by Father Matt Nagle
On Saturday, Aug. 1, I woke up sore and tight from playing in the annual Pitching for Priests softball game. It is a great event and I’ve always enjoyed playing in it, even if at 41 the price is being sore for a day or two after. Pitching for Priests is also a reminder that none of us should “quit our day job,” as the saying goes.
Regardless, this particular Saturday was not going to be a time for rest and relaxation. I had to be at Assumption Church in Topeka by 8:30 a.m. to unlock and set up for a funeral at 10 a.m., then I needed to finish my homily for Sunday in time to be ready for a wedding in the early afternoon.
Though I didn’t know it in the morning, after the wedding I would get an emergency call to give an elderly woman dying in hospice “Last Rites.” Finally, I would hear confessions from 3 to 4:30 p.m. and say the 5 p.m. vigil Mass.
So, I grabbed my coffee and was off to the races.
While it was a busier Saturday than usual, it speaks to a dynamic every priest is familiar with: From celebration to grieving, the range of emotions we can go through in a day can be dramatic.
Saturday morning, I went from grieving with a family at a funeral, to celebrating with a couple at their wedding, to the somber affair of preparing a soul to leave this world. Finally, minutes after giving Last Rites, I found myself in the confessional with a very full line of penitents for First Saturday confession.
The point is not that the parish priest has a busy or emotionally taxing job. The point is that a priest is called to be an “alter Christus” — another Christ.
So, when we grieve with a family at a funeral, Christ is mourning with that family through the priest, as our Lord once wept at the grave of Lazarus.
When a couple joyfully celebrates the sacrament of holy matrimony, it is Christ who celebrates with them through the priest, as Jesus once celebrated at the wedding at Cana.
When a priest goes to a parishioner’s deathbed, it is Christ who through the priest visits and accompanies the dying, as he once accompanied his foster father St. Joseph on his deathbed.
And when the priest dispenses mercy in the confessional, it is Christ himself through the priest who absolves and forgives, as our Lord once forgave the woman caught in adultery of her sins.
Was Saturday, Aug. 1, an exhausting day? Yes, in the very best way possible.
It is also the kind of day that makes me think I wouldn’t quit my day job even if I were a good ballplayer.
