The Treasure of Priestly Life
Dear Fellow-Travelers with Christ:
During these days of transition, I am so conscious of memory rising from my mind, heart and entire being, and it is flooded with the experience of the Presence of Christ as I give thanks for you, the entire parish community and beyond. St. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians: “Rejoice always: pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” Gratitude for all of you and those who have journeyed with me in ministry as a priest for 54 years; this is the gift of memory in relationship to our destiny.
The meaning of life is God in the here and now, with you and all the people we walk with as travelers. Recently, I was reading a reflection on this reality written by Father Luigi Giussani: “Experience is the relationship between a person’s freedom and the reality in which one is immersed. If God is conceived of as separated from experience, if God has no impact on life, then we have a separation of the meaning of life from experience. In other words, the meaning of life has no longer any relationship or has a relationship that is difficult to define with the moment of existence in which one is actually walking. You can’t break the relationship between the step a person is taking in this moment and the meaning of everything, the reason why we are moving. And why we are walking? And where to? We are walking towards the meaning of life and towards our destiny.”
Throughout my thirty plus years in ministry with you, I have intense certainty that there is no separation of the meaning of life from experience. “God is all in all” (1 Cor 15:28). However, it is important to articulate that you have shown me this path as I discovered the face of Christ in you and with you. The entire experience with you and beyond was always opening me up to recognize the One we love and follow, the Presence of Christ in everyone and everything. As I mentioned to you a few weeks ago, you announced to me that I use the word surprise often with the awareness of being surprised by the Presence of Christ in you and beyond our community as we walk towards our destiny.
When I arrived here, I am rather confident you might have wondered who this Pastor is and where will he lead us with those designated to offer their voice in the “age of the baptized”. So, it is important for me to acknowledge that I matured with you and your voice of disagreeing, agreeing, and discerning our walk together. Of course, I made mistakes, and you were forgiving and offered your support on our walk of discovering Christ in everyone and everything. The Spirit was moving, and together we listened and followed.
It is with enormous gratitude that I give thanks to Christ for the gift of the Kelsey family and the leadership, sacrifice, and service of Margaret as she began her service shortly after I arrived. These days of transition are filled with your awareness in gratitude for her way to call forth the gifts and charism of the community and to listen as she recognized the need to honor all the factors of a viable parish community. She has supervised the staff and nurtured their talents and commitment with an open mind and heart. We have a very professional, competent staff that calls all of us to walk towards our destiny with Jesus and the experience of our belonging.
Reason is not the measure of our limited view, but it is the call to be open and recognize all the factors of life as we don’t create or invent it ourselves, we come to recognize all that is given on the journey of life with Christ. My heart is bursting with gratitude as you shaped and formed me in my pastoral care and offered correction, support, love and enabled me to know with certainty I did not make myself, but with the One who makes me, you have been a witness to all that generates new life.
Yes, indeed, I am discovering a more profound depth of grief, and this is a very positive sign as we walk together towards our destiny, hope does not disappoint as St. Paul reminds us. My walk into the next phase of my priestly life is a treasure with a desire of my humanity and the grace of the presence of Christ. Grateful for your compassion, kindness and helping me create a home, the first one I have ever owned.
Grateful to you with my whole being and that Father Bob will lead you where you need to go, with Christ,
Father Jerry Mahon
Rector and soon to be “senior status”.