1/26/2021
Why did I join the work this day 14 years ago?
Let’s see if I can do better than just “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
I have a clear recollection of sitting in the library at Tenley and paging through a small leaflet on the priestly society of the Holy Cross. I can ’t say how far along I already was in the seminary at that point. It could’ve been rather early. I remember noticing from that leaflet that it was possible for diocesan priests to join the Work. I noticed that the vocation to the Work for a diocesan priest was the same as if he was coming from any other honest walk of life—that the call consists in the pursuit of personal holiness by way of sanctifying oneself and one’s surroundings to the best of his ability for the love of God precisely in the midst of those very surroundings.
I remember it occurring to me that, regarding joining the work or receiving the call to join the work, it didn’t really matter if I was a priest or not.
This detachment from the glory of the priestly ministry I found attractive and particularly affirming of a man’s individual freedom.
I’d find a louder echo of this same orientation of freedom when my mom would pray to God, some years later, on my ordination day, as I lie prostrate on the church floor, “Lord, if this be not for his sanctification, may he not get up off that floor.”
Personal holiness, the pursuit of the will of God. That’s the name of the game.
There’s the ever-important, intrinsically-related integration of the personal with the communal.
That’s for another time.
