Q. I’m a lifelong Catholic and active at church and embarrassed to ask but should I have my priests come to dinner? Our parish is big; do they get too many invitations? Do they wish they had a night off? I know you can’t say for everyone but what’s normal?
A. The simple answer is, if you want to invite your priest over for dinner, then go for it. You should not feel an obligation to, though. If you wouldn’t feel comfortable asking or hosting your priest, then there is no reason to force yourself to do something that you would not enjoy.
If you do want to invite your priest over, do not feel as though it needs to be some big production. I feel pretty confident making a generalization about the priests of the Diocese of Lincoln, and that is, most priests are just happy to have a home-cooked meal and aren’t expecting a fancy, five-course dinner. So again, if you would enjoy having your priest over for dinner, then feel free to invite them.
The flip side of the question is does your priest want to go to dinner, and that is a more complicated question to answer. As your question points out, some priests do receive many invitations to dinner, and some priests do want a night off. So it really all depends on the priest. In my opinion there is never any harm in inviting your priest over for dinner, but it’s important to understand that, if your priest says no, it’s not because he doesn’t like you, or is making some kind of judgment about you.
My first assignment, I was invited over for dinner somewhere at least twice a week. Sometimes I said yes, sometimes I said no. When I said no it was because I had other obligations or, frankly, I wanted to just have some time to myself. But I was always grateful for the invitations.
I cannot stress enough though, that was my experience. Other priests certainly feel differently. Some I know would be happy to go to a parishioner’s house for dinner every night if they could. Others are more introverted and need to have time to themselves to recharge. It is important to always keep in mind that priests are individual people, with their own personalities and temperaments and strengths and weaknesses.
It is easy for both priests and lay people to fall into the trap of comparison. Priests can easily compare their parishes to other parishes they have served at and make judgments about how their current parish should be, based on their prior parish. It is easy for parishioners to do the same, making a judgment about their current pastor or parochial vicar, based on how a prior one did things.
Both of these approaches miss the mark. When we compare, we lose sight of the good in front of us. It is important, not just in the context of the priest-parishioner relationship, but in all aspects of our life, to try to find the good in everyone, to focus on the positive rather than the negative, and to recognize that we all want to be seen for who we are and the good that is in us. The least we can do is try to do unto others what we would have done to us.
This question was answered by Father Caleb La Rue, chancellor of the Diocese of Lincoln. Write to Ask the Register using our online form, or write to 3700 Sheridan Blvd., Suite 10, Lincoln NE 68506-6100. All questions are subject to editing. Editors decide which questions to publish. Personal questions cannot be answered. People with such questions are urged to take them to their nearest Catholic priest.
