Some priests are quiet and shy. Others are gregarious and warm. Some priests love to organize committees and programs. Others are artistic and scholarly. Some priests laugh easily and dance merrily before the ark. They are harlequins of hope. Others ponder existential anguish and convey a grave mien. They are harbingers of heaviness. Priests are like Heinz: we come in 57 varieties. As a dearly loved Passionist, Fr. Isidore O'Reilly, used to say:"If you don't see what you're looking for, just ask. We got'em!"

But one thing is common to all priests and pastors. Every pastor has to move from his own interiority in order to enter into the lives of people. Every pastor crosses over frontiers into peoples' otherness. Every pastor has to learn how people re-map the human boundaries of ethnicity and race, gender and language, identity and belonging. Each pastor has to pioneer uncharted soulscapes because he is privy to the cartography of others' souls.

The pastor's task is unique, but not exclusive. Others such as medical personnel, teachers, psychotherapists, colleagues at work or in trade unions, community activists and organizers, sponsors and people in recovery, parents, spouses, and dear friends live on the edges of spiritually permeable borders. What is unique to the pastoral situation? Each pastor covenants to trespass conventional boundaries and commits to dwell permanently in the common weal and woe of people.

This is what is meant when church law (canon 529) says:"In order to fulfill his office in earnest the pastor should strive to come to know the faithful who have been entrusted to his care. Therefore he is to visit families, sharing the cares, worries, and especially the griefs of the faithful, strengthening them in the Lord, and correcting them prudently if they are wanting in certain areas. With a generous love he is to help the sick, particularly those close to death, refreshing them solicitously with the sacraments and commending their souls to God. He is to make a special effort to seek out the poor, the afflicted, the lonely, those exiled from their own land, and similarly those weighed down with special difficulties. He is also to labor diligently so that spouses and parents are supported in fulfilling their proper duties, and he is to foster growth in the Christian life within the family."

What kind of person should the pastor be? Herculean, heroic, indefatigable, totally dedicated 24 hours a day? Not a one! The pastor is to be a man for others and a man alone. He has to learn balance and spiritual equipoise. He pays with the coinage of integrity because integrity demands that he honestly face both the illusions and the truths of his life. He is intensely involved with people: individuals, intimate circles, and large groups. He is also totally alone: when the meeting is over, when the weekend Masses are done, when the committee meeting is finished, when the employees and married ministers have gone home. Then he is alone, enveloped in silence, sometimes tired, or lonely, or depleted, or aware of the hole in his soul. He learns discipleship in solitude with God and in solidarity with others.