By Fr. John Adamski

Through all the ice and cold, some 40 priests from the Atlanta area gathered here at Holy Cross Church a week ago Tuesday to spend the day reflecting on their role in the recruitment of young people for service in the Church in North Georgia. Certainly it was difficult for many to be here but it still proved to be a valuable time to reflect on the quality of our lives as priests and what our priestly commitment should be saying to others who might be thinking about the life options open to them.

In his homily during the celebration of the Eucharist, Archbishop Donnellan stressed what for me became the strong point of the day’s gatherings. The archbishop reminded the priests that theirs is the priesthood of Jesus Christ and each man who presumes to minister and serve God’s people must also be quite certain that he is first a companion of Jesus. For me, that simple phrase contains a great deal of meaning.

Jesus’ first disciples, those who would continue his work once he had returned to the Father, were clearly his friends. They left everything in order to follow Jesus. They ate and slept, walked and talked with the Lord himself. Many very human, kind incidents in the gospels demonstrate the growth of the bond of friendship. Through this intimate knowledge of Jesus, they came to trust him and to believe his message about salvation.

Every Christian person is called to that same sort of relationship with Jesus, our risen Lord, but also our brother. The man who gives his full life to the full-time work of the Church must take special care to foster his companionship with Jesus throughout his life. This means that he must certainly be a man of prayer, a man who is currently seeking to grow even more mature in his own prayerful understanding of his life and work as a servant of God’s people.

That isn’t something that happens in any automatic way. It isn’t the result of good intentions or casual efforts. Prayer becomes a real part of most people’s lives when they actually take the time to do nothing else but reflect on their relationship with God and his daily call for their lives.

In a world that seems to move faster each day that isn’t as simple as it sounds. There will always seem to be a great many projects that are quite urgent and pressing, things that can easily distract us. Perhaps the only way to make sure that these things remain true aspects of ministry and service, and not distractions, will be a persistent, daily effort to stay in touch with the Lord.

All of this talk about the necessity of prayer should not frighten a young person who is still searching for the meaning of his own life. Even after spending a great deal of time with Jesus, his disciples still found His message to be a difficult one which confused them. Only later, when the Spirit came, were they really able to go out and preach the good news of salvation.

All of us must spend a great deal of time in our own lives trying to determine the presence of God’s Spirit. The search for understanding doesn’t stop with entrance into a seminary or the call to ordination, but may continue until the coming of the Lord in glory.

The most important point is that a person be open to God’s call and presence. That sort of openness brings the frightening possibility of having to follow the Lord down paths we aren’t familiar with. Openness and trust are virtues that don’t always come easily. Usually we feel a lot more comfortable when we can control and determine things by ourselves. A growing friendship with Jesus through prayer will give us the confidence we need to be able to accept and follow a friend and brother.

Parents are an extremely important part of this process of finding oneself and God in a prayerful way. As in so many other situations, a parent communicates a great deal to his child by his own style of life. Values come through one’s actions in a way that can’t be avoided. A family and a home with a genuine atmosphere of prayer is something which cannot be created artificially. When that atmosphere is fostered, the positive conditions for a young person’s own search for meaning in life are certainly present, whatever his ultimate decision may be.