“Mission and evangelization”
On our path as priests, we must meet the challenge of balancing divine and human tasks. That’s something Jesus shows us in the synagogue of Capernaum. This balance is essential to keep the flame of our mission and evangelization alive.
Let’s see how these reflections can illuminate our path and strengthen our pastoral dedication.
1. He entered the synagogue: Mark is the evangelist who most clearly explains what Jesus’ daily life was like. He shows us that Jesus speaks to God the Father, but also to men. Jesus maintains the connection with the divine but also tends to human miseries. He even goes to the area of Capernaum, a small village forgotten by many and labeled by others.
Think of that as something similar to what is involved in your day as a priest. Pray and meditate in the scarce time you have to attend to people’s plights, and accompany people who have been labeled by others. I think that if there is not a little of all this in your priestly life, the sense of mission and evangelization may be lost. This is why it is very important to look for these three moments: your moment of prayer so that the flame of your encounter with God is not extinguished; your moment of meeting people, and listening to their lives, to be able to give them encouragement or simply let them know that they are being heard; and your moment to go out and find others who need to know that God has not forgetten about them.
2. Becoming bourgeois and worldly: One of the things that can happen is what I call the “priestly pendulum”. On one extreme there is the tendency to do too many things (activism), without seeking the space and time to deepen your interiority. And on the other extreme there is the inclination to fall into tremendous passivity in your apostolic life.
One of the psychological diseases of our time is procrastination: it means putting things off until later and then never doing them, or doing them in a hurry, when time is tight.
Putting things off and starting to ask, “what for?” because you feel that no one values your efforts. This can weaken your priestly life, to the extent of reducing your apostolic life to just celebrating mass (“because I’m forced to”), and drooping when you sit down to confess (“because why do I do this, if they sin again”).
When your mind falls into doing the bare minimum, coupled with the fact that no one “controls” you, you may be tempted to leave aside the “discipleship mission”, and fall into more of a “monetary mission”. This is when the meaning you give to what you do is to acquire resources to support the parish or your expenses, rather than the evangelization of souls, so that they discover the risen Christ.
Of course it’s not at all easy, and I think we all go through this at certain times. It is therefore important to ask God that you never fall into priestly monotony. Pray that you may always discover something new in your life that helps you become more enthusiastic in your apostolic work.
3. Apostolic mission: Of course, activism can create problems for you and your community. A few years ago, I took part in the experience of a “pastoral plan”. It was excellent, and a biblical priest in Tucumán carried it out. But over time, it fell apart. It was full of meetings and pastoral activities, but the meetings lasted three hours or more. These meetings centered around thinking of a phrase for the month, and even what color the posters should be. This resulted in “a pastoral plan of compliance”, which in essence was mere fulfilment of activities, because everything was reduced to a succession of activities and meeting goals. This led to many getting tired and no longer adopting that plan, or any other plan for that matter. Because, when structures are created without a spiritual function, one can lapse into planned activism.
Many times, as priests, we forget that nowadays things have changed and we no longer have lay people dedicated 100% to pastoral care. Many people must have two jobs just to survive, or in a family, both parents must go out to work. In many places, even the priest must go to work as a teacher or in other areas, to support himself. That is why it is healthy to face reality and from there, generate an activity plan according to the times, without leaving aside “your moments”, and not following a system that can later suffocate you.
It is important to be accompanied and reflect on these points for your inner life. It helps to strengthen your life and above all, to understand that it is not a sin, and that you have not become more or less worthy. It is time for you to reflect on your priestly life and know where you stand today. It helps to know that it is God who chose us, because He wanted to. But above all, He invites us to sanctify ourselves in our daily routine.
Let us pray for one another.
Something good is on the way.
