Growing in the Silence

When I was first ordained, the rigidity that has been criticized on some clerics existed in me. My Spiritual Director told me I had a bit of an edge on me, and while he admitted humbly the same thing happened to him at times, he wanted to warn me to look after it. My eldest sister told me I had lost my sense of humor. Things continued to occur to me that prompted a type of dissent into overly critical antagonist views.

I could spend time reflecting on why that edge existed, but it doesn’t do me any good to blame others. Reacting against others can turn into a type of scapegoating where we blame our own interior dispositions on others, when in reality our own attitudes and frustrations ultimately belong to ourselves. I’d rather focus on the clergy and friendships that have aided and inspired me to a greater depth, and built me up. These relationships are more precious than gold and silver, for in a concrete way they have been manifestations of Christ Himself.

While my views on the Church’s teaching have only grown stronger, I’ve come to a place where I can try to catch more people with honey rather than vinegar, to quote St. Francis de Sales. They have only grown stronger because they are more deeply integrated in to the reality of a relationship with our God.

I think the bottom line question that helped me return to a less rigid disposition was to understand more clearly how grace is a process, not a switch that we violently switch in the hearts of others. We proclaim the Gospel not because we are frustrated with the absence of conformity to it, but as an invitation into a deeper relationship with Christ that saves.  

I continue to grow in my priesthood, and I do realize that sometimes the Church struggles with an absence of discipline that can enable sin. But I also see how the opposite approach is what St. Paul would describe as a type of enslavement to the law, a type of striving towards grace that is Pelagian, that goes beyond 100 % of our efforts and ultimately roots itself in some other hidden reason that has nothing to do with God’s glory.  

My thought is simple: let’s quiet ourselves from the noise of division in the Church and stop reacting just for a moment. A moment long enough to invite God into our conscience to tell us what He wills rather than how our natural reasoning might guide us.

Things grow in silence, and they also require patience.  When you find patient people, you have found those who can help you grow. Imitate them. For those interested in Evangelization, may we be neither violent or aloof in spirit, but docile to the voice of God, and to respond to that voice with haste and zeal.

Photo: Ben White, Unsplash / PD-US