Fr. Stephen Ryan, O. P.
September 17, 2009 
Thursday of the Twenty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time,
1 Timothy 4:12-16

Fr. Pat McGovern, O.P., of happy memory, was a salty World War II veteran with a great sense of humor. After he had ceased to do full time ministry, guests or vocation candidates visiting the house would often ask him what he did. He’d sometimes reply that he was here as part of the witness protection program. At other times he’d say that he was a role model. His job was to be a  full-time role model. And he was that, and a good one.

During the Year for Priests Pope Benedict has offered St John Vianney as a model, “especially in living a life of celibacy as a requirement for the total giving of self.” I’d like to say a word about exemplarity in the Christian life and the public character of the priest’s life.

St. Augustine, in the section of his Sermon on Pastors we heard at the Office of Readings today, offers a striking description of the deadly effects of a negative example. Even a strong sheep, when he notices his pastor leading a bad life, begins to say to himself, “If my pastor lives like that, who am I not to behave as he does?” Augustine’s devastating conclusion: He has killed a strong sheep.

Those who are chosen and ordained for service in the Church necessarily become examples, for good or for ill. Our lives are an open book, a text that can be read.

The words we heard this evening, our first reading from First Timothy (1 Timothy 4:12-16), are words meant for all of us, but are especially relevant for the ordained and those preparing for ordination. “Set an example,” Timothy is told, in Greek a tupos - a type - “for those who believe....Do not neglect the gift conferred on you with the imposition of hands by the presbyterate...so that your progress may be evident to everyone.”

It took me a long time to realize that on making public vows in the midst of the Church and being ordained, my life was no longer my own. That even my time, my schedule, was no longer my own. It had been given to God and to the Church, consecrated, dedicated. It was only when I heard a Dominican priest, Fr. Carleton Jones, give a talk about the life of a priest as a life of service and a life lived in public, that this sunk in. Maybe it was his own example, the way the grace of the priesthood had transformed him, the transparent nature of his life, that made this truth apparent to me.

Timothy is instructed to be an example for the whole church. The image employed in the biblical text is that of a type. Think of the mark left when a seal is pressed in hot wax. It leaves a mark, a faithful image, that all can see. Or when the key of an old manual typewriter strikes the black ribbon and leaves a crisp and distinct impression, a mark on white paper. A visible sign that others will read. To be an example in this Christian sense is to bear the image of Christ to the world.

St. Paul told the Thessalonians that have become tupoi, examples, images of Christ to all the believers in Macedonia.  Paul chose to work for a living, working long hours, day and night, to give the faithful an example, a tupos, to imitate.

What tonight’s reading also stresses is the idea of making progress toward the goal of conformity to Christ.  “Let your progress be evident to everyone.” Which is to say: your life is already public – exemplary – so see that it offers the kind of example that will bear fruit for the kingdom.

There’s a beautiful little book by the French Dominican Ceslaus Spicq called The Mystery of Godliness (1954; Spiritualité sacerdotale d'après Saint Paul). Its an exposition of St Paul’s teaching on the priesthood. Fr. Spicq writes:  “The grace of ordination remains; it is not transitory but definitive; it is in the soul of the priest as long as he lives, ...like an ever fruitful spring, abounding beyond measure (1 Tim 1:14). Tu es sacerdos in aeternum is true of the sacramental character, but also of the gift of sanctification, strength, charity, prudence, and apostolic efficaciousness; thou are forever filled with graces.”

The gift is in you now, already. “Do not neglect the gift that is in you,” Timothy is told (1 Timothy 4:14). St. Thomas Aquinas comments: “One who receives grace should not be neglectful of it, but ought to bear fruit from it. A servant who hides his money in the ground is to be punished for his negligence.” (Super I Epistolam B. Pauli ad Timotheum lectura, ad loc.)

It’s a question then of stirring up the gift of God which is already present, by the laying on hands. Put these things into practice, devote yourself to them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who listen to you. As our Lord says in St. John’s Gospel, the 15th chapter:  “I have chosen you, and ordained you, that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain.” (KJV)