In the Easter season, we celebrate our faith lives in many ways. Our children are drawn to the altar for first Communion after months of preparation. Many adults, born again in baptism, unfold the beauty of their commitment in the weeks of Easter. We entrust our parishes, our people and our future to the Holy Spirit as we prepare for Pentecost. In these Easter days, our commitments deepen, growing into full blossom like spring gardens.

Last May, I had a remarkable conversation with one of our men in the Congregation of Holy Cross who was celebrating 65 years of priesthood. Standing in the hallway after the jubilee liturgy, I asked him for his advice about our future, as believers in Jesus and as members of our religious community. His immediate, unhesitating response: “We need to live and act with audacious holiness.” At age 92 he needed to lean on his cane, yet his words were strong with conviction. “We must find a way to live with such intention,” he said. “This is what will be our survival.”

If priesthood is to remain genuine in our world, he explained, we must act out of the love God has for us, with prayer on the tips of our tongues because God is the bedrock of our souls. He cautioned against getting wrapped up in self-congratulatory language; our importance is not embedded in our academic credentials, and we do not need to blow a trumpet to call attention to our accomplishments. Priesthood is not about making us look good and should never put us on a pedestal among our people. There in that hallway, the jubilarian told me to watch my own heart and not get trapped with a sense of privilege that keeps me from accepting God’s treasure of forgiveness and love.

He told me of our need to evince more deeply that we are followers of Jesus. We need mouths that proclaim such fidelity and actions that extend such kindness toward others, to be bearers of the mystery that God loves and accepts all people. Without those things, he added, we may be at fault for our declining numbers of priests and the uncrowded pews on Sundays.

Complete Surrender to Christ

This holy man has survived long stretches of despair, his soul spread across several continents, and the aches of his body now are nothing compared to the anguish he experienced overseas. I realize it took him many years of pain and letting go to know God deeply, and his wise comments continue to urge me to change. In this Easter season, we all need new reasons to transform our clumsy commitments into open vessels to receive God’s presence and love. We have another opportunity in springtime to offer the world not our resistance, but our ability to live in the freedom of God’s faithfulness.

As I reflect on our jubilarian’s comments, I am certain that we need evermore to experience the love and forgiveness God has for us. As clergy, we have lived lives amid rules and constitutions, learning how to please others and satisfy people’s complaints. We have grown into siding with one group or another and have protected ourselves from the vulnerability of really being known by people we love. We have tossed and turned in the nighttime and grown deaf to the chirping of birds before sunrise. In springtime, in the glorious days of Christ’s resurrection, perhaps we need to hear more clearly the song of God’s love and fidelity within us, as well as trust the ways God is calling us to his side and sending us into the world to people who need us.

As the days of Easter unfold, so do we witness that “audacious holiness” is complete surrender to Christ, and feel the hope that others will be set free because of our acceptance to live in God alone. My conversation with the jubilarian continues to remind me that fear is useless. Inner freedom is our hallway encounter with Christ that may just change everything.

FATHER RONALD PATRICK RAAB, CSC, serves as religious superior at Holy Cross House, a medical facility and retirement home for the Congregation of Holy Cross, Notre Dame, Indiana. Learn more at www.ronaldraab.com.