The Spiritual Priest Cares for Everyone for the Sake of His Salvation
The Spiritual Priest Cares for Everyone for the Sake of His Salvation
The priest must be spiritual, because spiritual work is summed up in the following phrase that appears in the Didascalia: “Let the bishop care for everyone in order to save him.” The bishop works through his priests, and the priests work through their deacons. Therefore, the work of the bishop, the priest, and the deacon is to care for everyone in order to save him. As long as the work is salvific, then its bearer must be a spiritual person.
The phrase “everyone” means all people, young and old. It includes those who attend church and those who do not, the religious and the non-religious. The priest who thinks that his own people are only those who attend church is mistaken. And the Sunday School teacher who thinks that his own people are only those whose names are written in the register is mistaken. Rather, let him care for everyone: the young men who wander about and enter places of amusement. The priest cares for his enemy and his friend in order to save him; he cares for the committee members who trouble him in order to save them.
And the word “everyone” does not mean the Orthodox only, but all denominations, because they are his flock.
The work of pastoral care has an evangelistic aspect, that is, preaching to non-believers so that they may believe. He cares for everyone. Our fathers the apostles used to go to pagan regions “to work in them,” and they would ordain bishops over lands in which there was not a single Christian person.
You enter into what you did not labor for. You enter into an established church and believing people present for you to serve. As for the apostles, they went to lands where there were no churches, no faith, and no Christian people, and they felt that these pagans were their flock.
If the bishop seeks to save everyone, he must first know who these people are:
what their names are and where they live. From here there had to be a comprehensive survey of the area in which he works, so that he may know his flock. Because the Lord Christ says that He knows His sheep and calls them by name (John 10). And we do not mean knowing their names only, but also their circumstances, their problems, and the obstacles that stand between them and clinging to God.
How beautiful it is for the shepherd to have a strong memory.
Many people feel that they are lost in the midst of the crowd, that their names have been forgotten among the many listeners, and that each one of them finds no place in the priest’s memory on which to rest his head. Thus he feels a lack of care from the priest. And if it happens that one of these goes astray and another religion or another denomination takes him, perhaps then the priest remembers that this was his son.
How often shepherds object to the interference of outsiders, while they themselves do nothing. And how often they direct blame at others while they themselves do nothing.
Therefore, the priest must know the flock and study its condition. And if he cannot—and often he cannot—let him use many assistants with him. How many unused energies there are in the Church that find no one to employ them! So Satan employs them, or denominations employ them, or various other worldly activities employ them.
To save him:
Many shepherds care for people, but not for the salvation of their souls. Some of them care about secondary matters such as solving material, social, or family problems, and they stop at this level without thinking about the salvation of the souls of these people.
Exactly like parents who care for their children: how the children go to school and learn, how their bodies grow and their health improves, how they eat, drink, and dress… while they do not care at all about the salvation of their souls. A father burns with concern if his son becomes ill, but he does not care whether his son is walking in the way of God or not. A mother cares about her daughter’s elegance, but does not care whether she will enter the Kingdom or not!
The salvation of the soul is the most important thing. It is the cornerstone in the work of the shepherd. All other works are merely means to reach this goal.
Perhaps the shepherd cares greatly that people attend church, but this attendance is only a means for the salvation of the soul. For a person may attend church and yet his soul may not be saved! And many shepherds care about the outward appearances of Christian life without entering into the depths of the heart and the extent of its union with God.
Unfortunately, some shepherds think that the word “salvation” is a word limited to “salvation of souls societies”! If any of the servants speaks about it, they accuse him with the harshest accusations. And if they could, they would delete from the Bible the verse: “Receiving the end of your faith—the salvation of your souls” (1 Peter 1:9). And they forbid any of them to preach about the saying of the Apostle Paul to Timothy: “Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine. Continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you” (1 Timothy 4:16). Salvation is the most important, the first, and the deepest thing we seek. And we seek it more than the salvation of souls societies, which believe that their people have already been saved and the matter is finished.
The shepherd must do all these things with a kind of care—not as a mere job or a mere duty, but with a heart inflamed with zeal.
As the Apostle Paul said: “Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn with indignation?” (2 Corinthians 11:29). And as was said of him when he entered Athens: “His spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols” (Acts 17:16). And as the Scripture says: “Zeal for Your house has eaten me up” (Psalm 119:139). And as he said: “My eyes shed streams of tears because they do not keep Your law.”
We need shepherds who care. We feel that their pastoral knowledge is mixed with emotion, power, and concern. Their hearts burn inwardly for their flock.
They stand before God night and day for the repentance of their children. They struggle, labor, and strive. They give no sleep to their eyes nor slumber to their eyelids until they find a place for the Lord in the heart of everyone. They begin with care in visitation, care in preaching, and care in service in general, for the sake of the salvation of people’s souls.
They are not swept away by the routine of service, nor occupied by liturgical services, but by the salvation of the soul.
