How much should a priest own?

Q: Dear Father John, I am a Catholic priest. Because I am in studies and do not have a rectory to call ‘home’, I’ve temporarily moved all my personal belongings back into my parent’s house. Looking over all the ‘stuff’ I’ve collected over the years, it’s dawned on me that I have A LOT. Too much, so that I am even nauseated at the amount: especially books, vestments, and clerical clothing, and some secular clothes. My regular spiritual director and I have been trying to discern what exactly a diocesan priest ‘needs’ as opposed to ‘wants’. How many books does a priest truly ‘need’? How do you discern needs vs. wants? How do you practice detachment, even radically if necessary?

A: The tricky part about this issue is that the principles are clear, but they can be – and need to be – applied in myriad ways.  It’s clear from your question that you know what the principles are: 1) material goods are not ends in themselves, and so we should never seek our soul’s satisfaction in their possession or enjoyment; 2) material goods are means to an end, and so if ever a possession or a practice is inhibiting me from achieving my end (holiness and spiritual fruitfulness as a father in Christ’s Church), then those possessions or practices need to be curtailed or eliminated.  The famous Ignatian “tantum quantum” comes into play there: material goods should be sought, welcomed, and used insofar as they help us achieve our purpose of glorifying God and helping to save souls.

The virtue that governs the application of general principles to specific situations (your situation, or mine, or your spiritual director’s) is prudence.  And there is the rub.  Prudence involves making a particular judgment, so it is always linked to the concrete circumstances of an individual’s life.  As a result, gospel simplicity may look very different for two different priests, and each one of them may be living in complete fidelity to what the Holy Spirit is asking of him.

So that doesn’t help you very much – at least not directly.  The development and application of prudence in our lives is linked to our spiritual maturity.  That means, basically, the more I grow in temperance, fortitude, and justice – which translates into “the more faithful I am to my life of prayer and to God’s will through fulfilling my basic responsibilities” – the more prudent I become.  Keep growing spiritually, and you will keep developing prudence.  As prudence grows, we are able to identify more easily and quickly the proper application of general principles to our particular situation.  Bottom line: there is no formula I can give you; you have to keep seeking God in your heart, and seeking his guidance in this area, and every other area, of your spiritual life.

That said, here are some thoughts that may help you reflect and discern.

1.      Money is the great deceiver.  So we need to keep it on a leash.  This consists primarily in having a personal annual budget.  A budget allows us to be responsible with our money – to decide ahead of time, based on life-priorities and not on spur-of-the-moment impulses, how much we will spend and on what.  This helps protect us from the latent materialism that’s always trying to seep into our hearts and minds through whimsical and indulgent culture of consumerism in which we live.  I don’t know if you are familiar with Veritas Financial Ministries, but they seem to offer some excellent tools for making and following budgets and tying money-matters into faith-matters.  I would recommend checking out their services and making a commitment to govern your money habits with a budget: http://www.veritasfinancialministries.com/.

2.      Keep in mind the possibility of scandal.  This matters.  As fathers of a spiritual community, we need to embody the principles we preach, to be good examples.  Everyone knows that Father needs a car.  But if a Toyota Camry will do the job for him, why does he have a BMW?  Everyone wants Father to have a refreshing and renewing vacation.  And they will be overjoyed and understanding if he takes a trip to Rome or the Holy Land for his time off, making a pilgrimage out of it.  But they may furrow their brows in confusion if he goes to the Bahamas.  They will be edified by his taking a fishing trip, but they may be confused by his taking a gambling trip.

3.      Gospel simplicity is not opposed to dignity and distinction.  A priest is a representative of Christ, and his bearing, along with his clothes, manners, and paraphernalia, should reflect the dignity and propriety of the King he serves.  Jesus’ tunic was of good enough quality that the soldiers didn’t want to tear it into pieces to pawn off the material, rather they threw dice to see who would get the whole thing.  When people see the Pope, they expect his cassock to be clean and well-ironed, and they rejoice in the elegance and dignity of the papal surroundings.  On the other hand, they also know that none of that belongs to Joseph Ratzinger – it belongs to the Church.  And it will stay in the Church after the current Holy Father has gone to his heavenly home.

4.      Practice self-denial on a regular basis.  We have to keep ourselves in spiritual shape.  We have to consciously and proactively exercise detachment on a regular basis in order to be able to exercise detachment in the face of unforeseen temptations.  As priests, we should be offering small sacrifices, the kind we offer during Lent, on a regular basis.  But this can also feed pride.  Be close to your spiritual director on this point (well, on all these points!).

5.      Consider your time to be a material possession.  Just as you budget your money, budget your time.  Plan ahead.  Enjoy the freedom that comes from knowing that how you are spending both your time and your money accurately reflects your life-priorities and is not just a function of spontaneous and whimsical improvisation all the time.

