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Year for Priests: Priest helps others bring out their own faith

by Father Pat Apuzzo
special to The Catholic Virginian

Bishop Sullivan ordained me in late November of 1976. Soon after, I was in one of the earliest of what are now countless episodes that make up my adventure as a priest.

It happened in San Lazzaro, Italy, just before Christmas, on December 17, the feast day of the beggar Saint Lazarus.

San Lazzaro is a tiny mountain village in the town of Agerola, just above the seaside town of Amalfi, on the western coast of Italy.

It is in the Campania region which, with Naples as its major city and Neapolitan as its common dialect, many simply call “Napoli.” The two places, Agerola and San Lazzaro, are the birthplaces of my paternal grandparents.

My after-ordination visit to San Lazzaro was my first time there.

By pure coincidence, I found myself there on the village holiday — Feast of Saint Lazarus the Beggar. After concelebrating the festival Mass with the parish priest, I went out to the front of the church.

Once I was outside, a group of village parishioners huddled around me. Each one of them was in some way a relative to me.

Eventually, the small crowd ushered me down the street into a wooden shed at the side of the road. Inside was a full kitchen with a large dining table. Soon, a meal began. Of course, the food never stopped.

As we ate, there was much talk to figure out who was related to me somehow. Every so often there was a little commotion as one or two persons got up and changed their location at the table.

I finally asked what was up with the changing places. A cousin explained that as they determined who was related more closely to me, the closer the seat they would take at table with me.

When I asked what that meant, an answer came that has never left my mind. Using the region’s dialect, another cousin explained: Chiu ‘a priesse che stammo ‘a vuie, ‘o chiu gruosse che divenimmo!’ It meant that the closer they got to me, the more important they felt.

The Year for Priests points to the importance that priests should have in the Church. At a meal with family in Italy, being important took on a meaning that stays with me ever since. It’s a definition that still shapes my sense of what it really means to be important as a priest.

As a priest, I am only as important as I am able to increase the importance of others. My best times as a priest are when people come away more aware of their stature as believers, more confident about what they can accomplish with faith, better able to move into the days ahead with courage and hope.

I often remind people that our culture provides us with plenty of characters who are skilled at selling us a bill of goods. It makes no difference what scheme or platform, or which product or illusion they are peddling at the moment.

Whatever the allure, it cloaks a consistent message: you don’t have what it takes. But, not to worry, they do have it. And, best of all, they can make it yours!

My reminder is not, of course, to scare or whip people into one more campaign against or opposed to something or someone. There is already plenty of that as well. My aim, actually, is to reassure people about who they already are and what they’ve already been given. It is to say you are God’s people; you have, and have always had and will forever have exactly “what it takes!”

If priests had such things, the words I’d choose for my “sacerdotal motto” would be this encouragement from Jesus: “Fear is useless; trust is needed.” For fans of Latin: “noli timere tantummodo crede.” It’s the approach Jesus took with the synagogue official whose daughter was dying (Mark 5:36).

Actually, all kidding aside, the Latin blends the assurance into a command: “Don’t fear; just trust.”

One goal of the Year for Priests is to reaffirm the value of ordained ministry in the Church. There is no time when I feel more wanted, more valued and appreciated as a priest as when my ministry affirms the value of others.

It is not simply to have come from a sacrament, or to be one who administers the sacraments. To be a valuable priest in the Church is to become a sacrament for the Church. The truly worthy priest is, for the people of the Church, a sacrament of Christ.

As a sacrament of Christ, it is my duty not so much to bring faith to others as it is to bring faith out of them. As Christ’s sacrament, it is my place to expect more from others only when, with Christ, I truly want them to have a whole lot more.

As a sacrament of Christ, I do not dare call people to let go of fear until, like Christ, I hold on to them while trust can grow strong and, along with Christ, I never fail to tell them it was faith, their faith, that saved them.

If I am to be a priest who is a worthy a sacrament of Christ, there will be no power worth having except, like Christ, I can use it to clothe others in power.

As a sacrament that is truly Christ for the Church, my joy in serving others will never be complete until, just like Christ, I see mirrored in the eyes of those whom I served the joy that is now theirs in serving just as I serve.

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