Life on the Ridge
We are blessed in our ministry at ACTS XXIX to spend a fair amount of time being with and ministering to priests all across the country. Over the course of the past three plus years we have been fortunate to accompany some 2,000 of our ordained brothers on retreats of one kind or another. To be sure, some of them are thriving in their priesthood, but more often than not they’re suffering in one way or another from what we often call “life on the ridge.”
That expression comes from a scene in Hacksaw Ridge, the remarkably moving true story of Private Desmond Doss, a soldier in World War II who fought in Okinawa, among other places. There’s a particular scene where Doss and the others in his battalion land on the island and begin a march from the shore up to the place of battle, a place known as Hacksaw Ridge. As they’re marching, they’re talking with one another, singing, and making jokes. They’re new recruits, they’re green, and they’ve never seen battle. As they continue to march and get closer to the place of conflict they’re suddenly confronted with the men they’re being sent to replace. The men are coming down from the ridge in trucks and fall into one of three categories. They’re either dead, wounded or dazed. “These are the men we’re replacing,” one of the captains says to another soldier.
We show this scene when we have the opportunity to be with our brother priests on retreat and it’s amazing how impactful it is — perhaps simply because someone is acknowledging what their life is like. I remember showing this clip to one priest who had come to visit me in our offices and he began to cry when he saw the faces of the soldiers in the trucks. “That’s me,” he said. “What in the world happened to me?” he asked.
Newly ordained priests can often be like those young recruits marching up to the ridge. We’re joyful, confident — overly so, with an attitude sometimes of, “Step aside, boys. The cavalry's here.” How incredibly naive we were, or at least I was. We had never been in battle, never seen the life that is the daily, hourly, trauma care of being a priest. I remember a newly ordained priest sitting down with me after he emerged from hours in the confessional. It was the very first time he had heard what people bring, and he was in there for close to three hours. He collapsed on the sofa in our rectory, turned to me and said, “I can’t believe what I have just heard. How in the world do we do this every day?”
Why do I share this? Well, we’re in a heavy season of travel right now with ACTS XXIX, and we are doing what we can to care for the priests we are with. Behind the masks and facades that many of them are putting up, there’s often a range of intense emotions going on: frustration, loneliness, isolation, anger, disappointment, battle fatigue, exhaustion, and more. Their faces often look like the men coming down from the ridge in the movie: dead, dazed and wounded.
Please pray for priests, maybe in this month of May asking the intercession of our Lady on a daily rosary. Consider writing those who serve you in your parish, thanking them for their vocation and letting them know you’re praying for them. Maybe invite your pastor over for dinner just for fellowship. These men need you. Badly.
The front lines of the battle to be sure is marriage and family, but we all more or less know that. What most people don’t know is what’s going on in the life of our priests, the men who have given up marriage and family out of love for God and a desire to love us.
