The Priest Must Be Spiritual in His Goals and in His Method
The Priest Must Be Spiritual in His Goals and in His Method[1]
If the apostolic fathers required of the deacons that they be “full of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 6:3), how much more so should this be required of the fathers in the ranks of the priesthood! And if ordinary believers must be “walking… according to the Spirit” (Rom 8:1; Gal 5:16), how much more should shepherds and leaders be so! Therefore, the priest must be a spiritual person.
The priest is not merely a source of activity, nor merely information, nor merely authority; rather, he is a spirit that has its effect.
He is a spirit with a positive influence, being “the light of the world” (Matt 5:14) and “the salt of the earth” (Matt 5:13). People look to him as a role model and an example in every good work; they seek guidance from him and benefit from the method of his life.
Therefore, it is assumed that the priest be spiritual in his goals and spiritual in his method. We notice that John the Baptist, the priest who prepared the way before Christ and made ready a people prepared for Him, was said of this holy priest that “he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb” (Luke 1:15).
For the mission of the priest is a spiritual mission, whose aim is to save “some, by all means” (1 Cor 9:22), as the Apostle Paul said of himself.
His concerns are spiritual concerns, and it is not fitting that any other concern should overshadow them. As the apostle said, the mind of the Spirit is life (Rom 8:6). The priest has only one goal: to lead the people to the Kingdom of God. This includes leading them to repentance and reconciliation with God. It is “the ministry of reconciliation,” as the apostle called it, saying: “Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God” (2 Cor 5:20).
Just as he calls beginners to repentance and reconciliation with God, so he calls the mature among them to spiritual growth and to press forward (Phil 3:13), according to the Scripture: “Grow in the grace” (2 Pet 3:18), “Be filled with the Spirit” (Eph 5:18). Not only does he call them to this, but he also helps them to attain it.
This is his only goal. And if we use the word “goals,” we mean only the details of this one spiritual goal.
His mission is to bring people to God, to build the Kingdom of God on earth, and to prepare its children for the eternal Kingdom.
He has no other mission in all his pastoral work. If he serves another mission, then he has deviated in his work and gone astray.
There may be a priest who thinks about projects and activities. Here we ask:
Do these projects and activities serve the spiritual goal or not?
If they do, then what is their goal, and what are the means that achieve this spiritual goal? If those projects and activities do not have a spiritual goal, then the priest-father should stay away from them. They are not his work, nor do they fall within the scope of his duty and responsibility.
I will give an example: the church club—does it have a spiritual goal?
Or is it merely for amusement and passing time? If its spiritual goal is that our children live in a spiritual atmosphere, in love and harmony during their play and recreation, and that we discover their faults during play or recreation in order to treat them, then the primary means must be spiritual supervision over the club, creating a spiritual atmosphere within it, and keeping it away from any form of stumbling or error. But the existence of a club without spiritual supervision and without achieving any spiritual mission is not the work of the Church. Rather, the lack of spiritual supervision may lead to mistakes committed by our children while they are within the bosom of the Church, resulting in indifference to values and to the sanctity of the Church and its activities, so that it does not become a spiritual environment for them.
Indeed, the goal defines and clarifies the means that lead to it.
Another example: the church library—does it have a spiritual goal?
Or is it merely an activity or a project—for reading, knowledge, and entertainment only? Or is it a decoration by which the church completes its appearance and prestige?
If the library has a spiritual goal, then naturally it will be spiritual knowledge that leads to sound spiritual life, theological and doctrinal knowledge that leads to sound faith, and biblical knowledge that broadens the scope of understanding and contemplation and sheds the light of Scripture—alongside the lives of the saints that ignite the desire to imitate them. Added to all this and similar matters is pure general knowledge, far from error and stumbling.
If we understand this, then among the most important means is accuracy in selecting books, so that all of them are beneficial and edifying.
Along with the presence of a librarian who is fit to be a guide, directing readers and borrowers to what benefits them. Thus the library completes the Church’s work and mission in preaching and teaching.
But if the church library is merely a large warehouse of books without reviewing their contents and ensuring their benefit, this removes it from its ecclesiastical purpose. The matter becomes more complicated if it includes books that cause readers to stumble in doctrine, spirituality, or sound understanding of Scripture.
By the same logic, we can speak about the nursery, the school, the workshop, the hospital, and the projects the Church considers.
Do all these projects have a spiritual goal, or is their goal material, to increase the Church’s revenues? Does spiritual supervision enter into them, or not? And do they differ from the projects carried out by the people of the world, or is there no difference?
The Church does not compete with the people of the world in its projects, nor does it resemble the world in its methods. It places before it the apostolic command: “Do not be conformed to this world” (Rom 12:2). Every project in which the priest places his hand must be for God and for building His Kingdom. “By this the children of God are manifest” (1 John 3:10).
We move to another point: preaching and teaching.
The spiritual goal of the priest is not merely to add religious information to the minds of his listeners. Rather, the goal of preaching is that hearts may be changed for the better.
