Holy Orders - 2012 - I

In this beautiful time of each year, as we come near to the celebrations of the ordinations to the holy priesthood in our Diocese, it becomes quite suitable as well as spiritually enriching to reflect on the reality of Holy Orders once again, to pray anew and with increasing vigor for our priests and seminarians, and to thank Jesus, our divine Master, for giving us Himself in the Holy Eucharist at the Last Supper, along with the Sacrament of Orders, which makes the Holy Eucharist valid and possible for us. What is the Catholic priesthood? Blessed Pope John Paul II said that question can be partly answered by proclaiming that the priesthood is a vocation, the priesthood is a gift, the priesthood is the nerve center of the whole life and mission of the Catholic Church, and the priesthood is a mystery. The Second Vatican Council teaches that "those men who receive the Sacrament of Holy Orders are consecrated in Christ’s name to feed the Church by the word and grace of God." The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, "Holy Orders is the sacrament through which the mission entrusted by Christ to His Apostles continues to be exercised in the Church until the end of time. Thus, it is the sacrament of apostolic ministry. It includes three degrees: episcopate, presbyterate, and diaconate. Ordination is also called "consecration", for it is a setting apart and an investiture by Christ Himself for His Catholic Church. The laying on of hands by the Bishop, with the consecratory prayer, constitutes the visible sign of the ordination."

"The Catholic priesthood is ministerial, that is, it is not mainly for the man himself who receives Orders, as much as for the people he is destined to serve. The Second Vatican Council says, ‘That office which the Lord entrusted to the pastors of His people is, in the strict sense of the term, a service.’ It is entirely related to Christ and to men and depends entirely on Christ and on His unique priesthood. It has been instituted for the good of men and the communion of the Church. The Sacrament of Holy Orders communicates a ‘sacred power’ which is none other than that of Christ."

At every Mass we present our gifts to the Almighty, our tears and smiles, our work and play, our very breath and heart beats, all symbolized by the bread and wine brought up to God, but, of course, these are only things which God has first given to us. Then these gifts are taken by Christ, through the person and power of the ordained priest, and transubstantiated into Christ’s Flesh and Blood, the dying and rising of Jesus Himself, thus made into the perfect worship of God by God’s own action. Something that is somewhat analogous happens at ordinations to the priesthood.

A man is presented to God by the community and for the community of the Church, but he is, before all that, first given a call, a vocation, not from the community but from God Himself. As the Catechism says, "The ministerial priesthood has the task not only of representing Christ, Head of the Church before the assembly of the faithful, but also of acting in the name of the whole Church when presenting to God the prayer of the Church, and above all when offering the Eucharistic sacrifice. The words ‘in the name of the whole Church’ do not mean, however, that priests are delegates of the community.... It is because first of all that the ministerial priesthood represents Christ that it can represent the Church."

Our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, explains this further: "Here (in Holy Orders) a man does not exploit his own powers and capacities and is not installed as a functionary just because he can do something particularly well, or because he has a knack for something, or simply because it is a way he can earn his daily bread by holding this as a job." The word ‘Sacrament’ means a man is enabled to give what he cannot give by himself, doing things that he cannot do by himself. He is sent on a mission and becomes the messenger of what the divine Other has transmitted to him. This is why no one of his own accord can declare himself a priest. This is why no community can, by its own decisions, empower anyone to be a priest. Only from this Sacrament can a man receive what belongs to God and thus enter into the mission that turns him into being God’s messenger and God’s instrument. Being entrusted with the mission that the whole Church in her unity has herself received is what we call ordination to the priesthood. At an ordination to the priesthood, something is happening there that is greater than anything that any human beings on their own can do."

The Second Vatican Council teaches, "Christ, Whom the Father hallowed and sent into the world, has, through the Apostles, made their Successors, the Bishops namely, sharers in His consecration and mission, and these, in their turn, duly entrusted in varying degrees various members of the Church, with the offices of their ministry. The function of the Bishops’ ministry was handed over in a subordinate degree to priests so they might be appointed in the order of priesthood and be co-workers of the episcopal order for the proper fulfillment of the apostolic mission that had been entrusted to it by Christ. Whilst not having the supreme degree of the pontifical office, and notwithstanding the fact that they depend on the Bishops in the exercise of their own proper power, the priests are for all that associated with them (the Bishops) by reason of their sacerdotal dignity and in virtue of the Sacrament of Holy Orders, after the image of Christ, the supreme and eternal priest. They are consecrated in order to preach the Gospel and shepherd the faithful as well as to celebrate divine worship as true priests of the New Testament."

"Through the Sacrament of Holy Orders priests share in the universal dimensions of the mission that Christ entrusted to the Apostles. The spiritual gift they have received in ordination prepares them not for a limited and restricted mission, but for the fullest, in fact universal, mission of salvation to the ends of the earth (Acts of the Apostles 1:8), prepared in spirit to preach the Gospel everywhere. It is in the Eucharistic cult or in the Eucharistic assembly of the faithful that they exercise in a supreme degree their sacred office. There, acting in the Person of Christ and proclaiming His mystery, they unite the votive offerings of the faithful to the sacrifice of Christ their Head, and, in the sacrifice of the Mass, they make present again and apply until the coming of the Lord, the unique sacrifice of the New Testament, that namely of Christ offering Himself once and for all a spotless victim to the Father. From this unique sacrifice their whole priestly ministry draws its strength".

The Catechism reminds us, "Priests can exercise their ministry only in dependence on the Bishop and in communion with him. The promise of obedience they make to the Bishop at the moment of ordination..." means that they "owe the Bishop love and obedience."