Michael Phelan - The Young Priest\'s Keepsake
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Michael Phelan >> The Young Priest\'s Keepsake
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8 THE YOUNG PRIEST'S KEEPSAKE
By MICHAEL J. PHELAN, S.J.
Second Edition.
DUBLIN
M. H. GILL AND SON, LTD.
AND WATERFORD
1909
1st. Edition MAY, 1909.
2nd. -- Enlarged, NOV., 1909.
PREFACE
This little book is written in the hope that it may assist young
priests and ecclesiastical students to meet the demands which the
life before them has in store.
Works specially suited to the priest, the layman and the nun are
happily abundant; but to the young man standing on the threshold
of his career as a priest, how few are addressed. Yet it is while
his character is in the formative stage, and his weapons are
still in the shaping, that advice and direction are of most
practical value.
The writer brings to his task only one qualification on which he
can rely--his own personal experience.
After having gone through a long course of preparation in Irish
ecclesiastical colleges, he lived for nearly thirteen years on
the Australian mission, and is now completing a decade spent in
giving missions and retreats in all parts of Ireland. Of the
college, therefore, and of the foreign and home missions he can
speak with whatever authority a long experience and ordinary
powers of observation are supposed to give.
In dealing with the foreign mission he does not rely solely on
his own judgment. Many matters here treated of he heard
repeatedly discussed by priests abroad, who bitterly deplored
that, while in college, they knew so little of the life before
them, and regretted that there was then no kind friend to take
them by the hand and show them what was in store when the day
came for them to plunge into a life that was strange and entirely
new. It is to be hoped that this modest volume will, in part at
least, discharge the office of that friend.
It may appear, at first sight, that when writing the fourth
chapter, "On Pulpit Oratory," the author had before his mind an
elaborate discourse, such as is expected only on great occasions.
This is not so.
It is true that the various parts of a sermon, when detailed in
analysis, may seem, like the works of a watch spread out on a
table, bewilderingly numerous and complex. But when we come to
construct, it will be found that in synthesis the distracting
number of small parts will disappear, to coalesce and form the
few main principles on which either a sermon or a watch is built.
These principles are essential to every discourse, no matter how
brief. As the humble seven-and-sixpenny "Waterbury" requires its
springs and levers equally with the hundred-guinea "repeater," so
the twenty minutes' sermon, to be effective, must have a fixed
plan and definite sequence as well as the more ambitious effort.
Most of these chapters were written originally for the "Mungret
Annual," with a view to assist the apostolic students who are
now, as priests, rendering such splendid service to the Church of
God abroad. And it was the very generous reception accorded the
articles in the ecclesiastical colleges that suggested the idea
of presenting them in the more lasting form of a book.
Sacred Heart College, Limerick,
_March_ 17, 1909, Feast of St. Patrick.
PREFACE
TO THE SECOND EDITION
The rapid sale of the first edition of this work surprised no one
more than the author. It was not addressed to the public in
general, but to a limited section; the price, while moderate,
could not be called cheap; yet within a little over two months
the entire edition was exhausted.
It is impossible to express my deep gratitude to the reviewers.
From them the book met with a chorus of approving welcome,
without even one jarring note. To all I now tender my grateful
thanks; but the author of "My New Curate" has placed me under a
special obligation for his thoughtful critique in the _Freeman's
Journal_, and Ibh Maine for his friendly review in the _Leader_.
Nor should I omit to thank the ecclesiastical colleges, that not
only pardoned the blunt candour of some of the chapters, but gave
the book a more than cordial reception.
The present edition includes two entirely new chapters--the two
last--extending over 45 pages. It is hoped that the added matter
will prove of as much interest as those chapters of the first
edition which received such a hearty welcome.
College of the Sacred Heart, Limerick,
_September_ 29, 1909, Feast of St. Michael.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER FIRST
CULTURE: ITS NECESSITY TO A YOUNG PRIEST
CHAPTER SECOND
ENGLISH: ITS NECESSITY TO A YOUNG PRIEST
CHAPTER THIRD
SHOULD A YOUNG PRIEST WRITE HIS SERMONS?
CHAPTER FOURTH
HOW SHOULD THE YOUNG PRIEST PREPARE HIS SERMONS?
