Construction Work in my Soul and Fraternity among Priests

Scaffolding went up this week so that they can begin repairing the roof, and then begin year-long repair inside the presbytery. Great seeing the work begin!

Dear Friends and Family,

God's repairs and construction work in my soul.... will be particularly intense this next week for I will be making my annual retreat--at Douai Abbey, along with 14 other priests, under the direction of Fr. De Malleray, FSSP. Please pray for me! I will be praying for you.

Were the above scaffolding is full of workers, plus workers busy on the roof, plus workers busy inside the presbytery, all at the same time--each with his particular specialized tool, taking great care to do the work "just right--this would be nothing compared to the work that God is doing every single moment, when we let Him, in our soul. Think of it: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost truly live in our souls every single moment (barring mortal sin)--for God never sleeps. He is always at work with His Divine Wisdom, His Divine Life which is more full and rich than any life, than the work of the greatest craftsman, and He always desires to work on our soul. I wish I could see Him at work... well, hopefully one day in Heaven we'll get to see what He did in our souls.

In the meantime, a retreat is an especially blessed time for Him to work, because we are receptive, because we lay everything else aside to do the "one thing necessary" (Lk 10:42) as He says in the Gospel. Jesus values silence, prayer, retreat time so much that He gives us this astonishing scene in the Gospel. Martha is being quite charitable, moving about the house serving Jesus and the others in the home. Her sister is just sitting at Jesus' feet listening to His teaching. And yet when Martha asks if Mary can pull away to give her a hand, Jesus doesn't say, "sure," or "not right now, but that service is really important and she'll be with you in a while," nor "she can't because what you're doing is important but what she's doing is even more important."

No, Jesus makes the bold statement that Mary sitting there listening to Him is the only one thing that is necessary! Astonishing really. But it gives us an indication of how important silence, prayer, retreat is to Him. And priests have even more need of these things than others because there is much at stake in a priest's soul--not just his own soul but the souls of many, many others. The more his soul is docile to Jesus, the more that Jesus works at it to carve away what should be removed, to build up what is in His image, to make the soul more and more supple to Him, so that He can shine through the priest's soul, then the more other souls will benefit.

Well, I have a long, long way to go... and so am really looking forward to this coming week. The abbey is supposed to be in a beautiful setting out in the country. We will be given two talks a day--focussing on Our Lady and various aspects of the priesthood--have adoration, chanted vespers and compline, etc. Though the week will be in silence, we will be praying for each other and it will be interesting to meet the other priests, before and after the retreat. I know a few of them but the others will likely be new, coming from all over England.

One thing about living in such a pagan country is that the bonds of fraternity among priests tend to be stronger. On that note, this past Tuesday was a "clerical day" for me. I met a priest for lunch--who had been eager to have me come by for a visit, get to see his parish, etc. Among other things I hear about how his vocation developed--how he converted from being an Anglican because of the Real Presence in the Eucharist, etc. It was a very nice time--actually turned out to be about 3 hours. Then I drove back to Lanherne to meet a priest for Confession--so that we could each hear each other's Confessions. I've been blessed to do this weekly. Then, after a bit of time for prayer and work, I headed off to meet a local Anglican vicar and his wife for dinner at their home. Quite a different experience! He's a former policeman and was very welcoming, as was she. I can't say that I seem to have made any progress, unfortunately, on their conversion, but it was very interesting to learn more about the Anglican life of a vicar.

Well, the clock is about to strike and I need to head down to the chapel. I'll write you again after the retreat. Until then oremus pro invicem! (let us pray for each other).

In Cordibus Iesu et Mariae,
Fr. Pillari