the sunset. By now all of the town’s folk have grown very fond of him. They lament his leaving, crying “Come back, Shane. Shane, come back!” Shane, however, seemed to be completely oblivious of their great affection and love for him. His most significant relationship seems to be with his horse.
This kind of rugged independence in which no one knows us as we are is sometimes proposed as the ideal for the priest. However, I do not believe that there is anything in the gospels to suggest that Christ, who is our example in all things, lived in this way. The scriptures make it abundantly clear that he was personally involved in the lives of his disciples and friends. John, Mary, Lazarus, and Martha were real, individual human persons to him and not merely souls to be saved.
St. Augustine, who struggled to rid his life of inappropriate relationships, has written eloquently of his relationships with his friends. One passage, in The Confessions, in which he speaks of the death of a dear friend, is particularly illuminating. He writes: “During those years, when I first began to teach, I gained a friend, my equal in age, flowering like me with youth, and very dear to me because of common interests. As a boy, he had grown up with me, we had gone to school together, and had played games together. But in childhood he was not such a friend as he became later on. Our friendship was sweet to us, made fast by our ardor in like pursuits. This man was now wandering with me in spirit, and my soul could not endure to be without him.” (cf. The Confessions, p. 97)
Commenting on his friend’s untimely death from the fever, Augustine writes: “Behold, you took the man from this life when he had scarce completed a year in my friendship, sweet to me about every sweetness of that life of mine. My heart was made dark by sorrow, and whatever I looked upon was death. My native place was a torment to me. Whatsoever I had done together with him was, apart from him, turned into a cruel torture. My eyes sought for him on every side. I hated all things, because they no longer held him. To myself I became a great riddle, and I questioned my soul as to why it was sad and why it afflicted me so grievously, and it could answer me nothing. Only weeping was sweet to me.” (cf. The Confessions, p. 98)
After some time had passed, he wrote: “Lord, these things have now passed away and time has eased my wound. Am I able to harken to you, who are truth, and to turn my heart’s ear to your mouth, that you may tell me why weeping is sweet to those in misery?” (cf. The Confessions, p. 98)
These are not the words of a priest whose friends were only his pals. These words do not speak about a superficial relationship. Augustine is not writing about someone with whom he only played basketball, with whom he only went to the movies, with whom he only played cards, with whom he only discussed Church politics, with whom he only compared rectory accommodations, with whom he only played golf, with whom he only shopped for vestments and clerical attire or with whom he only explored ways to put away enough money to buy a condominium in Florida for a comfortable retirement.
St. Augustine is mourning the death of a friend. Just as John, Martha, Mary and Lazarus were really Christ’s friends, this man was really Augustine’s friend. This must mean that they really knew one another. They might have wasted time together, as only true friends can, in the old neighborhoods of their lives. They shared the major truths of their lives with one another. They occupied a common soul space. He must have hoped that he would be in his life for his life. Thus, they do not simply laugh and play together. They could count on each other’s encouragements as they grew in their faith and as they matured in their vocations. If this man was Augustine’s friend, surely they would not have looked the other way if one of them had a problem with drugs, alcohol, sexuality or important aspects of his commitment to his ministry. They must have argued, cried, grieved and prayed together.
As priests we are all fortunate if we have a few true friends who know us face to face, with whom we share our soul space, who are in our lives for our lives and who help us and challenge us to be the best priests that we can be. But we must work to establish and maintain these relationships that are so important for our development as human persons and as support for our ministries. However, our experience may not be unlike that of the Master himself. Though Jesus had real and true friends, he was abandoned, betrayed and avoided at the crucial hours, at the turning point of his life. Simon, whom he called Peter, the rock, denied that he even knew him to save his own neck. His most certain relationship was with his Father. He counted on this intimate communion with Yahweh whom he called “Abba,” a familiar and loving expression for father. Even if we are blessed with a number of true friends with whom we can be by turns Narcissus and Goldmund we may also be disappointed. There may be crucial hours, turning points of our lives during which we feel abandoned, betrayed and avoided by those who we thought were our truest friends. Absolutely speaking, the Lord Jesus Christ may be our one true friend. He offers us his love and that of his Father. Perhaps God’s love for us is essential for us to love and accept ourselves and perhaps this self-acceptance is essential for others to love and accept us.
