Humility in our spiritual lives is an absolute essential. To approach our spiritual growth with pride is always destructive. The Lord provides various means by which we can develop a godly humility (as opposed to the false humility so often seen in Christian circles these days). One of those means for priests might sound like the opposite at first. There is a Mass in the "Various Needs and Occasions" section of the Missal called "For the Priest Himself". It might seem as though it would be prideful for a priest to say Mass for himself, but it is not so.
After reading all the proper prayers for this Mass, I chose to say this Mass for myself the other day. Here is the reason why. The prayers in the Mass are directed in a wonderful way to the humility of the priest. I do not believe that any priest could offer this Mass and not be humbled (unless he completely ignored the words found in it). The prayers have the priest stating that he acknowledges his complete unworthiness even to be offering the Mass at all. They mention his total need for the grace of God to help him to fulfill his ministry. They are, in essence, a holy smite in the face to make sure that he knows that he needs grace just as much as his people do.
I pondered after the Mass, what it would be like if every priest was required to say this Mass privately (so that he can clearly offer himself to the Lord in what he does) at least once a year (say, during lent)? I am not about to tell Bishops what to do, but I would think it wise to consider this as a means of helping priests to keep themselves in focus about who they are, and also about how fragile they are. Where would many of these liturgically and sexually abusive priests and bishops be today if they had followed this kind of practice? Yes, they might just ramble through the words and ignore them, but I suspect some would be touched by it. The Holy Ghost can impact people in powerful ways.
One of the greatest temptations in being a priest is when people compliment you. Every priest appreciates when people tell him they liked a homily or learned something from him. Whenever we are complimented about our accomplishments, we can very easily be tempted to gain a sense of self-sufficiency. "Look at how much I am able to do!" The automatic result is that we forget about how much we need the Lord and His help. We never actually say that we think we are "worthy" of our vocation, but that does become the attitude of our hearts. Although we say it in every Mass: "Lord I am not worthy..." we can forget the reality of this truth. When a clergyman falls into this it can be even more detrimental than a layman since his spirituality impacts all the people under his care.
Do you pray for yourself during the Mass (maybe during the time of silence at communion)? If so, then what do you pray about? Do you just pray for things you want? Or do you pray for your own spiritual health? Do you pray that God would help you to become more humble (a scary prayer!)? We all need to come to a point in our lives where we can see ourselves the way that God sees us; both in how much He loves us, as well as in how much we need His love! As we begin this Advent season, let us make this a goal: to work on developing a greater humility towards the Lord, as well as a greater dependence on His grace.
I had said this Mass "For the Priest Himself" years ago in the Roman Missal, but for some reason it did not impact me then the way that it did this time. That is the way that things affect us though, is it not? We grow in our faith, and approach something a second time and it impacts us differently than it did before. This is why the repetition of the liturgical year is so good for our souls. So, just in case you are saying "I was humbled last year, I don't need any more!" you can realize how important it is for us to return, repeatedly, to the Lord and ask Him to humble us (gently).
