A not-so-witty tweet

Yesterday someone on Twitter (so far as I know, a complete stranger to me, @Witty_Witticist), included me in one of his tweets that read:

You suck.  Having a silly book and a costume is not a real job.

I can only suppose that the "silly book" is either the Bible or the Roman Missal and that the "costume" is either the Roman collar (whether in suit form or cassock) or the sacred vestments for Mass and other liturgical celebrations.

Perhaps without knowing it, he is, to be sure, quite right.  A silly book and a costume does not make a real job.  I could grab some silly book of jokes and dress in a monkey suit but that wouldn't mean I had a job.  That is, unless someone paid me to dress in a monkey suit and tell jokes.

But there is something that the Witty Witticist doesn't quite grasp regarding the very nature of the priesthood: it is not, in point of fact, a job, but a vocation.

A job is done during certain agreed upon hours during which certain agreed upon tasks are performed.

A vocation is a way of life.  The vocation of the priesthood - like the vocation of marriage - is not performed but lived, and not for certain hours of time but every moment of every day.

In this sense, the Witty Witticist is right: I do not have a job.  I have instead a vocation.  As it happens, the job I perform is to serve as Priest Secretary and Master of Ceremonies to the Bishop and the Associate Director of the Office for Vocations.  These assignments are not necessary to my life as a priest, but to live each day as one is.