By Fr. Brian Kane
Rector, St. Gregory the Great Seminary;
Director of Seminarians
“Christ has no body but yours, No hands, no feet on earth but yours, Yours are the eyes with which he looks Compassion on this world, Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world." - St. Teresa of Avila (1515–1582)
A priest friend reminded me one evening that we often use the phrase “brother priest” when referring to each other. That gift of brotherhood extends to our parents, in a sense: the mother and father of one priest is the mother and father of their brother priests, too. At times, it becomes real when priest-friends stop by a priest’s parents’ home, or when a pastor cares for his parishioners who are the parents of a brother priest.
At the end of January, my mother, Karen, suffered an unexpected stroke while making dinner. Her five days in the Intensive Care Unit, and in the days around her funeral, were very difficult for our family. In the midst of that deep sorrow there was a special gift from the Father that he used to comfort and care for us – the gift of the brotherhood of priests. Beginning with the first hour in the emergency room, as one of my brother priests accompanied us when we learned the severity of the situation, our family was surrounded with the presence of Jesus, through the gift of the priesthood. “Christ has no body but yours.”
Doctors, nurses and others in the ICU were moved by the groups of priests stopping to pray at mom’s bedside, to see the bishop and priest hospital chaplain stop to pray early one morning with us. Through the priesthood, Jesus was revealing his loving presence with us.
Day by day, my brother priests arrived, bringing to me and my family the presence of Jesus, again and again. “Christ has no body but yours.”
That reminder and experience of the brotherhood of priests culminated on the day of my mom’s funeral Mass. Priests make a special effort to be there to support our brother who has lost his mother or father. As we began to pray the Eucharistic prayer together, the voices of so many brothers who were there filled my ears:
“…as we celebrate the memorial of the saving Passion of your Son, his wondrous Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven, and we look forward to his second coming, we offer you in thanksgiving this holy and living sacrifice.”
Following the funeral a priest friend shared a grace he received during the funeral: “For me it was a beautiful gift to see so many priests there and, even more to see so many people there because they have been touched by your priesthood… It is a great comfort to me to know that when my parents’ times come, I won’t have to do it alone.”
It was a powerful moment for me – and for my brother priests – to experience very deeply what Pope St. John Paul II called “the gift and mystery” of the priesthood. Together at the altar, supporting a brother and his family in their sorrow and loss. “Christ has no body but yours.”
That phrase, “gift and mystery,” was also the title of a work by Pope St. John Paul II, written in 1996, commemorating the 50th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood. In the midst of that text, he wrote: “May God sustain in all priests a grateful awareness of the gift they have received; may he also awaken in many young men a ready and generous response to his call to give themselves completely to the cause of the Gospel.”
This is my 11th year helping form young men for the priesthood. I found myself being grateful that all the seminarians from St. Gregory the Great Seminary were also able to witness this brotherhood of prayer at the funeral. This is the brotherhood, the priesthood, that they are discerning and to which many of them will be called.
Sometimes the life of a diocesan priest can look – and feel – lonely or isolated. Jesus uses times like this to clearly remind us that we are not alone. Through the priesthood we are supported by our brothers, and by so many faithful people in our parishes where we serve and have served in the past. The Father cares for us in many ways; in particular, I have been filled with gratitude in these days for a tangible and renewed experience of the gift of priestly brotherhood.
I’d like to conclude with one other gift of the Father’s love for my family and me during these days of sorrow and grief. As I prayed at my mother’s bedside one evening, I received a text message with the meditation from Magnificat magazine for that day. I shared it during the funeral homily, surrounded by my brother priests and want to share the inspiring words with you:
“Pronounce often that Fiat which spreads calm even amid the most tremendous sorrow.... Be strong, be attached to Jesus. For now he wants you beneath the tree of the cross, the winepress of suffering....
At the end of the sorrowful journey and not before, you will be permitted to look backward; then you will see with joyful astonishment the furrow you dug with such pain, all blossoming behind you; you will rejoice that you have persevered and have found yourself among those who have earned the joy of the immortal wedding feast by their perseverance....
Think that not one of our sighs, nor one of our tears, is unrewarded; God collects them to give some soul more miserable than ourselves the help to save it.... Meditate about what I told you and you will see that you’ll feel rising in your soul a great strength and the firm will to sacrifice yourself with that generosity that the good Jesus is asking of you. Life is short and the sorrows and tears will end there, in beautiful paradise....
Be careful, because it’s the devil who puts all those gloomy ideas in your head just because he wants to usurp the merits your sufferings earned. Be on the alert.
Don’t let yourself be overcome, because he is very, very clever. In moments of battle, raise your heart to God and confide all your distress, all your anguish, to him and he alone will console you.”
-Blessed Clelia Merloni (†1930) founded the Congregation of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in 1894.
