The Priest’s House
The Priest’s House [1]
The priest’s house is for his private life with his wife, his children, and his family.
The priest’s house is not for confessions, nor for solving problems.
All these have their natural place: the church.
If the priest receives in his house those who come for confession, those with problems, and those seeking needs, the house loses its privacy and becomes exposed to people. The priest’s wife becomes very tired, as she sees that her house has turned into a public place in which she does not possess her freedom. The priest’s children also become tired, especially if, for example, they have school duties that they need to carry out.
The priest himself also becomes tired from the many who knock on his door at any time they wish, giving him no time for rest, no time for prayer, and no time for study. He finds himself compelled to meet them in his official attire, because it is not fitting for them to see him in any other appearance.
The priest must organize his ecclesiastical responsibilities within the church and the offices attached to it, for this is the sound situation.
Because also, if the priest’s house becomes disturbed, any wife would fear the ordination of her husband as a priest.
The Beginning and the Continuation
Many of the priest fathers begin their priestly life with full zeal and enthusiasm, with sound pastoral principles, with an excellent spiritual life, and with a good relationship with people and with all the servants and workers in the church.
But the problem is that some do not continue at the point of beginning. What are the reasons? And how can they be treated?
This is a point that needs a deep practical study, or needs a seminar to be held for this purpose, attended by the clergy only under the supervision of some of the bishops, or needs frank words sent to us by some who have associated with these priest fathers and studied their circumstances.
Are the reasons external, returning to the circumstances in which the priest father lived and that changed his manner? Or do they return to internal factors?
That is, within himself, or within his family, or because of his health.
Then what are those circumstances or external reasons? And were they truly very pressing and compulsory? And how?
The Priest’s Mistake
We fully realize that there is no one who is infallible.
And how dangerous is what came in the Epistle of our teacher James the Apostle: “Elijah was a man with a nature like ours” (Jas 5:17), and yet “he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months.”
Despite this, we say:
The priest is a public man, and every public man has his actions under observation.
Everyone notices him in everything: in his words, in his movements, in his features, in his appearance, in his clothes, in his behaviors. For all this, the priest must be precise in everything and careful—not only in what is lawful and unlawful, but also in what is fitting and what is not fitting.
And among the well-known judgments in the Holy Bible:
That the priest’s mistake is much more dangerous than the mistake of a layman.
Therefore, in the offering of the Lamb, he says to the Lord: “Grant, O Lord, that this our sacrifice be for my sins and for the ignorances of Your people,” considering that what the people commit is counted among ignorances, whereas his own falls cannot be considered ignorances but sins, because from the mouth of the priest the law is sought (Mal 2:7).
Also, his sins are considered a stumbling block to others.
Thus, they have a double responsibility: they are in themselves a sin, and in their stumbling of others, another sin. Because people assume idealism in the priest; so when they see him in a mistake, they stumble. Either they imitate him in his mistakes, because he is the example set before them, or because of him they doubt the possibility of carrying out the commandments.
The most dangerous of the priest’s mistakes are of two kinds:
The apparent sins that everyone notices, and the fixed, repeated sins that appear as though they are a trait of his nature that does not leave him. Here some may ask: if the priest was not able to reform himself, how will he reform others? And how can he be a spiritual guide?
Here the priest’s sins hinder his spiritual and pastoral work.
They hinder his work as a father of confession, as many refrain from confessing to him. Likewise, his mistakes cause his sermons to lose their effect, and also reduce the value of his visitation of the people and his advice to them. They also reduce his dignity, and become a subject of criticism—not only from inside the church, but from outside it as well.
Not a Party in a Dispute
It is not permissible for the priest father to become a party in a dispute.
If he intervenes in a conflict between two parties, everyone must observe his neutrality and his justice, by giving everyone his due. It is not permissible for him to side with a specific party and stand as an opponent to the other party.
Everyone must feel that they are his children, and that he loves them all.
Especially, he must be very careful in matters of personal status and in issues of marital problems. It is not right for him to present to the court a testimony that wastes the future or the rights of one of the parties, causing him to feel that the church has wronged him and caused him harm.
Because in this way the priest turns into an opponent, not a father.
By this behavior, he may lose not only a person, but perhaps an entire family, and even their friends and acquaintances.
The priest must bear witness to the truth and sometimes rebuke, but it is absolutely not right for him to take an aggressive position against any of his children, with all the consequences of such a position.
The Financial Aspect
Let money not be your goal, and do not worry about it. Remember the saying of David the Prophet:
“I have been young, and now am old; yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his descendants begging bread” (Ps 37:25).
How beautiful this rule is, and how worthy it is of memorization: “He who runs after money, money runs away from him; and he who runs away from money, money runs after him.”
It is not right to clash with the people or with the church council for financial reasons. Nor is it fitting to complain before people about your financial situation. Rise above this level.
The people love the ascetic priest, the one pure of hand, respect him, and entrust him with their money.
There is a great difference between a priest who visits a sick person out of love for him, and prays the oil lamp prayer for him with all his heart so that he may be healed, and another priest who visits the sick and the non-sick to pray the oil lamp prayer for the sake of “offerings” and money.
Your prayers are not valued by money, and money is not their price. Free these prayers and purify them from the bond of money.
Order and Records
Order is obligatory and very beneficial in the service. The Scripture has said:
“Let all things be done decently and in order” (1 Cor 14:40).
It is not a correct understanding for some to say that something should be done “with blessing” (that is, without order). In the Gospel of the blessing, in which the Lord blessed the five loaves, the Lord Jesus cared for order first. He made the people sit down first “in groups, in hundreds and in fifties” (Mark 6:40). He gave to the disciples, and the disciples gave to the multitudes. And the Apostle says: “Withdraw yourselves from every brother who walks disorderly” (2 Thess 3:6).
Therefore, it is good to organize all the service in the church and to have records for it.
- Records for church membership, including all the children of the church by street and district, and also including all active members and leadership members.
- Records for baptism, from which certificates are issued for all who are baptized.
- Records for engagement and marriage, with all that occurs to them of change such as widowhood, divorce, and annulment. It is good to record all of them on a computer.
- Records for visitation. It is good for there to be a map of the area in the church with all its streets, and the priest ensures that he has visited them all.
- Records for social service, including a file for each assisted family.
- Records for special cases that the church cares for.
- Records for male and female servants in Sunday School, deacons’ groups, choir groups, chanters, and whatever changes occur to them.
- Records for the ordinations of deacons in all their ranks, from Epsaltos to Anagnostes to Epsdeacon. The record includes the date, the name of the bishop, and those who were ordained.
- Records for all church activities, whether the library, the club, the workshop, tutoring classes, the nursery, visual aids, etc.
- Records for all the church’s assets and its invoices, and who received them.
- Records for the church council, minutes, financial matters, and official papers.
In the church records, one should not rely on memory.
Memory may forget, or at least forget details, and it also does not give the opportunity for colleagues in the service to become acquainted with the information.
Likewise, it is good to have a record for history and events, supplied with information and photos, whether regarding each church separately or all the churches with regard to the diocese. It also includes correspondence and conferences.
[1] Article: His Holiness Pope Shenouda III, “Pastoral Care (26) – The Priest’s House,” Watani, 10 December 2006.For better translation support, please contact the center.
