BRIDGEPORT—Bishop Frank J. Caggiano still recalls something his mother Gennarina, an immigrant from Italy, told him years ago: “The work of 99 good priests cannot undo the work of one bad priest.” Her words have been in his mind from the first day he entered the seminary, almost 40 years ago.
“A bad priest is a priest who has lost his way, who has sought rest where there should have been restlessness in their unceasing prayer for Jesus,” he said during a virtual talk with members of Serra clubs from across the United States.
The bishop offered a spiritual formula for sanctity in the priestly life, saying the fundamentally essential quality for the priesthood and anyone called by the Holy Spirit to ministry is something St. Paul urges in his First Letter to the Thessalonians: pray without ceasing.
“Praying without ceasing is not something you do. It’s a disposition of life. It’s a disposition of the heart in a man seeking to say ‘yes’ to the call to the priesthood,” Bishop Caggiano said. “My contention is that this quality is non-negotiable. This quality is what you and I need to pray that we see in the heart of every Christian, every priest and every seminarian who wishes to serve the Lord.”
Bishop Caggiano’s talk was part of the “Serra Meets” monthly series of virtual lectures from leading clergy and experts on the topic of Catholic vocations. The series is sponsored by the U.S. Council of Serra International.
Among those who heard his talk were members of St. Serra Vocations Ministry of Bridgeport, which has as its mission encouraging and promoting vocations, and supporting priests, deacons and religious, and inspiring candidates discerning the priesthood, diaconate and religious life. For information about the diocesan club, email Telecom0711@gmail.com or call 203.249.3586.
The bishop praised the Serrans for their work and said, “You have my prayerful support for the tremendous ministry that you provide the Church as you pray for good, holy and healthy vocations and support our seminarians in so many concrete and important ways.” He also urged them to pray for those already ordained that they remain “good, holy, healthy, joyful men of faith.”
He asked the Serrans to pray daily that priests and seminarians, religious and laypeople in ministry seek the disposition of heart to pray without ceasing, which he said is not something unattainable or impractical.
“Paul said exactly what he meant every time he meant to say it,” the bishop said. “So when he said to pray without ceasing, he meant it. It is attainable if we are clear as to what it is he is asking.”
This necessary quality in the life of seminarians and priests is not just saying prayers because it is presumed that both individual personal and communal prayer should be part of the life of every Christian and every seminarian, he said.
“It is to keep your eyes fixed on Jesus. It is the relationship you have with the person of Jesus who will keep you on the path of true holiness and allow you to find him,” he said. “Praying without ceasing is the disposition of the heart that forces someone always and everywhere to keep his eyes fixed on Jesus and on his holy word and on his holy presence in the Church…and put everything else in its proper place.”
Quoting St. Augustine, the bishop said that praying without ceasing allows our hearts to remain restless until they find rest in God. The world wants us to think that inner restlessness can be satisfied by the pursuit of prestige, power, pleasure and possessions, but it cannot because Christ alone can satisfy the restlessness, he said.
“Part of the solution to the renewal we are all praying for is to rediscover that holy restlessness that will not settle for the temptations the world puts before us,” the bishop said. “We’ve even seen it, sadly, in the lives of the ordained and the terrible harm that has been done, where they fill the whole of their heart with something other than Jesus Christ.”
He said seminarians are bombarded with the temptations of the world and urged the Serrans to join him in praying that they may not succumb to them and instead acquire the disposition of heart to pray without ceasing.
“I also ask you to pray for the formators and teachers and professors in seminaries, wherever they are,” he said. “They have been given a great responsibility. They are the ones who are going to have to force our seminarians not to make false choices, but keep their hearts open and restless to find Christ. They are the ones who are on the front lines of giving some very hard messages to our seminarians. It’s not easy work.”
Bishop Caggiano said a problem that defines our society is that young people are “so overwhelmed, so over-extended, so overloaded, so overstimulated and so over-informed” that they stop because they can’t do any more.
“This is the modern world trying to anesthetize the restlessness of the human heart with a lot of activity,” he said.
He also told the Serrans that when they pray for vocations, they should be praying for quality rather than quantity.
“I would be remiss if I said to you that I’m praying for many vocations because while I do want many vocations, I want all of them to be men who are seeking to be good, fully healthy men of faith. We want quality first. Quantity is important, but not as important as quality. We have seen the effects of those who have not lived the life, and we need to move beyond that in the renewal of the Church.”
He said a “good, healthy, holy seminarian who will become a good, healthy, holy joyful priest.”
“He has to be, in my terminology, comfortable in his own skin,” the bishop said. “That means he seeks an authentic moral life, a life of integrity and true freedom. He is one who is willing to live the truth, one who does not seek isolation, but community…he is a living example to others of a life that is integrated and has integrity. He is a man who will seek a personal relationship with Jesus, love the Lord with a fervent heart and love the Church. When you meet a priest or a seminarian like that, you will know.”
One of the hardest lessons to learn, but a necessary lesson, is “to choose between the good and the better.” To illustrate his point, he recalled an occasion when he was pastor at St. Dominic Church in Brooklyn and gave a homily “that was a complete disaster” on the topic of always choosing the better.
He deduced it was a disaster because the collection was half the usual amount at the Family Mass. In his homily, he told parents that their children were involved in so many ‘good’ activities that they didn’t have time to come to Sunday Mass because the parents were choosing a good over the better.
“I basically said if you don’t have time to do all the good things you want to do—and you sacrifice the better—you’re living life backwards,” he recalled.
He urged the Serrans to pray that seminarians always choose the better over the good. “Otherwise, they can become distracted by a lot of good things, and it is better to sit in the restlessness of their lives and learn to hear the voice of Jesus,” he said. “It’s only the restlessness of the heart that allows them to let go of everything else because once you have what matters, what’s different about everything else?”
To explain his theme, he gave the audience an image of Jesus and the apostles at the Last Supper.
“Pray that our seminarians, our priests and our bishops will accept the offer to be true friends with the Lord Jesus,” he said, adding that it was only on the night before he died that Jesus called his apostles his “friends” even though he had been with them three years.
“A friend is someone who can see you at your ugliest and still choose to love you,” Bishop Caggiano said. “He knew they would run and betray him, and yet he chose to love them to the end…The same is true of our seminarians. If they have the courage to live in this restlessness, too pray without ceasing, to encounter truly the heart of Jesus, they will find a friend who will always walk with them even when the world turns it back on them. He will always be there even in their ugliest moments. And that’s true for all the baptized.”
More about Serra
Formed in 1935, Serra USA was begun in Seattle by a small group of lay people to promote, support and foster vocations to the priesthood and consecrated religious life, choosing the great Franciscan missionary, Father Junipero Serra, as their patron.
At a time of the founding of American Democracy on the East Coast by people like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, an even older story involving the spread of the ideals of American Independence was unfolding in the West through the efforts of Father Serra, who arrived in California in 1769, establishing nine of that state’s missions from San Diego to San Francisco, and laying the foundation for much of that state’s modern economy, including agriculture and winemaking. A small man, suffering from chronic physical ailments, Father Serra is reported to have walked more miles in his career than the expeditions of Lewis and Clark, all to spread the Good News and plant the seeds of the Catholic faith for generations to come. St. Serra was canonized by Pope Francis in 2015.
Over the years, local Serra groups across the United States have worked with their bishops, dioceses and religious vocation directors to encourage and support vocations to the priesthood and to religious life.
