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Occasional Paper Number 35

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Priestly Holiness Recalled

by P. Wallace Platt, C.S.B.

OCTOBER 2005

George Bernard Flahiff

October 26, 2005, marks the centenary of the birth of Cardinal Flahiff, at Paris, Ontario. He was professed as a Basilian on 30 September1927, ordained to the priesthood, 17 August 1930; served as professor of Mediaeval History and Art at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1935-54; was elected Superior General in 1954; was named Archbishop of Winnipeg on 15 March 1961; created cardinal in 1969. He returned to the community in Toronto, in 1982, where he died in 1989. George Flahiff lectured and wrote extensively, in all of the offices he held. His contribution to the Community and to the Church in general was considerable. his legacy is rich and memorable.

His life was gentle, and the elements
So mix't in him that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, 'This was a man!'
(Julius Caesar, V, iv, 73-5)

Priestly Holiness

In the year 1960, Father Flahiff, Superior General, published the following article in The Sacred Heart Messenger, as a commentary on the Pontifical Intention for the month, April 1960. The article, slightly edited, is presented here as a commemoration of his spirituality and his teaching.

At the very beginning of every ordination to the priesthood, the Bishop reminds all present of the close mutual bond that exists between priest and people in the unity of Christ's Mystical Body. The interests of all are the same, he says, hence the need of acting with one mind. There is likewise a mutual responsibility.

That of the priest is obvious. He is reminded of it time and time again in the course of his ordination, nowhere perhaps more explicitly than when the Bishop tells him that he is set aside to offer sacrifice, to bless, to guide, to preach, and to administer the sacraments. In a word, as minister of Christ, in His name and in His power, the priest is to bring to the faithful the means devised by Christ himself for the sanctification of all.

A Responsibility of the Faithful

At the same time, the Church clearly assigns to the faithful a certain degree of responsibility for the quality of her priests. The ordaining Bishop takes the people into his confidence to the point of asking their opinion of those who are to be elevated to the priesthood, inviting them to speak up if they know of any reason why these young men should not be ordained to an office that of its very nature is both sacred and sublime. He would share with them the grave responsibility of determining whether humanly speaking, the candidates are worthy to be promoted to the priesthood.

Nor does the responsibility of the faithful end there; when the Bishop prays in the key words of the ordination rite that God may renew in the candidates the spirit of holiness and make their lives a very pattern of holy living, he is indicating to the faithful what must be the burden of their prayer not only at that moment but in the years to follow.

A Preoccupation of the Church

The Church has always been preoccupied with the holiness of her priests. From the pastoral epistles of St. Paul to the latest utterances of Pope John XXIII it is a constantly recurring theme. Indeed in this twentieth century the emphasis, if anything, has been stronger than ever before. One after another, the great popes whom God has raised up in our time have expounded the nature and duties of the priesthood and have urged upon priests the need of striving for holiness. None have been more insistent than our late Holy Father Pope Pius XII and he who now reigns gloriously, Pope John XXIII. In writing and by word of mouth they have multiplied their messages to priests and seminarians and the refrain is ever the same, best expressed in the words of our Lord Himself which apply so especially to His priests: "Be ye holy as your Heavenly Father also is holy."

The faithful expect holiness of their priests, not mere goodness but surpassing holiness; and rightfully so, since holiness is, in the first place, the characteristic mark of the priesthood of Christ in which priests share and is, at the same time, the very condition of their being responsive instruments in the hands of Christ for the sanctification of others.

But priests are men. They are subject to weakness and frailty. They live, moreover, and they work to-day in a society that is, as perhaps never before, inimical to the holiness demanded of them and to the holiness to which it is their bounden duty to lead others. For this very reason the faithful of our day have a correspondingly greater obligation to discharge their responsibility towards their priests by praying yet more fervently for "Priestly Holiness."

The Drift from God

For more than two centuries there has been a drift from God and from the spiritual and supernatural view of life. Not that the existence of God is expressly, or at least generally, denied; it is rather that so many men ignore Him and His law in the absorption with purely human affairs and with the material world which he created. There is not necessarily a deliberate turning away from God, but there is an excessive turning to creatures. It is a kind of materialism that reveals itself as secularism in politics and government, as avarice in business and the professions, and as paganism in the personal lives and relationships of all too many men and women.