6.      Create a wish-list for your library.  Every time you want to buy a book, put the title on your wish-list.  Let your wish-list grow.  Don’t buy any books from the wish-list until you have finished the books you are already reading, or the ones that you have already bought and put on the “to-read-next” shelf.  Here again, planning ahead is incredibly freeing.  What will your reading goals be for this coming year?  You will want to read a couple of books on current issues, maybe some classical and contemporary literature (if you like that and find it enriching), definitely some books on theology or philosophy or church history or apologetics (whichever is your area of expertise), and probably some other books of social commentary or self-help.  Then you also have the books you will be using for spiritual reading and meditation during the year, in accordance with your program for personal spiritual growth.  Pick out the twelve or fourteen that you want to read this year.  Get them.  Put them on your “to-read-next” shelf.  Don’t buy any more until you have read those.  All the new ones that come onto your radar screen – add them to your wish-list, but don’t buy them yet.  If you want to change your year’s list mid-way through, run your reasons by your spiritual director (or some kind of accountability partner), not because you need “permission” strictly speaking, but because you want to keep your book-habit under control, so that it doesn’t create turbulence in your heart and clutter in your life.

7.      Know your weak points.  We all have them.  From your question, it seems like you are a book collector.  Other people just have to have the latest clothes.  Others just can’t resist buying new luggage all the time.  For others, its electronic gadgets – the latest, no matter what, no matter whether it will really help me be more efficient in my mission or not!  For others it’s music – the CD collection is gargantuan!  We don’t need to go into the psychological reasons behind these personal tendencies (though that would be an interesting study!).  But in whichever area you find yourself most tempted to be over-indulgent, keep vigilant.  Get an accountability partner to help you stay objective (maybe your spiritual director).

8.      Support ministries or charities that mean a lot to you personally.  If we have income, we should tithe, just like we recommend to all Catholics.  I have always been struck by the example of St. John Vianney in this regard.  He spent a lot of time and effort raising money to bring his parish up to snuff.  Once the chapels and church and other accoutrements were in place, he continued to raise money, even begging the many pilgrims for money.  And what did he use it for?  To endow annual missions in other parishes.  He kept track of how much he needed to endow a mission, and would raise money continually for that purpose.  And once he finished one, he would start right away on another.  Here is a man who understood that money is a means to an end!!

9.      Be proactive in your entertainment.  What activities really help you relax and provide you with your necessary recreation?  How often do you need to engage in them to keep your mind and body keen and focused?  We need to be very careful in this area, because of our special responsibility to be spiritual leaders.  Our interior life directly affects thousands of people – the people we serve.  We can’t afford to be careless about what we let into our minds and imaginations.  And we have to make sure that we don’t start depending on entertainment for our happiness.  Our happiness is to be found in loving and serving God and his people.  Entertainment (TV, movies, video-games…) can serve as necessary recreation (“the bow that is always strung soon loses its strength,” as St. John the Evangelist put it once), but it can also become a drain on our energy, and even an addiction.  Other forms of recreation can often be even more beneficial – sports, real games (cards, Scrabble, ping pong…) played with real people, reading literature, hiking or walking outdoors in nature…  In this area, it’s also very healthy for us to find a small group of friends with whom we can recreate and relax together.  Unhealthy obsessions with acquiring or using material goods can stem from a psychological thirst for rest, companionship, or relaxation that we are not meeting in a proper way.

Well, as I said, I can’t give you a formula. But I hope that those reflections are of some assistance.  With this email I am sending along a prayer for you and your ministry.  God bless you!

I know we have a lot of holy priests and religious who read our blog. I would also like to invite them to provide insight into how they make these decisions.

PS from Dan: The book “Happy Are You Poor” by Father Dubay provides a fantastic treatment of this subject.

Fr. Jean-Pierre de Caussade, SJ: Abandon Yourself to this Book

By Dr. Jeff Mirus | www.CatholicCulture.org Published with Permission

Ignatius Press has just come out with a new edition of Jean-Pierre de Caussade’s oustanding work of spiritual direction, Abandonment to Divine Providence. This work, written in the 18th century by a French Jesuit, has become one of the great classics of Catholic spiritual reading. Not only does it deserve a treasured place in each person’s library, but it is well worth revisiting at various stages of spiritual growth.

