Several months ago, one of our priests ordained seven years ago, Father Raphael Munday Kukana, asked for an appointment to meet with me. At our meeting, he brought me two surprises. The first was the manuscript of a book he wrote in 2013 entitled, “Unworthy Servant: What Good Can A Priest Do?” The book is his personal reflection on his then six years of priesthood and is truly fascinating.
Most importantly, perhaps it is the question that Father asks in the book on which we can meditate as we welcome 13 new priests to the Presbyterate of Brooklyn and Queens. He says, “The underlying question behind this reflection is ‘What good can a priest do?’ This question should really be a starting point because priests are ordained not to do some ‘good,’ but, simply put, to serve. Out of that service comes something good that people can appreciate at different levels. Whether it is a happy event like a wedding, the birth of a child or a baptism, whether it is a sad event like an accident, death or sickness, the presence of a priest is either joyful or comforting to the people of God involved. To the question, ‘What good can a priest do?,’ I would simply respond: a priest does a lot of good. It seems simplistic, but I will try to analyze in depth the life and ministry of a priest and how he impacts the lives of the people to whom he ministers.”
At the time of an ordination, each priest will reflect back on the day of his own ordination – the day when through the anointing and laying on of hands he becomes a priest of God. All priests are motivated by doing good. I have never met anyone who comes to the priesthood without that basic motivation. The desire to be good, however, must be put into action, a necessary step in the life of a priest. Some are better at this than others. Some, unfortunately, become lost in themselves.
I will never forget the words of my spiritual director when I was in the seminary. He was well into his 80s at that time and had a wonderful line that I have repeated once in a while, “Some priests enter into eternal repose on the day of their ordination.” He was continually encouraging us to be zealous in our priestly lives. Thanks be to God, this is the norm and not the exception.
As I ordain these 13 men to the priesthood, we can recognize the mission of the New Evangelization where new zeal, new methods and new evangelizers are necessary to carry out that mission. How important it is with these 13 new priests that we see their zeal, that we watch the new methods that they employ and, most of all, that we recognize that we have new evangelizers who are alive in the Lord and wish to serve Him.
Priests can do a lot of good. For example, a priest such as Father Raphael Munday Kukana, a native of the Congo, who has come to our diocese with great zeal and knowledge of American Sign Language, is now an author of a wonderful reflection, which we hope to help him publish. By the way, he is the only priest in our diocese who is able to completely sign the Mass for the deaf.
As I said, Father Raphael brought me two surprises. The second was his editing of 10 years of my “Put Out Into The Deep” columns. With explicit care, he had condensed my thoughts and organized them by subjects. Hopefully, these organized columns will be published by The Tablet to mark the end of my 10th anniversary year as Bishop of Brooklyn.
Re-reading the columns brought back many memories. At times, I said to myself, “Did I say that?” Well, I guess I did because it is in writing and I cannot deny it. Hopefully, some of the spiritual insights that I have given over the years presented in a new format might be useful for consideration.
As these 13 new priests put out into the deep, all of us who are blessed with the priesthood continually try to find new methods of enlivening our zeal. This too goes for the people of God who are truly New Evangelizers enlightened by the spirit of the Second Vatican Council that they too, with the leadership of clergy and religious, will put out into the deep so that the ministry of the priesthood, intended to do good for the people of God, will truly bring them to God for whom it is intended.