One month from today, on May 13, 1987, I will mark the 17th anniversary of my ordination as a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago. Yet, in my mind’s eye, my days as a seminarian at St. Mary of the Lake Seminary, which is called “Mundelein” in the same familiar way that St. Joseph’s Seminary is called “Dunwoodie,” are only yesterday. And since, as Augustine would say, the mystery of time is what it is, life will have its way with you and, for those of you who become priests, the 17th anniversary of your ordination is but a blink away. Though I am profoundly grateful for the gift of the priesthood and though I am thankful for every day that I have spent as a priest, I must confess that my life as a priest has been utterly different from anything that I could have imagined when I was a seminarian sitting in the Chapel of the Immaculate Conception listening to visiting preachers, from the outside world, as you do even now.
Since this is the last of my six Lenten mediations with you, the last time that I will preach from your pulpit and break bread at your altar, perhaps you will allow me to speak somewhat more personally. If someone had come to me, during the seemingly halcyon days in the enchanted forest at Mundelein and outlined my future, I would have thought that they were far from the truth. If they had said to me: Edward, after a few years in a parish, you will become a theologian, a writer, and a lecturer. You will teach at Harvard and other universities. You will be invited to give retreats and workshops for priests. You will live in Europe, Boston, Cleveland, Washington, New York and other dioceses as a part of your ministry.”
If they went on to say, “Edward, you will attain most of your spiritual, emotional and intellectual self-knowledge after you are ordained. Your religious pilgrimage will lead to the exploration of the limits of your soul-space bringing you to the edges of your self in moments of profound pain, silent knowing and joy unutterable. You will come face to face with racism which is so widespread in America and which endures in the Catholic Church. You will experience the disquieting frustration and anxiety of approaching your 17th anniversary as a priest while a Roman Catholic is the Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan in America. At the same time, you will become an active participant in efforts to strengthen the presence of the Church among African Americans. You will become the Official Theological Consultant to a leading Catholic publisher and influence the spiritual development of the millions of young people in America who use their religion books.”
If anyone had said these things would happen to me, I probably would have thought they were dreaming. But now I have lived and am living though these experiences with their great joys and great sorrows, great successes and great failures, great happinesses and profound disappointments. I know this. This much I know. I would not have had the spiritual resources to go through all of these experiences with a fundamental peace at the center without the benefit of true and caring friends. Those whom I call friends are now all in one place, one city or one diocese. They are all in places where I have served. Even though they and I shall never, ever all be in the same place at the same time, they constitute a network that plays a central part in the integration of my life and renews my spiritual being.
First amongst these friends are my dear parents, Evelyn and Cullen, who will mark the 47th anniversary of their marriage on the very day that I mark the 17th anniversary of my ordination. Their example of constancy and fidelity and their prayers have been invaluable to me and my vocation. I hope that each of you, who is blessed to have his parents, know how important it is to know them and love them as a great sadness for priests whose relationship with their parents is merely one of courtesy, duty and obligation.
The circle of my true friends includes believers and unbelievers, priests and lay people, men and women, scholars and pastors, young and old. Though we are separated by these limitations we are bound by a communion that transcends time and space. A 5:00 a.m. phone call from the other side of the world is no annoyance to me. It replenishes my ongoing dialogue with someone I may not have seen in the flesh for two or three years. The afternoon mail may bring a long missive from one whose life and work may be utterly different from my own. But because of a bond forged by easy conversation and mutual disclosure, every word must be read, re-read and savored. Geography is not obstacle, we are united by common meaning, our presence to one another, though not physical, is no less real. And these encounters outside the confines of time and space are brought in silence to the hours of prayer and mediation.
