We have a newly-ordained young priest serving at our parish these days. He is a very nice young man but seems out to change the world and all sinners single-handedly regardless of any example or instruction by the older priests. We all do a lot of head shaking about some of his ideas. He is well-meaning but overly anxious, I think. He kind of reminded me of a story an older priest once told me.
There was a young new priest who had gotten top grades in the seminary and was especially proficient at sermons and did well in all the practice settings. He was quite proud of his ability and just knew he would be putting it to fantastic use in his first assignment.
His first Mass came along and he worked long and hard to write his sermon for it, eager to share his font of extensive knowledge with the faith-parched parishioners. Mass arrived at the moment he had been waiting for and he walked up the steps to the pulpit with his shoulders thrown back and a sense of he own wellbeing in his heart. He looked out over the congregation, started to speak . . . and froze. His head started to pound as he desperately tried to remember how to begin the sermon he has worked on so long the night before. The seconds stretched into minutes and he quietly made his red-faced journey back down the stairs, completed Mass, and scuttled back into the sacristy too ashamed to go our to the front of the church and greet the parishioners.
The kindly, older priest patted him on the shoulder and the young priest cried out to him, "What happened? How could I have messed up my wonderful sermon that way?" The older priest said, "Father, if you have gone up to the pulpit like you came down, you would have come down from the pulpit like you went up."
No comments:
Post a Comment