CHAPTER FIFTH
A SOPHISTRY EXPOSED--ADVICE GIVEN--
THEOLOGIAN AND PREACHER--THE DIFFERENCE
CHAPTER SIXTH
THE ART OF ELOCUTION
CHAPTER SEVENTH
THE DANGER OF THE HOUR. HOW TO MEET IT
CHAPTER EIGHTH
THE YOUNG PRIEST'S ACTIVITIES
CHAPTER FIRST
CULTURE: ITS NECESSITY TO A YOUNG PRIEST
If you question any priest of experience and observation who has
lived on the foreign mission, and ask him what constitutes the
greatest drawbacks, what seriously impedes the efficiency of our
young priests abroad, without hesitation he will answer--First,
want of social culture; and, secondly, a defective English
education.
To the first of these this chapter will be exclusively devoted,
while the subject of English will be dealt with in the chapter to
follow.
[Side note: The case stated]
One of the great disadvantages of living in an island is that we
get so few opportunities of seeing ourselves as others see us.
When you seriously attempt to impress the necessity of culture on
the student preparing for the foreign mission he generally pities
you. In his eyes culture is a trifle, suited perhaps to the
serious consideration of ladies and dancing masters, but utterly
unworthy of one thought from a strong-minded or intellectual man.
But you tell him that without it the world will sneer at him. He
then pities the world, and replies--"What do I care about the
world's thoughtless sneer; have I not a priestly heart and a
scholar's head?"
That reply, if he were destined to live in a wilderness, would be
conclusive. An anchorite may attain a very high degree of
sanctity and yet retain all his defects of character--his
crudity, selfishness, vulgarity. While grace disposes towards
gentleness it does not destroy nature. There is no essential
connection between holiness and polished manners.
Nor does scholarship either require or supply culture. A mastery
of the "Summa" will not prevent you from doing an awkward action.
Dr. Johnson's learning was the marvel of his age, but his manners
were a by-word. So, if your only destiny was to be a scholar or a
hermit, manners need give you little trouble.
But your vocation is to be an apostle; to go out amongst men; to
be the light for their darkness, the salt for their corruption;
the aim and goal of your operations are human hearts. This being
granted, are you not bound to sweep from your path every
impediment that prevents your arm from reaching these hearts? But
the most effective barrier standing between you and them is
ill-formed manners.
The laws of good society, the refinement of gentlemanly culture
may, from your standpoint, be the merest trifles; but they become
no trifles when without them your right hand is chained from
reaching human souls.
The only remaining question is, Does the world to-day place such
a high value on good manners that if I go into it without them my
efforts will be in a large degree neutralised? Entertain not a
shadow of doubt on that point, such is the fact.
[Side note: Protestants and Catholics demand culture in the
Priest]
Proud and pampered society will never bend its stubborn neck and
submit itself to the guidance of a man who, judged by its own
standard--the only one it acknowledges--is far from being up to
the level; an object of contempt perhaps, at best of pity. In its
most generous mood it is slow and cautious to take you on trust;
its cold analysis searches you; your unplaned corners offend its
taste; and except in every detail you answer to its rule and
level you are disdainfully thrust aside.
Catholics, while they esteem a mere fop at his just value, expect
their priest to rise above the sneers of the most censorious and,
if possible, to challenge the respect of all. They are proud of
their priest; and surely it is not too much to expect on his part
that he will do his best not to make them ashamed of him.
Their Protestant neighbours know of this pride; and if they can
but lay a finger on his evident defects they will glut their
inborn hatred of the Church by hitting the Catholics on the
sensitive nerve, by galling them by caricature and derision of
the _gauche_ manners of the priest.
Protestant young men, too, will appeal to the pride of their
Catholic companions; and an appeal to pride is generally a trump
card. They will ask--"Is it possible that gentlemen could submit
themselves to the guidance of a clergyman whose manners are
unformed and whose English is marred by provincialisms and
defective accent?"
In speaking of accents, let me say here I do not ask the young
priest to commit the signal folly of attempting to ingraft an
imported accent on his own native one. No! He should speak as an
Irishman, but as an educated Irishman.
[Side note: By foreign Canons you will be judged]
The fatal mistake on the part of a young priest would be to take
Irish opinion as the standard by which he will be judged outside
Ireland. In Ireland we call these things trifles, because the
people whose eyes are filled with the rich light of warm faith
see the _priest_ alone, and are blind, or at least generously
indulgent, to the defects of the _man_.
