From his years of seminary formation preceding his lifetime of service to the Church, every priest knows the importance of giving priority to spending quiet time with the Lord lest the busy schedule that shapes his pastoral life take precedence over his vocational call. He has to be a contemplative actor and an active contemplative, who experiences God’s presence in who he is and in what he does.

There is an old Japanese tale about a garden that has two ponds with colorful carp swimming in them. One pond has a center stone that the carp circle with a sure and steady pace; the other has no stone, so the fish swim in erratic directions. The carp in the first pond become fat and healthy, whereas those in the second become thin and sickly.

The moral of the story is not hard to find. When Christ is the center of a priest’s life, he tends to be more calm, recollected and at peace. Each day of dedication has a plan and a purpose. When a priest is decentered, he feels fragmented and less effective. He may start to fret about everything from the news of the day to the financial security of the parish. Hopefully, the pond he chooses will be the one most in keeping with the invitation to pause and pray in a quiet place as Jesus did (Lk 5:15- 16).

The more the demands of ministry proliferate — adapting to new Mass schedules, presiding at weddings and funerals, attending meetings, visiting the elderly and the sick, hearing confessions — the more priests need to hear and heed the call to be in deeper union and communion with the Lord and Master of their life from birth to death. Only if they gather together in prayer the often-scattered fragments of their own and their parishioners’ lives can they be at one and the same time like Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus and Martha doing her daily work (Lk 10:38-42).

A Transformative Perspective

This blessed integration of contemplation and action grants priests the graced opportunity to model the ultimate harmony and lucidity that bind them to the Son of God, especially during their celebration of the Eucharist. At every Mass they invite the risen Christ to dwell in the inmost chambers of their heart, as well as in the mundane details of the sometimes sinful, sometimes saintly habitation that is our earthly home.

A priest’s contemplative presence opens him to the awesome truth that every facet of creation participates in the love of God, from a newborn baby to a dying parent. He has a gift for elucidating the simplest acts of service in the light of divine revelation. This dynamic, transforming power of priestly perception flows from the Holy Spirit into a priest’s human spirit, deepening his prayer life and enabling him to participate daily in Christ’s mission to establish his reign on earth.

Equanimity, tranquility, inner radiance and joy characterize a priest’s life more than divisive moods and inexplicable outbursts of anger. He longs to enjoy intimate union with the Lord and to live as a humble servant in his Church. That is why he treats with equal respect people of means or no means at all. Rich or poor, robust or weak, priests voice Christ’s concern and proclaim the wonder of his resurrected glory everywhere. Their preaching may at times carry the faithful to a new sense of the meaning of life that is both ineffable and effective.

In words and in the silence of their hearts, priests ponder and preach about the graced possibility of our meeting Jesus in an eternal face-to-face. The master-disciple relationship they model sharpens their response to Christ’s indwelling majesty; it cautions them to see how and why they ought never to neglect to respond to Christ’s invitation to replace any narcissistic tendency by the intention of giving themselves totally to God in their everyday situation.

Serenety Based on Love

Despite their attempts to integrate contemplation and action, priests know from experience that the inclination to self-centeredness does not disappear. It lingers like a viral infection, poisoning in subtle ways their spiritual intuition and motivation. That is why they rely on the Lord to help them see how and why the mystery of iniquity has such a hold on the People of God morally and spiritually.

Knowing that crevices of egoism widen when they least expect it, priests guard their hearts by practicing the virtues of contrition, compassion and renewed commitment to the Gospel. They resist sheer busyness and cultivate a quiet heart, freed from worry about the past or anxiety about the future.

Serenity of spirit facilitates every priest’s attunement to the push and pull of merely functional preoccupations. Calm and collected presence to Christ, especially during the celebration of the Eucharist, gives priests a perspective from which to cope with the conflicts and challenges of their apostolic service Especially amid such traumatic circumstances as sudden illness or the death of a loved one, priests try not to let doubts assail their faith in Christ’s promise that he will be with us until the end of the world (Mt 28:20).

This Christ-conscious mode of presence enables priests to be both attached and detached, enjoying what they have to do but not becoming depressed if their plans fail. Even in failure they catch a glimpse of the splendor the risen Christ has in store for his humble servants. They may find themselves saying to the Lord in the intimacy of prayer, “I am your disciple and my only desire is to do your will; I am nothing and you are all. I am yours and you are mine.”

Such “intimacy breaks” express how much priests love Jesus and thank him for the privilege of working in concert with him. This encounter is at once contemplative and active; it seals their friendship with the Lord, whose love they share with others and in whose presence they live and move and have their being (Acts 17:28).

Attention to the Spirit

There can be no better way of priests being drawn into contemplative awareness than their longing to come into the closest possible intimacy with the Trinity and with the everlasting love that embraces and sustains their existence.

Accompanying this bent toward remaining in loving awareness of God is a growing preference to wait upon the Spirit with a general, loving attention. It is as if a priest senses in awe: “I see God and God sees me.” In the light of this awareness, it ought not to surprise priests that some might label such experiences a “waste of time.” But, for them, this intimacy confirms a deeper stirring at work, one that leads them, little by little, to a more sublime knowledge of God infused into their soul, and it offers many experiences of this blessed ebb and flow of contemplation and action.

Priests know how false it is to conclude that functionality and spirituality belong in separate compartments. Awe for the sacred dimension of reality is what enables them to be more effective. Such complementarity is the hallmark of integrated living. On the one hand, priests must make practical judgments daily; on the other hand, they must pause to listen to God’s providential design for their life.

Integrating divine worship and daily work allows them to rejoice in the gifts they have received, in the richness of the ordinary and in its moment-by-moment demands and delights. They do their best to avoid compartmentalized living. They begin to treasure everything from the smallest sign of God’s goodness to the wonder of cosmic creation. Such dispositions allow priests to behold the universe and its history, from the beginning to the end of time, as a radiant epiphany of God’s mystery.

The Blessing of Divine Intimacy

Such an encounter with Christ has no need for constant consolations. It is enough for priests to know that their beloved is with them in the valley of everyday life as well as on an occasional mountain peak. Their best exchanges are those expressed in silence. When asked why they feel so content, they may respond, “My beloved is with me, and I am with him.” Feelings come and go like desert winds followed by sudden rain. What lasts is the wonder of this unitive presence, which is as all-encompassing as it is undeserved.

In simplicity and humility, priests obey the graced invitation to offer the complete gift of themselves to God. In the ordinary round of daily endeavors, they enjoy the extraordinary blessing of becoming servants at the service of the sacred. Having given so completely of their will to God’s will, they need not fear growing weary. The fiat of fidelity makes their efforts seemingly effortless. The Lord himself quiets their inner house from disruption by a barrage of endless distractions and draws them to union with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The grace of their priestly commitment makes them ever more mindful of what it means to thank God daily for favors granted, for promises fulfilled, and for hopes yet to be realized.

Day by day, they strive to become, thanks to the grace of God, exemplary worshippers in spirit and truth, effective workers in the vineyard of the Lord whose priestly vocations bear lasting fruit not only in their parish but also throughout the entire story of salvation history.

SUSAN MUTO, Ph.D., is executive director of the Epiphany Institute for Formative Spirituality in Pittsburgh and author of “Enter the Narrow Gate: Saint Benedict’s Steps to Christian Maturity” (OSV, $15.95) among numerous other books.