Universalis, your very own breviary in pixels...

Sunday 30 March 2008

Where have all the priests gone? Time to man up

This is from the blog of the aforementioned Fr Cuyos, and it is from a story involving political intrigue and corruption in the Philippines, and I don't pretend to understand it, nor is it really relevant to my purposes.
Although it speaks of a specific moment, a particular situation and need, doesn't it apply beautifully to the current and really perpetual need for good Catholic men to man up, and give their lives to the Church?
Yes I know the expression meant "pair up" for athletic contest purposes, but it has evolved, and it's useful, it's more evocative than "be a man." And I absolutely refute those who insist recent calls for "manliness" or need to embrace "fatherhood" in the Church are some sort of code for the "heterosexual agenda," are veiled homophobia -- the essence of manliness is nothing less than accepting ones responsibility to protect those who are, and that which is, in need of protection. Caring for the weak, the small, the vulnerable, rather than for the self. (Why did some people get their knickers in a knot over the words "masculinity" or "fatherhood"? For the same reason that to nails, everything looks like a hammer.)
I saw the pain in your eyes when you asked where have all the priests ... gone, is there no one willing to say Mass for you which you said is the source of your strength?
I guess you can imagine the pain Christ suffered when in the garden of Gethsemani, when he was going through the most difficult moment of his life, yes more than on the cross, because here what was going to happen still he already saw in his mind and he sweated with blood (Mt. 22:44).
Here, all his imagination, his fears, his anxiety, doubts, were all mixed up, while on the cross it is just plain suffering and our body has a way of shutting off some pain automatically if they become too much to bear.
Here, all he asked was for some of his apostles, his chosen few, to keep vigil and give him company.
But every time he returns to them, they were all asleep. And he asked, echoing your question: Is there no one to stay awake for me?

No comments: