One of my two favorite priests is leaving our parish to go and be pastor of his own parish. I’m so sorry to hear it. Before I worked out the Polish names of our priests (we have four!), I gave them English epithets based on how they struck me.
This one was Father Perfect Harmony, because that's how he did everything. He sings beautifully, reads beautifully, performs every gesture of the Mass beautifully, concentrates beautifully on what he's doing in Mass (never glances off during the Eucharistic prayer, for example, to see who just came into the sacristy; never looks around during the intercessions as though calculating how much paint it would take to cover the soot stains on the ceiling; seems completely unaware of the fidgety altar boy to his right). He is so reverent and concentrates so completely on the Mass that you forget about him.
That may seem like an odd thing to say, but what I mean is that he never draws attention to himself with some odd or flamboyant gesture, by changing words in the prayers (almost unheard of in Poland anyway), making eye contact with particular people, grinning, waving — absolutely nothing that makes you think of Father Jacek instead of being completely in the Mass.
I think it was somewhere in C.S. Lewis's writings that I read about how devotional art, as opposed to art for art's sake, should be “transparent,” in the sense that we should not be looking at a statue of Mary and wondering why the artist put her in a mini skirt or gave her blue eye shadow; we should not be looking at the crucifix and wondering why Jesus has blond hair or is wearing plaid or — God forbid — seems to have rather womanly breasts. We should look at the work of devotional art and then go immediately through it and beyond it to the very real person we are addressing in prayer.
In a sense, that's how Father Jacek celebrates the Mass. Because he never draws any attention to himself — even though there he is, the only moving object on the altar, the “thing” that we are all looking at and listening to — somehow when Father Jacek celebrates Mass you go “through” him and enter into the Mass more completely. There's never a moment when you think, “Who is he grinning at when he says, 'Peace be with you'?” or “What's he looking at in the back left corner of the church, and is it worth my turning my head to see what's going on back there, too?” Because he's so completely attentive to the Mass he's celebrating; because he is completely reverent and never changes a jot or tittle in the prayers; because he never does anything to draw attention to himself in any way, I find that I can very quickly go “through” him to the Mass itself, the same way I glance at a statue of the Blessed Virgin and go “through” it to Mary herself.
It's not Father Jacek's Mass, it is the Mass itself, and Father Jacek does nothing at all to cause me to forget for even a moment that this is an eternal sacrifice, that heaven is present in the church with us. Never for a moment do we come crashing back to earth and back into time because Father Jacek has done something to say, “Hey, I'm here. Look at me! Listen to me and what I want to say! Notice this cool little fillip I've added to my gestures or the way I emote when I read the Gospel and really throw myself into singing the psalm!” His devotion, concentration and reverence make him transparent, and we go through him to the divine mysteries, which is exactly where our hearts and minds should be during Mass.
I just wish there was time for me to tell him before he goes.
© Copyright 2005 Catholic Exchange
This was originally sent as personal correspondence to one of our editors. It is published with the permission of the author.
