José María Rodríguez Olaizola, SJ

A young Italian priest was found dead in his home last week. He had committed suicide. The news has provoked countless echoes – including this one – on the internet. Perhaps it is particularly striking to imagine that the faith – which we take for granted and which is established in the life of someone who consecrates himself in this way – was not enough. That he did not find in the gospel the necessary strength to continue, that the dark night he undoubtedly went through (for whatever reasons) was not dispelled by the light of the spirit. It is shocking. But it is real. And so, it is.

Even faith does not protect us from life, from the storm and the fragility of the human being. The priest is not someone who has become an invulnerable Christian because everything is so much clearer to him. In fact, he does not have everything much clearer. He participates in the anxieties, the brokenness, the fears and the insecurities; just as he participates in the joys, the celebrations, the courage and the conviction of the human being in the face of the uncertainties of life. He loves Jesus to the point of consecrating his life, but that does not mean that sometimes he is not tossed by the waves, afraid of being shipwrecked, and has to cry out, like those first fishermen: ‘Save us, for we are perishing.’

His faith is not an insurance against sorrow and loneliness. His prayer will at times be a well to quench his thirst, and at other times it will be dry and silent. There are days when he will carry the weight of many wounds, his own and others’, and days when he will feel incapable of doing so. There are days when the Eucharist will be too big for him and he will be overwhelmed by what it commemorates. Perhaps there are mistakes, failures and poverties in his own story that make him no less worthy of the gospel, but in fact one of its most real characters. He is a good shepherd, yes, but also a prodigal son. He is a good Samaritan, but also a wounded man on the roadside. He is a disciple, sent to heal troubled hearts, while weeping at the feet of the master for all that in his own life has been mediocrity and inconsistency.

As priests we have to be able to tell this too. That following Jesus is not the special virtue of stronger, more believing, more solid heroes. That there are days when we are bitten by loneliness, when we feel overloaded, when we are powerless to respond to what others need, and when motivation seems to be lacking. That sometimes we get fed up with ourselves. And of always fighting battles that seem to have no end.

Without dramatizing either. It is the life of so many people, with its shadows and edges. But if we are not able to share this too, in the end the road can become too steep. And then there are those who give up. Or those who become mere functionaries. Those who become bitter. Or, unfortunately, those who can’t take it anymore and give up on life.

This English version is my translation from the Spanish original.