The friendship of which I speak of is not a weak emotional dependence that immobilizes and threatens emotional stability. I speak of a strong relationship of inter-dependence that is not confining but enabling. Such an affection is not possessive. It urges the beloved to go off to his or her work in the vineyard, knowing that there will be all the more to share at the hour of reunion. You may be able to attain these kinds of friendships with each other and with others during these seminary days. Though many priests find that most of their truest friendships are formed when they are more mature, after their years of formation.
Because of our celibate commitment, we may at times feel like Araby in James Joyce’s short story and feel compelled to sign: “I bear my chalice bravely through a throng of foes.” This is why we must be honest and circumspect. Our friends should know who our other friends are. Our spiritual director should know what we are about. Personal prayer and the sacrament of Reconciliation must not be neglected. Most of all we must be mindful that for us Christ himself must be our first and last friend. But we should not seek to be “mystical cowboys.” Jesus was not. And certainly Augustine was not. There are his words:
“What drew me closest to my brothers was the delight of chatting and laughing together; of showing our affection for one another by kindly services; of reading together from books that spoke of pleasant things; …of joking together amicably; of disputing now and then but without resentment, as one is wont to do with himself; of awakening by rare contest the pleasure of being one in mind; of mutually instructing one another; of longing for the absent one, and tasting joy at his return. We loved each other with all our hearts, and these marks of friendship that were shown on our faces, by our voices, in our eyes and a thousand other ways were among us like ardent flames that fused our souls together, and of many made but one.”
In the final words of his Apostolic Letter on Augustine, Pope John Paul II writes: “Finally, I should like to address the young people, whom Augustine greatly loved as a professor before his conversion and as a pastor afterward. He recalls three great things to them: truth, love and freedom – three supreme goods which stand together. He also invites them to love beauty, for he himself was a great lover of beauty. It is not only the beauty of bodies, which could make one forget the beauty of spirit, nor only the beauty of art, but the interior beauty of virtue and especially the eternal beauty of God, from which is derived the beauty of bodies, of art and virtue. Augustine calls God “the beauty of all beauties,” in whom and from whom and through whom exist as good and beautiful everything that is good and beautiful.” (cf. Pope John Paul II, Apostolic Letter on Augustine of Hippo, Origins, p. 291)
As you prepare to celebrate the Sacred Triduum, maintain a lively awareness of this extraordinary man who was preparing for his baptism at the hands of Saint Ambrose of Milan, during Holy Week long ago. If you do not know him, I urge you to get to know him. From him you can learn much. Augustine teaches us not to be presumptuous of the perfection of man. Thus, you should not naively prepare for you ordination day expecting to live with the ideal pastor, in collaboration with a flawless bishop, and completely mature fellow ministers, under the authority of a perfect pope for the well-being of saintly parishioners. This will not be the case for the same reason that no seminary is the perfect faith community led by a perfect rector and faculty and made up of the best of all possible seminarians. The reason is our imperfection and sinfulness and our common need for Christ. Augustine teaches us not to be presumptuous of the perfection of man, but to be hopeful of his perfectibility through the grace of Christ. Augustine was a man, a Christian, a scholar, a priest and a saint, what we are and what we wish to be.
Life being what it is, I may never, ever see many of you again. But we will be present together at the altar, in the breaking of the bread and in the blessing of the cup. Our communion will be real when we pray for all of God’s people, wherever they may be. As for me, when I think of you my memories will be happy ones, and when I pray for you my prayers will be full of Joy.
Even though you are young
you may grow weary and faint.
Yes, even in your prime you
may stumble and fall.
But, if you look to the Lord,
you will gain a new strength.
You will go forward and neither
grow weary nor faint.
You will runt he course and neither
stumble nor fall.
For you will take wings and
fly, like Eagles!
Isaiah, 40:31
November 18, 2001
