With the shortage of priests becoming more acute,
the parish priest is more
and more feeling the poverty of time.

The priest and the “Poverty of Time”

By Anthony J. Manuppella

As a diocesan priest, I’ve often been asked, “Father, what order are you in?” After I tell the person that I am a diocesan priest and “tongue-in-cheek” tell them “I’m in the Order of Christ,” they proceed to ask, “Father, do you take the vow of poverty?” Much to the surprise of the inquisitor I say, “No, diocesan priests don’t take the vow of poverty.”

Over the course of my 25 years as a parish priest, I have come to realize that although we do not take the formal vow of material poverty as in a religious order, the faithful and good diocesan priest has what I have experienced and I know my brother diocesan priests have experienced as well, what I call—the “Poverty of Time.”

In so many ways, the parish priest mirrors very closely the life of our Blessed Lord because it is the parish priest who does so many of the same things that Jesus did in his Public Life. “The next morning he left the town and set out into the open country. The crowds went in search of Him and when they found him, they tried to keep Him from leaving them” (Luke 4:42). The parish priest deals with people on a day in and day out basis. He is there with his parishioners in times of joy and times of sorrow, helping them to face the vicissitudes of life with a spirit of hope to continue on the journey of life. The parish priest is there to heal and console, as did our Blessed Lord. He is there in “the marketplace” admonishing, preaching, teaching, forgiving sins, visiting the sick, working with young couples, burying the dead, baptizing and feeding his people with the Body and Blood of Christ. He is there with the young, the school children, the religious sisters, the elderly and encouraging vocations, too!

But what exactly do I mean by a “Poverty of Time?” The “Poverty of Time” for the parish priest means that his life is not his own—is not now nor ever will be. And, with the shortage of priests becoming more acute, the parish priest is more and more feeling the “Poverty of Time.”

How innumerable are the times the parish priest plans his day, the things he has to do in the parish, and is taken away from those duties? You’re ready to go on your Communion calls and all of a sudden the phone rings and the parish secretary runs after you, “Father, you’re needed in the emergency room of the hospital, immediately!” (The family “didn’t want the hospital chaplain!”) There go all your plans for doing your Communion calls—”Poverty of Time.”

Or, what about the day you planned to take some time off, or to go visit a priest friend, or to go home—help your elderly father with some important task—and in the blink of an eye—two or three funerals come in to which you have to attend to—a “Poverty of Time.”

I remember several years ago on a Sunday afternoon preparing to perform several baptisms and on my way over to Church I was stopped in the parking lot with an emergency. A parishioner was upset and troubled and had to speak to me right then and there—literally a matter of life and death. I did the best I could in the situation knowing that I had people waiting for me in Church. I was about twenty minutes late for the baptisms—a “Poverty of Time.” Lo and behold, a few days later I received a nasty letter from the parents of one of the babies I baptized berating me for being late. Even though I explained I had an emergency, the parents sent a copy of the letter to the bishop’s office. Thank God, the chancellor of the diocese responded with a beautiful letter explaining to the parents that a priest’s life is very often interrupted by various emergencies and that, “Father Anthony probably had a good reason for being late”—a “Poverty of Time.”

Besides all the pressing spiritual needs of the people, there are always those other things the parish priest is, by default, expected to do. These include such duties as maintenance of Church, school, rectory, convent, gym, the lawns, stoking the furnaces, locking the Church and sometimes finding “the wayfarer bathing in the men’s room” or a “lady sleeping with her kitty litter in the confessional!”—a “Poverty of Time.”

The “Poverty of Time” extends to other areas of how some of the laity perceive the priest working in the parish. Although most parishioners are very supportive of their priests (and I think see them as hard working), there is a group who, because of sheer ignorance of the responsibilities of the priest, has a different picture. Some think all we do is eat, nap and channel surf! Some time ago, I celebrated my 25th Anniversary as a priest and I received monetary gifts from my family. I decided to have the parish maintenance man (who is an excellent carpenter) build a small deck outside the rectory for the priests to enjoy on occasion for a bit of relaxation. Soon after he built it, some of the parishioners were saying, “Oh, that’s where the money we give in the collection is going—a deck for the priests!” It was very hurtful to me and my assistant priests to hear such remarks since we probably have sat out there about four times the whole summer. That parishioners would begrudge their priests a little time to be together to relax a few minutes outside on a deck which cost less than $500 worth of wood was difficult to comprehend.

It seems to me that a case could be made that the “Poverty of Time” is probably more difficult than the promise of celibacy and the promise of obedience a diocesan priest makes to his bishop. Why would I say that? Simply because the “Poverty of Time” impinges on the priest’s very person, your time which is so valuable, indeed the “Poverty of Time,” like obedience, impinges on your very will. The “Poverty of Time” becomes, in reality, a pleasing oblation offered in sacrifice to Almighty God on behalf of the care of those souls entrusted to our care.

The “Poverty of Time” can become very frustrating. We can lose our cool when we must swallow hard and calmly forego all one’s plans and legitimate activities for the sake of a parishioner who needs you NOW, not tomorrow, not next week, but NOW—the “Poverty of Time.” But, we must constantly try to remember that the priest, and especially a parish priest, is called to act “ in persona Christi.” There is no greater sacrifice pleasing to God as when we imitate his Divine Son giving totally of ourselves for “the crowd went in search of him” just as the crowd goes in search of the good and faithful priest!

Anytime I’ve hired a parish secretary, bookkeeper, cook or the volunteers who may work in the rectory, they are always amazed at how many demands are made on the parish priest and how busy his life is in the caring of souls. They are simply dumbfounded and everyone has always remarked, “Father, I never knew how busy the rectory was, with doorbells and phones constantly ringing. I never knew how much the priest was asked to do.”

Now, all of this “Poverty of Time” business is mentioned not to justify or feel sorry for the parish priest, but only that the parish priest and the faithful realize that yes—the diocesan priest does take that invisible vow, that unmentioned vow—”Poverty of Time.” To the extent that the diocesan priest realizes this and says “fiat” to this unspoken vow and responds to it with great patience and love, and places the good of souls over his own will, plans and time—to that extent will he be sanctified and perfected because it is a tremendous sacrifice that our God receives with a pleased Sacred Heart. It is really the Sacrifice of his Divine Son on the Cross—the Sacrifice of our Lord throughout his public life ministering to people unselfishly in a total “Poverty of Time.”

Reverend Anthony J. Manuppella was ordained in 1976 for the Diocese of Camden, N.J. and attended St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia, Pa. This is his fourth article in HPR. Fr. Manuppella is pastor of St. Peter Church in Merchantville, N.J.