Father Voicescu, the teacher
Constantin Voicescu’s homiletic – or teaching – vocation can only be analysed in the context of the other specific priestly ministries: sanctifying and pastoral. Father Voicescu did not teach only from the pulpit, but through everything he did as a priest and as a man, because his life was a model and a lesson for all those who had the privilege of knowing him and being close to him from God.
Father Voicescu understood in an exemplary way that only the harmony between word and deed is in accordance with the Gospel of our Saviour Jesus Christ. Of course, the perfect harmony between word and deed is only Christ, as God and perfect man, but those who have been consecrated to serve him must strive to imitate Him. And anyone who knew Father Voicescu could easily see that His Holiness lived in a constant imitatio Christi, to use the inspired phrase of Thomas of Kempis. What he preached from the pulpit was first lived and experienced in deeds, words, gestures and all personal manifestations.
The Father was not necessarily a famous preacher of the stature of other Fathers, unanimously recognised and very popular: Galeriu, Ilie Moldovan, Cleopa or Teofil Pârăian. Father Voicescu was appreciated above all for other qualities: a wise and warm confessor, an impeccable pastor, a man of civic-moral attitude, not only religious, a priest involved in many social and charitable actions. It is only in the light of these ministries that the true dimension of the preacher comes to light. For the teachings he gave from the pulpit were always closely related to current problems, whether spiritual, social or charitable, and sometimes even political, when he felt that a certain attitude should be adopted.
President Constantinescu’s confessor
As a confessor, he was one of the most sought-after priests in Bucharest, visited both by ordinary Christians and by a large number of intellectuals of all ages, but especially by young people. Important politicians often knelt at his feet. It is no secret now that Emil Constantinescu, the former President of Romania, had him as his confessor, and we are convinced that if Father Constantinescu had lived, he would have had in him the most precious counsellor, and consequently he would have done more good and made fewer mistakes.
As a pastor, both public and private, he served with total devotion, always wearing clean vestments, discreet in voice and gesture, very sensitive towards other pastors. Although he had a warm and sonorous voice with a good range, he never abused it.
As a man of attitude, Father Voicescu was a complete stranger to passivism. This is how he was brought up as a child, this is why he belonged to the Brotherhood of the Cross, and this is why, as a young man, he experienced prisons, both under the Antonescu regime and under the Communists. Until the events of 1989, when he was under monthly investigation, Father expressed his civic attitudes in great secrecy, advising more during confessions and speaking in sermons somewhat “coded” so as not to be recorded as such by the omnipresent ears of Securitate. But the faithful understood his message because they knew his attitude.
Brought up in a spirit of true patriotism, after December ’89 Father Voicescu felt obliged to speak openly and firmly, abandoning almost all personal problems and devoting himself to the parish and the problems of the city. Some people misunderstood and misjudged him, even accusing him of playing politics instead of fulfilling his priestly “duties”… But that is exactly what he did: he understood that his duties were also linked to public life, because a priest cannot be indifferent to who is in charge of the country. Those who rushed to condemn him should have known that, for example, the monks of Mount Athos themselves, in difficult and troubled times for the State and the Church, went into public life, abandoned the tranquillity of their cells and took an open stand against those who harmed the interests of the community. Father Voicescu had such an attitude. He called a spade a spade, gave a spiritual turn to politicians he knew well, and at other times he denounced parasitism and its representatives. Father himself attended meetings of the Civic Alliance and proudly wore the “punk” badge in University Square. He was not the priest who simply said “Lord, Lord…”, gave out blessings and then went to sleep peacefully. He was a man of attitude, the likes of which you rarely find! He was constantly concerned about the fate of the country, and often pained by the opportunism of some of those in power.
Father’s social and charitable work was well known even before the Revolution. Not only the elderly and poor families of the parish benefited from his Samaritan love, but also those in old people’s homes, orphanages and hospitals, for whom he always organised collections of gifts, which he usually delivered personally. After the revolution, Father Voicescu devoted himself wholeheartedly to the now famous Christian Medical Association “Christiana”.
It is important to emphasise that Father Voicescu did not do charitable works just because every priest should. He did it because he was a generous man by nature and by education. No one, either in the parish or outside it, ever noticed a trace of stinginess in him, because he was very happy when he had the opportunity to give something.
From culture to faith
To return to the preacher, Father Voicescu never spoke indiscriminately and did not seek easy, immediate success. He was not a “frothy” preacher, his style was simple, sober, always free of sweetness and preciousness. He knew very well that preaching is not an end in itself, an “art for art’s sake”, but a means of proclaiming Christ and his Gospel, an art at the service of God and man. Wise and humble, Father Voicescu never spoke of himself, but of Christ’s teaching. He prepared his sermons rigorously, always beginning with prayer, and he was a serious documenter, writing down the various ideas he developed in the pulpit. He had an enormous culture and this is reflected in all his sermons.
He never left a service without a word of teaching. Not only on Sundays and feast days, but at all the Services celebrated: Vespers, Akathist, Memorial service, etc., he would say a useful word. During the weekday Services, he often used the teachings of the Holy Fathers, from which he would read certain passages and comment briefly on them, always relating them to the present day.
Sometimes Father Voicescu also turned to secular writings, with the same intention of offering the faithful not only religious ideas, catechism, but also culture, as much culture as possible, theological and non-theological. He knew very well that the Christian man in the city could not be convinced by “cheap rhetoric and popcorn”, in the words of Archbishop Anton of Transylvania. He also knew that much culture brings man closer to God, while little culture (mediocrity) distances him… In this sense, the Father’s efforts were also directed towards transmitting culture, as much culture as possible, and not only that which is strictly necessary for salvation. For this reason, the image of the deacon or teacher is more prominent in Father Voicescu’s work than that of the preacher and liturgist.
Father Voicescu’s favourite genre was the homily, especially the thematic homily. He never departed from the Gospel text, which he read patiently, but always drew out a specific theme, usually moral.
A contagious optimism
In his moral homilies, Father Voicescu had a particular predilection for emphasising the virtues: love, mercy, justice, conscience, perseverance, etc. A great lover of literature, Father often included verses in his sermons, lately mainly from poems about prison suffering, such as the now famous “Arise, Gheorghe, arise, Ioane” by Radu Gyr. During the winter holidays, fragments of Christmas carols were also included in the sermons.
For illustrations, Father Voicescu mainly used the Patristic and the Lives of the Saints, but he often brought in parables from the lives of particular people, many of whom had known the Communist prisons.
At the end of his homilies there was always an encouraging moral exhortation. Father was a man of contagious optimism, we would say with a strong hope that came from being a man and a faithful priest. In a depressed and confused world, Father met everyone with generosity, sharing his boundless optimism with exemplary care.
Father Voicescu’s success as a preacher, as well as that of his entire mission, was largely due to his power of persuasion, born of the fame he enjoyed, his good and respectable name, which he had earned through exemplary zeal. The words of St. John Chrysostom, who at one point in his treatise on the priesthood says: “The hearers do not judge the sermon by the words spoken, but by the fame of the preacher”, are also true of him. And fame is nothing more than the echo of personality. Father was indeed a man of strong and distinguished personality. And his face appears to us ever more radiant and imposing, despite the remoteness of the day on which he prematurely and tragically crossed the threshold of eternity.
(Pr. Vasile Gordon – Rost magazine, issue 25-26, March-April 2005)