PEOPLE ASK a great deal of their priest, and they are right. But they should understand that it is not easy to be a priest. He has given himself in all the ardor of youth, yet he still remains a man, and every day the man in him tries to take back what he has surrendered. It is a continual struggle to remain completely at the service of Christ and of others.
A PRIEST needs no praise or embarrassing gifts; what he needs is that those committed to his charge should, by loving their fellows more and more, prove to him that he has not given his life in vain. And as he remains a man, he may need, once in a while, a delicate gesture of disinterested friendship . . . some Sunday night when he is alone.
[Michel Quoist, PRAYERS (Lanham, MD: Sheed & Ward 1999) 64.]
(Originally published as PRIERES by Michel Quoist (Paris: Les Editions Ouvrieres) 1954.)