There are two priests who preach: one preaches, and the listener says, “How great this father is in his preaching! How abundant his information and how deep his style and orderly his thoughts!” But the other priest preaches, and the listener leaves with his conscience moved to weep over his sins, saying in his heart, “I must live a pure life with God and fill my heart with His love.” The preacher himself did not occupy him as much as life with God did.
When the spiritual priest speaks in doctrine, he explains it with full conviction, without insulting denominations or speaking of them in a hurtful manner.
His objective goal is faith, not attacking others. Thus he preserves the etiquette of dialogue in his theological discussions.
Among the most prominent fathers in this field was Saint Didymus the Blind, who, through his gentleness and courtesy, was able to draw some pagan philosophers to the sound faith without offending their feelings.
The spiritual priest does not exalt himself in teaching.
For arrogance causes him to lose the love of his listeners, and thus he loses their attraction to his teaching, and consequently loses the goal of guiding them by it. Great teachers were humble, as long as their goal was to lead listeners to goodness. He does not present to them teaching that they cannot practice, boasting in the loftiness of his teaching. Rather, as the Apostle Paul said to the Corinthians: “I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it” (1 Cor 3:2). And as the apostolic fathers decided not to burden those from the Gentiles who were turning to God (Acts 15:19–20).
In the spiritual priest, the self disappears in teaching, because the self is not his goal.
As long as his goal is God, the self must disappear. In his sermons and all his teaching, he does not present himself as a scholar or philosopher, but speaks to his listeners with the simplicity they understand and with the spirituality that affects them. As Saint Paul said: “Not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect” (1 Cor 1:17).
The priest who seeks to exalt himself through teaching is not a spiritual priest, because the self has become the goal and teaching a means for its appearance. Rather, the priest must be wholly concerned, in all his preaching and teaching, with how he can bring people to God.
In our youth, we longed to hear the sermons of Professor Iskandar Hanna, who was the greatest preacher of his time. His preaching was very simple, filled with stories.
The spirituality of the priest also appears in pastoral visitation.
Visitation for him is not a social activity in which he visits families or individuals in a gathering dominated by casual conversation. Rather, his visitation is a spiritual work. He enters the house, and God enters with him and remains there. God is the foundation of the goal of the visit, such that the household becomes connected to Him in every way, feeling that they have begun a life with God from the moment of the priest-father’s visit, or that their relationship with God has deepened and expanded.
The same applies to visitation carried out by any servant of the word.
The spiritual method accompanies the priest in every work he does.
By this method, he is gentle and compassionate in all his dealings, so that through his person people love religion, finding in him continually a comforting soul that gives rest to all and deals with everyone with gentleness and meekness, as it was said of the Lord Christ: “He will not quarrel nor cry out, nor will anyone hear His voice in the streets. A bruised reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not quench” (Matt 12:19–20).
By this method, he does not wound anyone’s feelings.
The Lord Christ did not wound the feelings of the Samaritan woman, though she was a sinful woman. Rather, He spoke to her about living water and worshiping God in spirit and truth (John 4:10, 23). He did not shame her when He addressed her private life, but praised her in certain aspects, saying to her: “You have said well… you have spoken truly” (John 4:17–18). With this gentleness of speech, He drew her to faith and to striving to spread faith among people.
The Lord Christ also did not wound the feelings of the woman caught in the very act, but on the contrary saved her from those who wanted to stone her, saying to her: “Neither do I condemn you” (John 8:11).
Therefore, one of the qualities of the shepherd is that he is not quick-tempered (Titus 1:7),
but is “gentle, not quarrelsome” (1 Tim 3:3), characterized by meekness even in dealing with sinners. As the Apostle Paul says concerning restoring such people: “You who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted” (Gal 6:1). And the Apostle James says: “Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom” (James 3:13).
With this meekness, the spiritual priest restores others.
Even in receiving people’s confessions of their sins, he is encouraging; he does not embarrass the confessor nor squeeze him harshly. Rather, he listens with gentleness, as one who seeks to heal rather than rebuke, just as the father received his prodigal son (Luke 15).
With the same compassionate method, he deals with the poor and the needy.
Not as seekers of alms, but as brothers to him in faith. The Lord Himself called them His brethren, saying: “Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me” (Matt 25:40). The priest with a spiritual method does not meet these needy ones with suspicion, as if they were pretending or deceitful, but deals with them with all gentleness, tries to resolve all their problems, does not complain of them or of their many requests, and lets them leave his presence comforted in heart.
A priest who frequently rebukes people loses them; some may even leave the Church because of him, seeing in him not the image of the meek and good Christ.
Not all who have left the Church did so for doctrinal reasons; some were exhausted by bad treatment or repelled by the harshness of some servants.
Therefore, God, in the Book of Ezekiel the prophet, rebukes the shepherds because of whom His sheep became prey and food for every beast of the field (Ezek 34:8).
The Lord gave a good example of shepherding, saying: “I will feed My flock, and I will make them lie down… I will seek what was lost and bring back what was driven away, bind up the broken and strengthen what was sick” (Ezek 34:15–16). Blessed is the Lord in all His work of shepherding us.
[1] An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III: Pastoral Page – The priest must be spiritual in his goals and in his method, Al-Keraza Magazine, 17/8/2001.For better translation support, please contact the center.