The core of Fr. de Caussade’s approach is the insight that God reveals himself through the daily events, possibilities, restrictions, cares and sufferings of ordinary life, and that we can ensure rapid spiritual growth only by fully recognizing and accepting His merciful will in every situation. This, of course, is a common theme in all authentic Catholic spiritual direction, lodged deep in the mind of the Church. Some speak in terms of “resignation”, but Fr. de Caussade goes even further with the word “abandonment”, implying a relinquishing of our own wills in favor of a joyful perception of and total reliance on the will of God. His treatment of this topic is by far the most comprehensive we have in any one place.

I first used this book in an old reprint by TAN of the Burns, Oates and Washbourne edition of 1959, which itself was based mostly on four separate volumes published in the 1930s covering various portions of the material. Fr. de Caussade himself, of course, wrote in French. The difficulty with the various editions of his work is that he not only gave comprehensive spiritual direction to the Sisters of the Visitation in Nancy while chaplain there from 1733 until 1740, but he also followed up with numerous letters on personal questions and related topics after he had gone on to other assignments. Thus his entire spiritual doctrine is contained in a variety of conferences, retreat notes, and letters over a considerable period of time.

In 1861, some 110 years after the Jesuit spiritual director’s death, all of Fr. de Caussade’s writings were handed over to a Jesuit writer and editor, Fr. Henri Ramière. Fr. Ramière studied the work carefully, and organized it into a logical progression in one comprehensive book entitled Abandon à la Providence Divine which, owing to its tremendous value and popularity, has gone through many editions since that time. The Ignatius text is the E. J. Strickland translation of the 10th French edition, originally published in 1921 by Catholic Records Press. It is worth mentioning that the book has sometimes been published under the title of The Sacrament of the Present Moment, which gives further insight into Fr. de Caussade’s wonderful spirituality.

Fr. de Caussade treated the concept of abandonment both as a virtue to be acquired by all Christians, and as a spiritual state to which some souls are especially called. Both aspects are set forth in an initial treatise posessing significant theoretical depth. This treatise forms the first part of the book. But Fr. de Caussade also addressed many particular concerns, including questions raised by the various sisters, and of course he gave considerable counsel to the souls under his care in their varying stages of spiritual growth. Much of this is found in his letters, and all of this more practical material is organized into sections which form the latter portion of the book, “Spiritual Counsels of Father de Caussade.”

It is because his subject is treated so comprehensively, both in theory and in practice, marked by both particular questions and varying spiritual stages on the way, and divided between considerations of both the virtue and the state of abandonment, that Fr. de Caussade’s advice is so broadly applicable. Though prepared specifically for religious, who are doubtless more often called to what Fr. de Caussade described as the state of abandonment, the treatment of abandonment as a necessary virtue obviously applies to lay people as well. And the various stages of spiritual growth, along with the different problems encountered in these various stages, at least potentially apply to all devout souls, wherever they may be found.

A survey of the main sections of the second part of the book reveal something of its scope:

In dealing with the love of the virtue of abandonment, Fr. de Caussade considers it as a short way to perfection, happiness, peace and liberty. This leads to meditations on providence, community, dependence on God, God’s goodness, continued troubles, and good works.

In treating of the exercise of the virtue of abandonment, he touches on no fewer than thirty-seven points, including such things as general rules, useless fears, submission and confidence, simplicity, acceptance of duties, patience with oneself, and how to treat consolations.

The section on obstacles to abandonment addresses such problems as vanity, illusions, attachments, intemperate zeal, and discouragement.

In the remaining four sections, Fr. de Caussade covers similar particular points relating to aridities, weaknesses and weariness; trials, sufferings and privations; fear of the anger of God; the last agony and a mystical death.

This book is at once extraordinarily deep and wonderfully practical. It is superbly organized—subdivided into titled sections which generally run from just one to three pages, making the presentation perfect for daily spiritual reading.

As I indicated at the start, Fr. de Caussade’s work is one of the great classics of spiritual direction, holding a place in Catholic spiritual literature which is about as high as one can go without having been canonized and declared a doctor of the Church. For this reason, I have not tried to give a comprehensive explanation of Fr. de Caussade’s doctrine, as if it is something the reader must fully grasp before committing himself to it. It is enough that Catholic spiritual directors around the world have been recommending the book regularly now for some two hundred and fifty years. It has stood the test of time.

There are some concepts which, under whatever name, are fundamental to the spiritual life. Practicing the presence of God, for example, is one of these. And so is abandonment to Divine Providence—a simple yet profound idea which beckons all souls who love God. Not for nothing, for example, did Bishop R. Walter Nickless of Sioux City recently conclude a stirring pastoral letter on Church renewal by urging Fr. de Caussade’s insights upon all the priests, religious and laity of his diocese.

If you do not yet own or have not yet used this magnificent book, you should take advantage of the new Ignatius edition and purchase it. And if you have already gone through it some years past, you are probably now at a different stage of spiritual development, and so you may find it is time to make use of Fr. de Caussade once again. In fact, that is exactly what I intend to do.

