by Fr. Lawrence Farley
After over four decades of ordained priestly ministry, one does get a feel for what it means to be a priest. There are many verses in Scripture about this. Moreover, throughout the long length of my experience I have also found many men who were exemplary priests and for all their wonderful diversity they all had one thing in common: a loving pastoral heart.
For a parish priest is primarily a pastor (literally, a “shepherd”) someone whose main job is to look after the souls of those entrusted to him, caring for them as a shepherd cares for his flock and as a father cares for his children. Indeed, the term “father” is not just a title of honour but is the main and controlling metaphor for his priestly work: his task is to create family, to take the sometimes motley and always varied group of people that walk through the church door to join the parish and transform them into a single, united, and loving family.
This is challenging work, since those people will be varied indeed, holding different and conflicting political opinions, coming from different social and ethnic backgrounds. Meeting each other outside in the world, they might not even like each other. But here in the Church God calls them to be brothers and sisters, fellow-members of the one Body of Christ, and it is the priest’s job to make this happen.
He does it, of course, through loving them and speaking to them the Word of truth. There are many occasions to love and to speak: in sermons, talks, coffee hour interactions, home visits, hospital visitations, confession. Through liturgical ministration, homilies, and his general deportment and accessibility, he must reach out and touch their hearts with love, making connections that a father would have with his son or daughter.
Regarding this pastoral task, I would like to present for your consideration (as Rod Serling would say) three different individuals.
The first is that of the high priest in the Mosaic dispensation. The high priest was clothed in specific vestments, such as the robe, the sash, and the turban. The details describing how God wanted the vestments of the high priest to be made are found in Exodus 28. In part it reads like this:
“You shall take two onyx stones and engrave on them the names of the sons of Israel, six of their names on the one stone, and the names of the remaining six on the other stone, in the order of their birth. As a jeweler engraves signets, so shall you engrave the two stones with the names of the sons of Israel… And you shall set the two stones on the shoulder pieces of the ephod, as stones of remembrance for the sons of Israel. And Aaron shall bear their names before the Lord on his two shoulders for remembrance.”
The two onyx stones with the names of the tribes of Israel on them were similar to the breastplate with twelve precious stones that the high priest wore:
“You shall make a breastpiece of judgment, in skilled work… There shall be twelve stones with their names according to the names of the sons of Israel. They shall be like signets, each engraved with its name, for the twelve tribes …So Aaron shall bear the names of the sons of Israel in the breastpiece of judgment on his heart, when he goes into the Holy Place, to bring them to regular remembrance before the Lord.”
Here we see that the high priest carried a memorial of the twelve tribes with him whenever he went into the Holy Place to minister before the Lord, both on his shoulders as a burden to carry and over his heart. In the same way, a priest today must carry the names and lives of his people with him, sharing and bearing their burdens, praying and interceding for them at the altar and in his private prayers.
St. Paul did the same, mentioning as the crown of all his many labours and burdens “the anxiety for all the churches”. As he protested to his beloved Corinthians,
“Who is weak and I am not weak? Who is made to fall and I am not indignant?” (2 Corinthians 11:28-29).
Paul suffered with his people as a co-sufferer and could even speak of himself as being in the anguish of childbirth until Christ was formed in them (Galatians 4:19).
The many people in the parish who hear the pastor’s homiletic Word and receive the Bread of Life from his Chalice are not just “parishioners” or names written in a parish directory. They are the pastor’s own spiritual children and their names are written on his heart.
Secondly, I would offer the example of a king— and not any king (like King Charles) but King Lune, the wise and brave king of Arkhland in Narnia, and the advice that he gave to his son and heir
Prince Rabadash, as recorded in C. S. Lewis’ The Horse and his Boy. King Lune shared this royal counsel with his son:
“This is what it means to be a king: to be first in every desperate attack and last in every desperate retreat, and when there’s hunger in the land (as must be now and then in bad years) to wear finer clothes and laugh louder over a scantier meal than any man in your land.”
In other words, to be a king means to be an exemplar, to set a model for one’s people of courage, tenacity, and endurance. Pastors are called to be such exemplars, setting an example of prayerfulness, humility, zeal, and long-suffering. St. Paul said that his converts should follow his example because he was following Christ’s example (1 Corinthians 11:1).
What daring! Yet this daring is required of pastors as well: pastors should so closely follow Christ that their flock could safely follow the pastor’s example as well. The pastor must be generous in his giving, humble in his relationships with others, quick to forgive, zealous in serving the Lord, heartfelt and constant in his prayers, willing to endure suffering and martyrdom, boundless in his compassion. In other words, the first in every desperate spiritual attack, and the last in every desperate retreat, an example to be followed of splendid courage and joyful endurance.
Finally, I would like to offer the words of… a rabbit. But not just any rabbit, but a somewhat famous rabbit, one who came to us through the pen of Richard Adams in his book Watership Down.
Watership Down is the story of a rabbit named Hazel who led a few other rabbits from their home warren in search of a safer place to live—an idyllic place called “Watership Down”. In their adventures on the way they found another warren, one inhabited by strange rabbits. The rabbits of this warren had knowingly entered into a Faustian bargain with the local farmer: he provided food for them and kept away their natural enemies but laid snares for them, catching and killing a few of them for their meat and their skins. This meant that they were all kept safe and fed but at the cost of a few of their number being suddenly and regularly sacrificed. It was a fact of which they never spoke openly.
In this Lapine world the rabbits had their own stories and mythologies. Their Creator was named Lord Frith, identified with the sun. Their legendary exemplar was a rabbit named “El-ahrairah”, known for his trickery and resilience, who teaches them how to survive in a dangerous world. His name means “Prince with a Thousand Enemies”.
When one of Hazel’s rabbits, a prophetic figure named “Fiver”, discerned the nature of the warren they were visiting he denounced it in the blistering terms of a prophet of old. He cried out to his comrades concerning the terrible warren,
“They forgot El-ahrairah, for what use had they of tricks and cunning, living in the enemy’s warren and paying his price? …They had no Chief Rabbit – no, how could they? – for a Chief Rabbit must be El-ahrairah to his warren and keep them from death.”
Note: “a Chief Rabbit must be El-ahrairah to his warren and keep them from death”— or, applying this word, a pastor must be El-ahrairah (or Christ) to his people and keep them from death. And
how does he do this? By speaking fearlessly and boldly the saving Word of truth.
There are lies circulating in society, cancers in our culture, as deadly and invisible as carbon monoxide, lies having to do with gender ideology, race theory, anti-Semitism, abortion and euthanasia. These forces are virulently active around us and will poison our minds and souls and separate us from truth, sanity, and from God if we let them into our heart. It is the pastor’s task to warn his people about them, to arm them with the truth so that they can distinguish truth from error, light from darkness.
Because these things are discussed in society some will suggest that they are not fit topics for discussion in church, that they are “politics” and therefore have no place in sermons or Bible studies. But Christians cannot avoid such topics as long as they live in the polis or a human city and as long as spiritual questions have societal significance.
A pastor should not tell his people who to vote for but he can and must warn them of the lies that the Enemy proffers throughout western society. When spiritual warfare rages around him he must blow the note certainty on the trumpet of truth (see 1 Corinthians 14:8). He must be El-ahrairah to his people and keep them from death.
A high priest, a king, and a rabbit— a discerning heart can find in each of them a model for priesthood and for pastoral care. The task given to priests is a challenging one which is why St. James warned us not to take up the office lightly (James 3:1f). Priests need all the help (and prayer) they can get.
They must find models for their task wherever they can, whether in the Old Testament, in Narnia…or even in Watership Down.
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