Serving Our Priests

Perhaps this is a question or something similar that has entered your mind when you hear about the annual priest retreat that we hold during the first week of August each year.

To be honest, I even question myself and Jesus each year, wondering if we are indeed in line with His will. I question Jesus about the fact that I have nothing to offer; I am not in any way intellectually superior to the priests—I cannot even begin to hold an in-depth theological conversation with them at an academic level. And each year, despite my doubts, the Lord confirms with me that He does indeed desire us to serve and love on our priests because they are suffering incredible poverty.

You might be wondering what kind of poverty priests experience, as we are accustomed to the priests in the States; they do not suffer too harshly from material poverty, but indeed can suffer a great deal from spiritual poverty, which oftentimes goes unnoticed. Here in Peru, our priests suffer greatly both materially and spiritually. They are ridiculed by their parents because they cannot help support them in their old age, they are faced with an inconceivably large parish to shepherd, leaving them often overtasked and overburdened, which affects their spiritual journey with the Lord. Perhaps an even more grim reality is that they struggle when they see their brother priests renounce their vocation to the priesthood.

The fact is that when we started hosting the priest retreat, we had 33 priests; we are now down to 26 Priests. We lost one to an accident as he fell from a tall ladder when he was cleaning the church windows. Another has been removed from his duties as not fit to serve, two have retired, and lastly, three have discerned out of the priesthood after serving for two to four years in our diocese and now have been allowed to return to be laymen, with one of them even marrying.

So, you can see why I would question if it is worth hosting a priest retreat, as the goal that my heart desired is not really working. But praise be to God, I stumbled across this quote from Fr. Gerald Fitzgerald, “In strengthening the priest, you strengthen the whole Church… Strengthen the priest and you strengthen the whole foundation, you strengthen everything in the Church.”

I didn’t know who Father Gerald Fitzgerald was, so I had to learn more. I found that Father Fitzgerald desired to help his brother priests who were struggling spiritually, who were under attack, and he even opened a home for struggling priests.

I share this for several reasons. First, I pray it will help encourage you not to be discouraged when you do not see the outcomes of your desires. Secondly, I pray it will inspire you to find ways to encourage and support priests. You may recognize that, yes, they are to be our spiritual fathers, but we need to remember that “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it” (1 Cor 12:26). So, we need to lift up our priests in prayer. We need to remember that they are human and not superhuman. We should be eager to take on the attitude of prayer and penance, and to grow in the gift of compassion and mercy for our priests.

The poor priests from our dioceses, along with our bishop and a guest priest from Trujillo were invited to lead talks and formation for the retreat. The theme for this year’s retreat was from the Gospel of Matthew, where Jesus says, “I desire mercy, not sacrifices” (Matthew 9:13). And praise God that all of them were able to share meals and share their struggles and glory stories with one another. They celebrated Mass together, played games, and just relaxed for the week. This was one of the many desires of the retreat, and God allowed this to happen. All glory and honor are His!

May we together learn to love like Jesus!