Shepherd of Souls

July 19th, 2025

I met with an elderly priest on Monday afternoon. He was recommended by a good friend of mine. The priest is retired. Actually, I don’t think priests ever really retire. They just shed the administrative responsibilities that burdened them when they ran a parish church or served in some other official capacity. They no longer have to preside over council meetings or handle budgets. Retirement for them means that they can perform other aspects of their calling for which they did not have time during the more active part of their ministry. A retired priest can celebrate Mass more often. He can more easily find time to administer the other sacraments of the Church to those who need them. In short, a retired priest can do the work that he has always wanted to do.

In the Catholic Church a priest, in particular the head of a congregation, is often referred to as a “pastor”. A pastor, in both Latin and Spanish, simply means a “shepherd”. As a lay Catholic it is a bit hard for me to accept the notion that I am one of the sheep. However, despite my desire to think and act independently, sometimes I need guidance. I can feel very overwhelmed by the events in my life, and I need somebody to point me in the right spiritual direction. I need a shepherd of souls. In that case, I should probably talk with a priest.

Do I necessarily need to go to a priest? Maybe, maybe not. I visit a therapist every week on Zoom, and I have at times consulted with rabbis and dharma teachers. I have talked with a shaman. All of these people have had wisdom to offer to me. The advice of a Catholic priest is of a different type in that he and I share the same world view, the same tradition, and the same myths (a “myth” being something that perhaps never happened but is true nonetheless). We can understand each other at a deeper level.

On Monday the old priest asked me why I came to him in particular. That’s a damn good question. Part of the answer involves the fact that the pastor of my parish church is exceedingly busy trying to integrate the populations and resources of four independent parish communities into one consortium. In the year that the priest at my church has been my official pastor, I have exchanged words with him only once. In contrast, I was able to talk with the retired priest for 90 minutes, and he would have patiently listened to me even longer than that. My pastor, the man I would normally see for help, has not been readily available to me. The old priest is able and willing to listen.

I believe in karma. I believe that I was meant to meet this priest, and that we were sitting together for a reason. I told him that. He smiled.

The elderly priest is in his eighties. He retired at the age of seventy-four. I am still seven years younger than he was when he hung up his stole. Does it matter that this man is old? I think it does. Indigenous peoples have great respect for their elders. Being old does not make a person an elder. To be an elder a person needs to have acquired wisdom through experience and be willing to help others by sharing that wisdom. The old priest is an elder. He could be out golfing if he wanted to do that. Instead, he sat across a table from me to hear my tales of anguish. I am not young, but this man is an elder to me.

We talked about God. At one point the priest asked me,

“So, Frank, is God good?”

I replied, “The jury is still out on that.”

We talked about suffering. He asked how suffering affected me. He already knew that I was tired.

I thought a moment. Then I said haltingly, “Sometimes, life just hurts too much.”

We talked about mystery. We both are old enough to know that we don’t know many things, and we know that there are some things we can never know. We decided that’s okay. We don’t need to know. We just need to love.

I will see him again in a week. I expect that we have much more to discuss.