Clergy Formation Week in Merville
Members of the Agency for Evangelisation and Catechesis joined almost 100 priests, deacons and bishops at the Maison Diocésaine d'Accueil in Merville (5-9 October). The location, a former seminary in the Archdiocese of Lille, permitted a fresh format for such gatherings including extended periods of Eucharistic Adoration, fellowship and spiritual conversations between the members of the clergy.
Each day of the formation week, featured two holy hours, Mass, witness testimonies and opportunities to share experiences through conversations in the Spirit, guided by a series of questions. The depth of the sharing, as recounted to the team, was both unexpected and powerful.
On Tuesday afternoon, Mark shared the story of Fr Arthur Dudley, the first diocesan missioner who was entrusted by Bishop Peter Amigo to serve rural communities as part of the ‘Travelling Mission’. His story resonated with the contemporary (perpetual) need to be creative and persevering in mission. It also demonstrated the benefit of lay empowerment in the form of catechists sustaining these embryonic groups between missionary visits.
The three daily themes allowed both challenges and joys to be expressed and the times of prayer permitted a ‘handing over’ in gratitude and supplication to the Lord.
Day One: Our relationship to Jesus Christ
Day Two: Our relationship to ordained ministry - as priest, prophet and king
Day Three: Our relationship to the lay faithful
On the Thursday, Daniel and Ingrid offered beautiful reflections to the gathered clergy and we have put extracts below. We heartily encourage each member of the lay faithful to reflect on your relationship with the Lord and also your relationship with his ministers, sharing with them something of the esteem you hold for them. So much of the week highlighted the need for authentic and fruitful collaboration; this becomes so much easier when we get to know each other well and understand something of what motivates each other.
Daniel (excerpt):
I've had a front-row seat to priesthood, both the good and the bad, the joys and the challenges. I worked for a parish for 6 years and my wife is working for a parish now. We are both fortunate to have grown up surrounded by priests and count many as friends. In a sense I’ve seen you, priests and deacons, up close.
I've watched you skip holidays because there’s no one else to cover the parish. Skip meals to attend to parish activities. Had lunch with you while water streamed through the walls of your presbytery. Been with you on 3am calls to the dying and up again for the 9am Mass. Witnessed dear friends try to go it alone without support and simply burn out. I’ve seen you battle waves of anger, loneliness, fear, feelings of being an imposter. You've shared your wounds, wrestlings and your doubts.
You've left homes, cultures, families, even the sun, the good weather, to respond to what John Paul II calls a ‘universal mission to the ends of the earth’. All in this room have sacrificed something to follow Christ’s call. But where I’ve seen your sacrifices I’ve also seen grace lived firsthand: lives transformed through your ministry. Through your hands, healing in the sacraments. Through your words, absolution.
I have seen priests go it alone and burn out. But I have also seen the mission of the church multiplied through the laity and the clergy’s empowerment of them. You don’t have to do it alone. There are people in your parishes who can be accompanied. In our Archdiocese we have the great gift of Some Definite Service. Your parishioners can be appointed Parish Leads, receive accompaniment and formation, and extend the mission of your parish.
Only yesterday one priest was telling me of a lady who he has encouraged, prayed with, in the course of the last year she has brought 5 people to RCIA. That's Some Definite Service in action, empowered and faithful laity, collaborating with you, accompanied through Some Definite Service, extending the Church's reach. Realising who they are called to be.
It is a privilege to serve here in Southwark, to pray for you dear brothers, and for your calling. May we, priests, deacons, bishops, laity, be bound together more deeply in Christ. Amen. St John Henry Newman, pray for us.
Ingrid (excerpt):
I was born when we lived in Swaziland, now Eswatini, a landlocked kingdom between Mozambique and South Africa. Our local church was a tiny outstation in a small sugar cane town Mhlume, served from a parish some distance away (St Constance), and one of 8 outstations. We had a priest from the parish once a month, and a visiting priest once a month if one could be found. Often the visiting priest was an English missionary priest based in neighbouring Zimbabwe called Fr Rogers. He would travel down the day before and spend the night with my family before saying Mass first thing in the morning. The local nuns (Mantellate Sisters) would brew him beer, he taught them to add sugar to up the alcohol content. He would bring my parents a couple of bottles, and then drink their home-brewed beer in exchange. I have an early memory of him sleeping it off on the couch in our lounge as well as always being very kind to us as very young children.
We moved to the Natal north coast when I was 7 to another small town – Stanger. I loved our parish priest who was an Italian from Milan, Fr Raucci. He would come to our house at least once a month to eat my mother’s spaghetti bolognaise. After he had finished telling me off for cutting up my spaghetti, he taught me how to use a fork and spoon to twirl the spaghetti.
My husband Andrew and I have lived our married vocation now for 36 years, and have 5 children. I think the first time I realised as an adult that priests also have their difficulties was when we asked our university chaplain if he would be able to officiate at our wedding in a year’s time, and he said no that wouldn’t be possible as he didn’t think he would be a priest in a year’s time, which was indeed the case. I remember his vulnerability in that moment.
We have also had the joy of a friendship with a priest, not of this diocese, for the last 35 years. He has visited us when we lived in different countries, he has eaten a vast amount of my food, he has watched Disney movies and the Sound of Music on the couch with our children, prayed the Divine Office in my study, fallen asleep in our conservatory and preached the homily at our daughter’s wedding. His presence in our lives has enriched our family life and I know that our family life has enriched and helped sustain his ministry. Time and time again I have had the joy of seeing this man my husband and I know so well be transformed through the grace of his ordination in his celebration of the Mass and his preaching.
In the past 30 years as a Southwark parishioner, catechist, parish secretary working in a presbytery and now in my advisory role I have seen first hand the difficulties you face, including the effects of the alcoholism, the unreasonable demands of parishioners, the huge amount of administration needed to keep a parish going, the difficulties you encounter when moving parish, the grief you experience leaving parish communities you love and who love you, and the difficulties you can have arriving in a new parish who are grieving the loss of their much loved parish priest who had a completely different set of charisms to you.
However, I have also been in the presbytery when a parishioner pulled up directly outside with her dying husband in the car asking for the anointing of the sick, and watched in awe the calm, considered, pastoral, loving response of the parish priest who didn’t show an ounce of surprise. His reaction was as if it was an every day occurrence. I have experienced and seen kindness beyond measure, I have seen lives transformed by your ministry and witness, I have seen you pour your lives away in a life of service and I have personally been sustained in my own faith journey by the sacraments you make possible.
Our work in the Agency Team has convicted me of the increasing need for lay and priestly co-responsibility, of the necessity of well-formed lay people who understand what their role is and what it is not, and priests who are prepared to trust them and toil together with them in the vineyard. Some Definite Service has at its heart collaboration and ensuring the use of the gifts of all the baptised. We really want to work with you to make our diocese flourish.
Forming the laity takes time and it is a commitment you might never benefit from, but your successor will. Convicting your parishioners of the need for formation and ongoing formation is absolutely necessary for your ministry to thrive.
Your parishioners love you, they know you and ‘see’ more than you realise perhaps and they love you more than I think you know.
