Recently, at the Oratory of Ss. Gregory and Augustine in St. Louis where I’m the Vice-Rector, we were privileged to host a first Mass of a new priest. It was a glorious affair. The music was heavenly, the beautiful vestments were newly commissioned from the Benedictine sisters in Gower, Missouri (one of whom literally is the new priest’s sister), and the pews were packed with the faithful.
After Holy Mass, the parish children made quick work of the sheet cake served at the reception while Father Kalinowski remained in the Church for well over an hour to give blessings at the altar rail. I’ve been to numerous first Masses now (I even offered one once!) and they’re always special, celebratory liturgies. Same with the ordination Mass. The church is always packed and people are so happy to pray with the new priests that the joy is palpable.
This week, we’re celebrating the patron saint of priests, St. John Vianney, who was ordained on August 13, 1815. He offered his first Holy Mass the next morning on the 14th. As far as we know, none of his family attended the ordination. His first Mass was a low Mass with only a single server. No one else was physically present. To get to Grenoble, the city in France where his ordination took place, Vianney walked 60 miles on foot.
What a contrast between Vianney’s ordination week and that of priests today! He probably didn’t mind. My guess is he was thrilled just to have made it through seminary after having a tough go of it academically. At the age of 29, he was finally a priest. After ordination, he was sent to the small village of Ars where his superiors hoped he couldn’t do too much damage. They worried his preaching would be lackluster and the demands of the job in a larger parish would get the better of him. So off to Ars he was sent, a sleeping country parish. Off to exercise his priesthood in obscurity and, essentially, be forgotten.
Being invisible
There are still lots of small parishes in rural communities or hollowed-out urban areas, and after a first, big triumphant Mass, some new priests are assigned to out-of-the-way places where they may feel isolated and forgotten. Sure, they love their small communities and the work they’ve been given, but it’s only human nature to struggle with the imposition of limitations. Partly (and speaking for myself), it’s jealousy. We want the big stage. The big, important jobs. The prestige of being well-known and admired. Even priests have these feelings.
Of course, no one wants to feel invisible. There are men who go into the office every day, probably to a set of tasks they don’t always want to be doing, in order to provide for their families. They feel unappreciated at work, toiling in obscurity for a company that doesn’t value them. Maybe the work itself doesn’t even seem all that important; it’s just what must be done to get a paycheck. There are mothers who spend the majority of their days in domestic chores, socializing only with children or maybe, if they’re lucky, chatting for a few minutes with the other moms waiting for dance class to end. They run errands, clean bathrooms, make breakfast. These are hidden tasks that only a few people know and appreciate. There are single people who are despairing of finding “the one,” who feel like they don’t quite fit in and are wasting their days. They’re at loose ends and trying to figure out their identity.
Maybe Vianney felt all this, too. Maybe he offered his first Mass all alone and wondered what would become of him. Maybe he felt discouraged by the long journey to the village of Ars and the lack of excitement that greeted his arrival.
But he didn’t give up. No task was too small for him. He threw himself into his work with energy, spending long hours in the confessional, working hard on his catechetical lessons for the parish children, and maintaining his prayer discipline. In his book The Grace of Ars, Father Frederick Miller comments,
“John Vianney displays the priest’s capacity to change the world by transforming a small corner of it …”
He goes on, “I wonder what John Vianney would have said if he had been told that 150 years after his death, priests and seminarians from the four corners of the earth would travel to Ars to pray ...”
When we work our little corner of the world with zeal and persistence, the effect is much larger than we suppose. The whole is always contained in the part, so when a person does his particular daily work to the best of his ability, or a parent commits wholeheartedly to raising the children, or a priest to his ministry within his given assignment, the hidden nature of the task doesn’t mean the work is unimportant. Rather, it means the task is so important it’s beyond comprehension.
A small vocation, undertaken with great love, is transformative.
The world lacks a narrative or a measure by which to acknowledge the importance of the work, so it ignores it. The world, damaged as it is by selfishness, ego, and acquisitiveness, is only awed by the visible, shallow surfaces of things, but it misses the true value and depth of what remains unseen. The grace of a person’s vocation invites the fullness of Heaven itself into daily life. A small vocation, undertaken with great love, is transformative.
“We are each of us like a small mirror in which God searches for His reflection,” says Vianney.
Sure, we may be mere tiny shards of mirror but even we, if held at just the right angle, reflect divine light. Even we, in our small corners of the world, reflect the full image of Christ. Even more, in that reflection we unite with his image and our actions take on eternal significance. Wherever we go, we manifest glory.