St. John of the Cross – Principles for Detachment

These are the golden rules proposed by St. John of the Cross for total detachment: The soul must always be inclined ‘not to the easiest thing, but to the hardest; not to the tastiest, but to the most insipid; not to the things that give the greatest pleasure, but to those that give the least; not to the restful things, but to the painful ones; not to consolation, but to desolation; not to more, but to less; not to the highest and dearest, but to the lowest and most despised; not to the desire for something, but to having no desires.’ In this way, we shall gradually become accustomed to subduing this inordinate desire for pleasure, which is at the base of all attachments. It is like going against a current; hence it is a hard tiring task which can be accomplished only by strength of will. We must oppose the inclinations of nature and make ourselves do what is repugnant to nature. This is, however, a sweet task for a soul in love with God; it knows that everything it refuses to self is given to God and that, when it has reached the point of renouncing self in everything – of selling everything – God Himself will give it the precious pearl of divine union.

Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, O.C. D.

When the soul lives in God…

There is a time when the soul lives in God and a time when God lives in the soul. What is appropriate to one of these times is not fitting to the other.

When God lives in the soul, it should surrender itself completely to His providence. When the soul lives in God, it must take trouble to obtain for itself regularly and carefully, every possible means to achieve union with Him. The whole procedure is marked out – the readings, the examinations of conscience, the resolutions. Its guide is always present, everything is by rule, even the hours for conversation.

When God lives in the soul, it has nothing left of self, but only that which the Spirit imparts to it moment by moment. Nothing is provided for the future, no road is mapped out, but the soul is like a child who can be lead wherever one pleases, and has nothing but feeling to distinguish what is offered to it. No more books with marked passages for these souls; often they are even deprived of a regular spiritual director, for God allows them no other support than Himself. They dwell in darkness, forgotten and deserted, in death and nothingness. They suffer distresses and miseries without knowing where to find relief. Keeping their eyes toward Heaven alone, they wait peacefully and without fear for help to come. And God, who seeks no purer disposition in His loved ones than this entire surrender of self-interest in order to live by grace and divine operation alone, provides them with the necessary books, thoughts, self-understanding, advice and wise counsel. Everything that others discover by diligent searching these souls find in self-surrender. What others store up with care so they can find it again, these souls receive the very moment there is need of it, and afterwords they relinquish it again, taking only what God is willing to give, in order to live through Him alone.

Others undertake an infinity of good works for the glory of God, but these souls are often cast aside in a corner of the world like bits of broken crockery, apparently of no use to anyone. There these souls, forsaken by men but enjoying God with a very real, true and passionate, though deeply tranquil love, attempt nothing by their own impulse. They know only that they must surrender themselves and remain in God’s hands to be used by Him as He pleases. Often they do not know of what use they might be, but God knows well. The world considers them of no account, but it is nonetheless true that in mysterious ways and through hidden channels these souls spread abroad an infinite amount of grace on persons who often are unaware of them, people of whom these souls may themselves be unaware.

In these surrendered souls everything effectively preaches the Good News of the Gospel. God gives their silence, their quiet, their self-forgetfulness, their words and their gestures a certain virtue, which unknown to themselves, works in the hearts of those around them; and, just as they are guided by the random actions of innumerable creatures that are unknowingly influenced by grace, they themselves, in their turn, are used to support and guide others without any direct acquaintance with them or knowledge that this is what they are doing.

It is God who works in them in unforeseen and often unknown impulses. In this way they are like Jesus, from whom went out a secret virtue for the healing of others. There is this difference between Him and them: often they are not conscious of the outflow of this virtue and contribute nothing by way of co-operation. It is like a hidden balm which men perceive without recognizing, and which is itself unaware of its own healing virtue.

Father Jean-Pierre de Caussade – Click here to learn more about the writings of Father de Caussade.

The Joy of Full Surrender – Abandonment to Divine Providence

Abandonment to Divine Providence
By Father Jean-Pierre de Caussade

Abandonment to Divine Providence (also known in another translation as the Joy of Full Surrender)  has been a life-changing book for me. Aside from scripture, it is the only book that I have read through multiple times (at least three cover to cover). The great power of the book comes through Lectio Divina or meditation on the content versus reading at a purely intellectually level. Read in the former manner, it will provide rich spiritual transformation as you begin to recognize God’s loving presence in each moment. With this recognition and the resulting impact on our relationship with God,  we are better able to leave the challenges of the present and future completely in His hands. If you struggle with worry, anxiety, or if you desire to know Christ more fully each moment, this book is an unparalleled resource.

Seek Him – Find Him – Follow Him

Dan

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