By Jonathan Liedl/NCRegister
What do the youngest brother of a dysfunctional Russian family, a Protestant barber from Kentucky, a shepherd of a rural French parish, and a problem-drinker padre on the run from the government all have in common?
They’re all fictional characters that Catholic priests tell the Register inspire their ministry.
That priests are drawing inspiration from works of fiction should be no surprise. Pope Francis recently affirmed the importance of reading good literature in preparation for the priesthood, and some seminaries in the United States and beyond are making novels and poetry a focal point of formation.
For four priests who shared their literary picks with the Register, good fiction can illuminate powerful truths about human nature and God’s grace that positively impact their ministry — whether or not the story’s protagonist is a priest, or their author is even Catholic.
Some of these stories inspire priests to prioritize putting love into action, or to remember the presence of Christ in the poor. Others encourage them to persist through personal weaknesses and external difficulties — and to trust in God’s grace and providence.
Here are four novels that priests say inspire their ministry and why they picked them.
The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Dominican Father Patrick Mary Briscoe, Province of St. Joseph
As a member of the religious order that lays claim to St. Thomas Aquinas, one of the Church’s greatest theologians, Father Briscoe has a strong devotion to Catholic doctrine. But the Dominican friar also knows that in pastoral ministry, people often aren’t looking for “stock answers dispassionately recited to them.”
“They need charity lived for them,” he told the Register.
Father Briscoe finds a literary witness to this truth in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, a thousand-plus-page family saga set in 19th-century Russia, which the Dominican said is “easily the most important novel” in his life.
In particular, Father Briscoe draws inspiration from Alyosha, the youngest of the three Karamazov brothers. In one scene, Alyosha responds to his atheist brother Ivan’s objections to religious faith not with an argument, but with simple love.
Father Briscoe said Alyosha brings to life what another character, the wise and holy Orthodox priest Father Zosima, says earlier in the novel: “Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.”
“Real love, real charity demands vulnerability and commitment, which Alyosha manifests in his devotion to his brother,” explained Father Briscoe.
In case there were any doubts about the theme animating the great Russian novelist’s masterwork, Father Briscoe points to the epigraph Dostoevsky assigned to The Brothers Karamazov, taken from John 12:24: “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.”
The Power and the Glory, by Graham Greene
Father Kevin Gregus, Archdiocese of Chicago
Father Gregus is not on the run from an atheistic government, as is the central character in Greene’s novel, set in Mexico during the anti-clerical persecutions of the 1930s. Nor can the Chicago parish priest relate directly to the imperfections of the Whiskey Priest, an alcoholic who has fathered a child.
Nonetheless, Father Gregus sees the faulty, fugitive priest as an inspiration for his own ministry, because the fictional cleric offered “faithful service despite his own flaws, sins and insecurities.”
“At times, it seems that what he is doing is fruitless, but in the end, he is able to remain faithful to his promises and convictions,” Father Gregus told the Register.
The young priest first read The Power and the Glory on a retreat before ordination, and he said it helped give him some “final purification of heart.” But the novel still bears fruit in his ministry today. In particular, Father Gregus highlighted a “beautiful” scene toward the novel’s end, during which a mother tells her children that the Whiskey Priest, despite all his flaws, died as a martyr for the faith:
“And that one,” the boy said, “they shot today. Was he a hero, too?”
“Yes.”
“The one who stayed with us that time?”
‘”Yes. He was one of the martyrs of the Church.”
“He had a funny smell,” one of the little girls said.
“You must never say that again,” the mother said. “He may be one of the saints.”
“Shall we pray to him then?”
The mother hesitated.
“It would do no harm.”
Father Gregus said the scene speaks to “the love and respect the laity have for priests even if they don’t deserve it.”
“To think that such a flawed man could be a saint is humbling and encouraging, and the mother’s remark is, in my experience, very in line with the respect of the priesthood even in today’s Church,” he told the Register.
The Diary of a Country Priest, by Georges Bernanos
Father Harrison Ayre, Diocese of British Columbia
Moving parish assignments can be a disruptive experience for a priest, but Father Ayre has a ritual that helps him stay grounded amid the transition: rereading Bernanos’ early-20th-century Catholic classic.
By worldly standards, the fictional account of a young priest assigned to a parish in rural France is not necessarily an inspiring one. The inexperienced pastor is plagued by bodily frailty and is confronted by apathy and lukewarmness in the community.
But in the midst of the setbacks, the country priest depends more fully on God, demonstrating what Father Ayre calls “the audacity of grace to continue to press forward despite everyone seemingly being dead to God” and the truth that sometimes the “most mundane things are the deepest spiritual battle for souls.”
“It reminds me of what it means to be a priest and how I must endure despite lukewarmness, resistance to God” and other difficulties, Father Ayre told the Register, “and that my priesthood is an existential cross lived out for the redemption of even those who reject God.”
The Canadian theologian points to another scene in the novel, during which the young cleric and a priest from another parish discuss how government programs are removing the poor from the streets, as a reminder of the unexpected ways that Jesus comes to him.
“It is a powerful reminder that the poor are not a problem to fix, but Christ’s presence to be encountered.”
Jayber Crow, by Wendell Berry
Father Colin Parrish, Archdiocese of Seattle
Berry’s novel, part of his series set in the fictional Kentucky town of Port William, isn’t about a priest. In fact, like his author, Jayber Crow isn’t even a Catholic — he describes himself as “the ultimate Protestant” and believes that Jesus didn’t come to start an organized religion.
But just as a work of fiction doesn’t need to be written by a Catholic to convey truth, a story doesn’t need to be about Catholics in order to be enriching — including for priests. Father Parrish particularly appreciates the novel’s depiction of the rich human bonds that make up the fictional community, with Jayber, the town barber, playing an important part.
“Wendell Berry’s account of normal human life helps refocus me on what actual stability and human connections are like,” said Father Parrish, who also cited Berry’s novel Hannah Coulter. In turn, Father Parrish said that the depictions of relationality “opens me up to charity.”
As a onetime Baptist preacher-in-training, Jayber Crow’s title character has a rich inner life and a keen sense of the divine, which leads to stirring reflections on the mysteries of the Christian faith. Father Parrish flagged a scene in which the Kentuckian goes to talk to an old professor about questions he’s had about God’s mysterious ways. The professor responds:
“You have been given questions to which you cannot be given answers. You will have to live them out — perhaps a little at a time.”
“And how long is that going to take?”
“I don’t know. As long as you live, perhaps.”
“That could be a long time.”
“I will tell you a further mystery,” he said. “It may take longer.”
Father Parrish said the scene helps him to “stay present in the moment,” amidst the uncertainties of parochial ministry, and “to continue to ask and beg” from God.
“Part of my happiness is tied to my own fidelity to God’s will; and so, for me to be happy in a time where I don’t know what he wants can be difficult because I am tempted to impose my own answer out of fear instead of living and waiting for him to be clear. It helps me to be obedient.”