"The World," wrote Pope Pius XII on the hundredth anniversary of the apparitions at Lourdes, "which to-day affords so many justifiable reasons for pride and hope, is also undergoing a terrible temptation to materialism. This materialism is not confined to that condemned philosophy which dictates the politics and economy of a large segment of mankind. It rages also in the love of money which creates ever greater havoc as modern enterprises expand and which, unfortunately, determines many of the decisions which weigh heavy on the life of the people. It finds expression in the cult of the body, in excessive desire for comforts, and in the flight from all austerities of life. It encourages scorn for human life, even for life which is destroyed before seeing the light of day. This materialism is present in the unrestrained search for pleasure which flaunts itself shamelessly and even tries, through reading matter and entertainments, to seduce souls which are still pure. It shows itself in lack of interest in one's brother, in selfishness which crushes him, in injustice which deprives him of his rights--in a word, in that contempt of life which regulates everything exclusively in terms of material prosperity and earthly satisfactions."

The Role of the Priest

Now it is precisely the role of the priest to react against such a spirit. Jesus Christ, whose priesthood he continues, came upon earth to unite time and eternity, God and man. He, the very Son of God, shared our human nature and human life that He might communicate to us a share in His divine life and that, as a result of our union with Him, things that otherwise would be merely human, temporal, and material should acquire a truly divine value and, through, with, and in Him, be restored to their rightful place as a very part of man's love and worship of God.

The priestly work of Christ still goes on in the world to-day through the instrumentality of those who share in His priesthood. By their words, and their works, and their life itself, they strive, without minimizing in any way whatsoever the value of material, temporal, and human realities and relationships, to see that these do not fall short of the full dignity that is theirs when they are touched with the grace of Christ and play their role in man's supernatural destiny not only as creature but as child of God.

The whole sacramental life of the Church that the priest is empowered to minister to the people makes this possible. He has, in addition, by his teaching, his guidance, and his example, to lead men freely and lovingly to dedicate their lives in every detail, their joys and their sorrows, their loves and their labours, as well as their prayers and their acts of worship, to the God who is Lord and Father of all. The priest stands, as it were, between God and man, to present their offerings to God and to bring to them in return, as ministers of Christ, the grace that He has merited for them.

True Holiness Imperative

How shall the priest do this unless he himself is moved constantly and profoundly by a supernatural spirit, unless in other words, he is truly holy? Material means, modern techniques, untiring human activity, may all be necessary, but they are not enough. In fact, they are useless, if not downright harmful, when they are not accompanied by supernatural means and when their use is not inspired by the close union with God that results from sanctity. It is the latter which permits the power of God to come through and transform an otherwise human action into one that is truly divine.

Sanctity lies in the love of that which is worthy of supreme love; it consists therefore in the conformity of the human will with the divine; it is synonymous, in a word, with the love of God and is measured by that love. When a priest's will and heart and every affection is united with God, God's action is accomplished in and through him--and then only.

Yet, as Pope Pius went on to say in the above-quoted message to Lourdes, priests as well as people are in danger of falling under the withering influence of the worldly and materialistic spirit that is rampant to-day. "If the salt lose its savour, wherewith shall it be salted?" If for nothing else than their own good, the faithful to-day need great holiness in their priests to the end that priests and people alike may bear witness in an indifferent world to the holiness of Christ in His Church.

Laudemus Viros Gloriosos
You ask, perhaps, what sense has such recall,
Of years a hundred, or of ten or five;
Or why, indeed, attempt to keep alive
The dusty thought of any, great or small.
Life calls, or shouts, or whispers, every hour
"Do this, make haste, eat, feel, and enjoy;
What's past is past, move on, your power deploy,
Be not yet haunted by your fading power."
Just so! Such hollow thinking is redeemed
By memory of the wise who went before
Their legacy of service and of lore,
Is Wisdom, how'ere banal then it seemed.
The old forget; the younger never knew:
But all grow strong when memory we renew

(P.W.P.)