Reverse this, and you have the accurate measure by which you will
be judged abroad. The _man_ and his defects alone are seen; the
_priest_ and the sublimity of his state are entirely lost sight
of. The world judges what it can understand--the _man_ alone.
Hence the student preparing for the foreign mission may take this
as an axiom:--_If people cannot respect you as a gentleman, on
the non-Catholic world your influence is nil; and even on your
own Catholic people it will sit very lightly_. But he replies--
"This is not logical, for a man may be an excellent priest, a
good scholar, without social accomplishments." All that I admit,
but age and experience will teach him that logic does not rule
the world; some of its greatest actions could not bear the
pressure of a syllogism. We must meet the world as it is, not as
we would make it. Is it not you who show logical weakness in
preparing for this ideal world that has no existence outside your
own dreams and ignoring the world of hard facts you will have to
face?
[Side note: No argument to be drawn from the Apostles]
You then appeal to facts and say, Look at the apostles. Let me
answer--first, you do not attempt to imply that crudity was a
help to them. If so, how? Now, the most you can say is that in
spite of it they succeeded. But you forget that they had the gift
of miracles, and a sanctity so evident that their passport was
secure despite their defects.
Unless you can produce the same sanctity and miracles your
argument falls to the ground. But to the statement itself--Were
not the apostles men of manners? Some, it is true, before their
call had little connection with schools, but we may rest assured
that three years under such a teacher as they had did wonders.
They must be dull indeed not to read the living lesson their
Master's character daily taught. His tenderness, His courteous
dignity, and gentle consideration for others were such that in a
man we would say they almost bordered on weakness; this was the
living model on which they daily gazed and pondered.
This Master then sent them forth to "all nations." They were to
mix with the white-robed senators in Rome, and dispute with the
highest intellects of polished Athens, to force an entrance into
every circle of social life. Could we imagine God sending them
forth to that task encumbered with defects that would paralyse
their mission if not ensure its defeat.
We must also take into account the gifts of Pentecost. What a
change these wrought! The Holy Spirit enriched their intellects
and perfected their moral virtues; their trembling wills became
braced as iron pillars. For what purpose? To prepare and equip
them for their destined mission. Is it not natural to suppose
that the same Divine Power swept their characters free from every
impediment that could hamper their ministry? So the appeal to the
apostles is gratuitous.
[Side note: Culture necessary for domestic life]
In dealing with this question a young priest is to consider more
than his flock. Priests on the foreign mission live community
life, in hourly contact with each other. You cannot realise the
agony a man inflicts on others by coarse or unpolished manners.
The toil of a priest's day is severe, but the hardest day is mere
summer pastime compared with the crushing thought of having to
turn home to a boorish companion. This living martyrdom reaches
its most acute stage when, in society, a man is forced to witness
a brother priest expose the raw spots of his character to the
vitriolic cynicism of the scoffer.
But the importance of this subject is by no means exclusive to
the foreign mission. In Ireland, of late, a spirit of criticism
has shown itself, often exacting even to fastidiousness; so far
from time being likely to blunt it, everything points to the
probability of its edge growing sharper with years. And the young
Irish priest of the future who dares to trample on the canons of
good taste need expect scant mercy.
[Side note: To arms]
My advice to all ecclesiastical students is--search and see if
unmannerly ways are ingrafting themselves into your character. If
so, give them no quarter. Master an approved handbook, and during
the recreations raise discussions on details of good manners. Ask
your friends candidly to point out your defects. It is far easier
to be admonished by one friend whose correction is swathed in
soft charity than await till a dozen sneerers send their poisoned
arrows to fester in your heart. In correcting yourselves and
asking your friends to admonish you, it will assist you to pocket
your pride, to remember that three such weighty issues as the
efficiency of your ministry, the honour of the priesthood, and
the comfort of your future home will in a large measure be
influenced by the degree of social culture you carry out of
college.
No man has greater need to fear than he who stands high in his
class. When any habit becomes fixed it requires a high degree of
humility and moral courage to root it out. But, intellectual
pride, nourished by college triumphs, is up in arms. He scorns to
be corrected or taught by a world he despises. Let me ask, did
God give him these intellectual gifts for himself or as
instruments by which to win souls back to their Father? The man
who, rather than bend his own pride, allows his talents to become
useless incurs an awful responsibility.