For them, it is everything.
Care, for the priest and the shepherd, carries the meaning of emotion in service, labor and visitation, and not covering shortcomings with excuses. The servant who cares in service does not quickly despair, even from the hardest and most distant souls from religion.
He cares for everyone in order to save him. And the one who cares for the salvation of a human soul does not rest until he sees him saved, expending every means for that purpose. As we say to the Lord in the Divine Liturgy: “You have bound me with all the medicines that lead to life.” And people can distinguish between the spirit of care and mere formalities.
The Priest and the Care of the Servants
I would like to speak to you about caring for the servants who care for others. This matter includes many points in their work, in their thinking, and in the growth of the service.
Among caring for the servants is ensuring the orthodoxy of teaching.
Because some servants care about teaching their own concepts, which may be against the teaching of the Church, or a result of their being influenced by strange readings. Indeed, in past years we have seen well-known names of this type, whether in Cairo or in some governorates. Some of them left the Orthodox faith and joined denominations. Others formed groups of youth or servants who follow their thought, become enthusiastic for it, and defend it.
The matter has reached the point that some branches of service each have their own character in service, such that there is no single spirit that unites everyone. Rather, each has what distinguishes him spiritually and intellectually, and what distinguishes him also in the type of his activity.
Among the prominent aspects is the independence of the service and the servants.
You may find a general secretary for a branch of service who dismisses and appoints servants as he wishes. He does this, of course, to تثبيت those who agree with him intellectually and obey him, and to dismiss anyone with another opinion. All the servants of the branch become merely followers whom he directs as he wishes and molds according to his style.
*There are some servants who deviated in their spirituality to the extent of attacking the priesthood through pamphlets and publications, and they led a generation with the same spirit.
Returning all of these to the correct spiritual path is the work and responsibility of the leadership of the Church. It is the duty of the fathers, whether in the episcopal rank or the priestly rank…
For truly, who is currently caring for the servants and supervising their service? If they are without care and without guidance, this will be a danger to the Church, a danger to the servants themselves, and to future generations.
*It is supposed that there be one unified curriculum for teaching, with all its details.
This curriculum is adhered to by everyone and includes all age stages: from pre-school, to primary, preparatory, and secondary education, to university education, with a curriculum for youth, another for workers, and another for villages.
These curricula are prepared by the Supreme Committee for Church Education, printed, published, and distributed to the churches. It is the work of the fathers the priests to supervise the secretaries and servants in implementing it.
*Alongside the curriculum, there should be textbooks.
For how easy it is for a servant to commit himself to teaching the main topic, but in the details he mentions whatever he wishes according to his own understanding and direction. As for the textbook, it obliges him to sound teaching from which he cannot deviate. It also becomes a means of unifying thought in teaching.
Likewise, a curriculum should be set for preparing servants:
preparing them spiritually and educationally, and also in terms of theological knowledge, so that we ensure that we present for teaching in the Church faithful and competent people capable of conveying the message of the Church to others. Thus we ensure that all servants in the coming generation have one spirit and one mind.
And since the majority of priests are currently chosen from among the ranks of servants, by caring for servants we care for preparing the priests of the future.
Caring for servants, therefore, is the concern of the general leadership of the Church, the General Committee for Church Education, and the venerable bishops of the Church, each within the limits of his diocese. But what, then, about the work of each priest-father in his own church?
Here we must present some important points:
- Caring for the church library in terms of adequacy and orthodoxy.
There is no harm in reviewing the books it contains, ensuring the soundness of their teaching, and excluding unsound books, while also ensuring that the library contains what is beneficial for all age groups. - Supervising the personal spiritual life of each servant,
with regard to his regularity in confession and communion, prayer and fasting, and the rest of the means of grace. Also asking him in confession about the type of his readings, and ensuring that he is not connected to deviant or suspicious writings by certain authors. - The servant’s maintaining his discipleship, so that he does not grow great in his own eyes.
I remember that in the late forties and early fifties, in the Sunday School of St. Anthony’s Church in Shubra, each servant attended four meetings for discipleship: the family meeting, the general meeting of servants, the youth meeting every Thursday, and the large class that met after seven o’clock on Sunday (which was taught by Dr. Ragheb Abdel-Nour, and then I took it over after he was appointed a physician in Luxor and Gaza). - Caring for servants’ conferences to unify the spirit.
These conferences include servants from many churches under one leadership (currently supervised by His Grace Bishop Moussa, together with His Grace Bishop Raphael). Often some of the fathers metropolitans, bishops, priests, and some well-known senior servants participate with them. Here thought, methodology, and forms of theological knowledge are unified, and there is room for questions and answers. To some extent, we ensure the elimination of any strange thought by exposing it and responding to it.
It is the duty of the fathers the priests to ensure that the servants of each church are not isolated from the general educational current in the Church, represented in these study circles.
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