Stubbornly refuse to be corrected or to shape and polish your
manners while in college, and one thing I absolutely promise you,
with all the authority a long experience can give, that when you
do go out from the college you will meet a master that will bend
and break you. The roasting fire of the world's scorn will search
the very marrow of your bones.
CHAPTER SECOND
ENGLISH: ITS NECESSITY TO A YOUNG PRIEST
Let me begin by asking one plain question--If all the scholastic
wealth with which St. Thomas has enriched the world lay embedded
in the mind of a Missionary priest: if he more than rivalled
Suarez as a casuist, and Bellarmine as a controversialist, yet if
he failed to acquire a mastery over the only instrument by which
he could bring to bear the riches of his own intellect on the
minds of those around him, of what value is all the wealth
entombed within his head?
If he has acquired no command of the rich vocabulary, the
graceful elegance of diction, the mysterious beauty of
expression, the abundant illustration, the art of storing nervous
vigour and living thought into crisp and pregnant terseness: if
this one weapon, a finished English education, is not at his
disposal, his knowledge, as far as others are concerned, is so
much lumber: to the one spot alone--the Confessional--his
efficiency is narrowed. The other fields of his ministry are
deprived of the immense service this learning might afford.
Let us see how this works out in practice. The unctions of
ordination are scarcely dry on your hands till you begin to
realise what you never realised before--viz., that in the most
literal sense of the word you belong to the Church Militant.
You go out from college, you are quickly confronted with
opposition. At once your brain begins to hew arguments of massive
solidity; had you but the skill with which to hurl them you would
overwhelm the stoutest foe. This skill you have not got, you
never mastered the sciences by which you could smite the
aggressor. With rage you, perhaps for the first time, realise
your own deficiency. Your arms are pinioned by helpless ignorance
of the use of what should be one of the first weapons of the
priest. Your thoughts now struggle for birth, but are fated to
die stillborn, while the foe laughs you in the face.
Is this not a sad pity: _yet it is an everyday fact_.
There are sixty millions of Irish money lying in the banks
throughout this country, yet the nation is perishing from
atrophy, starving for want of commercial nourishment. If the gold
now piled in banks were but circulated through the channels of
industry, every limb of national life would pulse with new
vigour, the remotest corner of the land would feel the influence
of the golden current; so, within the mind of the priest may be
hoarded treasures of deepest learning, but unless he has the art
of minting and circulating through his parish the glittering coin
of polished thought, though his brain be an _El Dorado_ of
wealth, that parish will run into spiritual bankruptcy.
"You are the Light of the World," said Christ to His Apostles.
The same, in effect, He will say to the young priest the day he
sets out to continue the work they began; but how will that
light, of which he is the bearer, reach the darkened world for
which God has destined it if he neglects to arm himself with the
light-diffuser: the only medium of communication between him and
his people? Though the sun is poised in the firmament above us,
this earth would remain for ever wrapped in midnight darkness
were it not that there is an interposing medium--whatever it
be--to waft to us its heat waves and carry its splendours to the
tiniest nook and crevice. The language, its graces and powers,
are for the priest the instruments by which darkened minds are
illumined, by which the clear rays of living truth are flashed
into their gloom.
The man that neglects to acquire a mastery of this instrument
incurs a great responsibility.
The devil, too, has a message to deliver, a message of error; but
at his command there are not only perverse intellects but all the
elegance of polished language and all the persuasive graces of
elocution.
[Side note: An illustration from everyday life]
Let me take an illustration from everyday life. A Catholic child
under his father's roof has religion instilled into him. He goes
to school, and here his knowledge is developed and enlarged. From
the schoolroom he is transplanted into the world to strike roots
if he can in stubborn soil and preserve his faith amidst the
ice-chills of infidelity.
Foes beset him on every side. He turns to the public library. The
infidel review is crisp in style, its arguments catchy, and the
brilliancy of its diction captivates. The pages of the
fashionable novel are strewn with the rose leaves of literature:
the plot enthrals. The arguments of the free-thought lecturer are
well reasoned, the sophistries artistically concealed, whilst his
mastery over the graces of elocution holds his audience
spell-bound.
The young man staggers. He now turns to where he should expect to
find strength. Under the pulpit next Sunday is a mind where the
mists of doubt are gathering and darkening. He looks up to the
"Light of the World" to have these mists dispelled. Instead of
seeing his foes battered with their own weapons he sees these
weapons, that in every domain are conquering for the devil, here
despised.
He is forced to listen, perhaps, to an exhibition of tedious
crudity. He goes away disheartened; perhaps to fall.
Now, the solid theological knowledge in that preacher's head is
more than sufficient to shatter the arguments of infidelity; the
analytic power acquired during his college course would enable
him to tear every sophistry to shreds; but the art of making both
of these effective for the pulpit, the mastery of clear and
nervous English, the elocution that sends every argument like a
quivering arrow of light to its mark, these he neglected, or
perhaps contemned.
This is our weak spot; here our position wants strengthening.
Sit by the fireside with that preacher and suggest the
advisability of cultivating English and elocution. He replies: "I
have two thousand souls to look after, sodalities to work up,
schools to organise, and attend, perhaps, four sick calls in one
night." No, _not now, but long years before_, he should have been
trained. It is not on the battlefield, when the bugle is sounding
the "charge," that the soldier should begin to learn the use of
his weapons. In the college, and not on the field of action, is
the place to acquire this science.
[Side note: A ruinous advice]
One of the most fatal directions ever tendered to Irish students
is--devote all your college years to Classics, Philosophy, and
Theology _exclusively_--these are your professional studies--and
when you become a curate it will be time to master English and
Elocution.
Analyse this and see what it means. Do not learn English or its
expression till you are flung into a village without a soul to
stimulate or encourage you; or, worse still, till you find
yourself in the fierce whirl of an English or American city.
"Wait till you are in the pulpit and then begin to learn to
preach" is very like advising a man to wait till he is drowning
and then it will be time enough to learn how to swim. Would any
sane man give such an advice to an aspirant of the fine arts?
What would be thought of the man who would say--"If you wish to
become a good musician neglect to learn the scales till you come
to your twenty-fifth year; or if it is your ambition to be a
great painter, permit a quarter of a century to roll over your
head before you learn how to hold the palette or mix the paints."
The man that would tender such ridiculous advice would be laughed
at. Yet it is not one whit more absurd than the transparent
nonsense that has grown hoary from age, and passes unchallenged
as a first principle.
It is often asked how is it that the Irish Church has remained so
barren.
Eighty years have passed since the bells of the thatched chapels
rang in Emancipation. During that time over three thousand
talented priests are on the land; yet how small the number of
works produced. Why such a miserable result? What has sterilised
the intellects of these men? Mainly this fatal advice. How could
we have literary tastes among the priests in their pastoral life
when such tastes were either frowned down during their college
career or postponed to a period when their cultivation became an
impossibility.
[Side note: You must begin while young]
No man can become a preacher without becoming a writer first. I
need not labour this proposition. A single quotation from the
highest authority establishes it. When Cicero was asked the
question--"How can I become an orator?" his one answer was--
"_Scribere quam plurimum_." The first step to oratorica eminence
was--write as much as possible.
Now, ask any distinguished writer when did _he_ begin to
cultivate a literary taste. He will tell you with Pope that he
"lisped in numbers." He began almost with the dawn of reason. If,
then, pen practice must be the first step towards pulpit success,
it is while the fancy is tender that it should be trained; while
the receptive powers are hungry in youth they should be fed;
while the habits of thought are fresh and flexible they should be
exercised. Wait till the hoar frost of age nips the rich blooms
of imagination and stiffens the once nimble powers of the mind,
and the cast-iron habits of maturer years have settled on you:
literary culture is then an impossibility.
What does this culture imply? A developed insight into the
beauties of thought; a just appreciation of style; an intimate
acquaintance with the best authors; an abundant vocabulary and
graceful expression. Can these be acquired in a year? or is the
time for acquiring them seasoned manhood?
How worthless and pernicious is this one word "Wait," here more
than ever, where mastery of language is in question. But a glance
shows how much more absurd it is to let a man pass out of his
teens before putting him through a thorough course of elocution.
It is while the muscles of throat and lungs are as flexible as a
piece of Indiarubber, and the young ear sensitive to every
_nuance_ of sound, the future priest must learn to articulate, to
pronounce correctly, to husband his breathing, to bend his voice
with ease and mastery through the varied octaves of human
passion.
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