Mark 10;46-52 Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time-Priesthood Sunday. October 25th, 2015
Today we celebrate Priesthood Sunday. It is a time to celebrate one of God’s greatest gifts to His People. It is the priesthood that provides the means for us to grow in Faith, Hope and Charity.
When I think of the Father’s great gift of the priesthood I look back in my own life to those faithful priests that have revealed to me the Father’s love. I wish today to honor just a few of them and share them with you. I can’t help but be filled with incredible admiration and thankfulness to the Father for those spiritual fathers that offered their entire lives to Jesus Christ in order that Jesus could form them into His “other selves.” All in order that they could be His “living sacraments” to the world and lead you (and me), to He who is the Way , the Truth and the Life. I am sure as I tell you about some of the priests in my life, the priests in your life will come to mind as well.
I can remember that night, that terrible night in the hospital after finding out my best friend and dear wife Kathy, had terminal Cancer. It was that night that I began to realize the incredible power of the priesthood, a divine supernatural power that was Jesus’ own power working through the priest.
As I sat next to my dear wife’s bedside unable to cope with such devastating news, there came into the room a priest. He seemed to know just what I was thinking and asked me if I wanted to talk. This priest showed me the Father’s love-he was there when I needed it the most. This priest let me know that my wife’s illness was not God trying to get back at me for not going to church and failing to live the life that I should have been living. Instead, God was using all of this to offer me His mercy.
Then He told me of the Heavenly Father’s love for me and for Kathy, and that the Father wanted nothing else than to show us that love and draw us to Himself. This father patiently listened to me and let me cry out in my pain and sorrow. He heard my first confession, albeit a clumsy one and not very thorough, but nevertheless the first one in many, many years. And then the priest gave the Father’s infinite mercy and forgiveness in the absolution. Sadly, I don’t even remember this priest’s name.
Next came Father Kolfenbach, a holy, kind priest who my wife and I met after my aunt arranged a visit by father to my wife in the hospital. To this day, I don’t know what this holy priest said in his first visit with my wife. All that I know is that after he administered the Sacrament of the Sick with her, talked to her, & anointed her, her faith took off. She went from a young woman who was scared to death of the suffering and pain her cancer might bring, to an incredibly strong and brave person of faith, to the point of freely offering her life for others. After her encounter with this priest, people would visit her in order to cheer her up but they would be the ones who would leave the hospital strengthened and consoled in faith and hope and joy after an encounter with Kathy.
At her funeral Father Kolfenbach gave the homily and he spoke how when he visited Kathy, she would hold on to his hand. And when he went to leave she would say, “Father you can go, just leave me your hand.” He said at the homily, it wasn’t his hand she wanted to keep, but Christ’s own hand! Jesus literally touched her and healed and consoled her through the hand of the priest…the priest hand was Jesus’ own hand! This priest so spent himself for Christ and for others, even after he "retired" that he himself would die of cancer some two years after my wife’s death (one of the persons present at father's death was given a vision as father died. She saw Jesus removing his lifeless body from the cross and embracing it).
Then there was my dear friend and spiritual director, Fr. Gabriel. Father was there for me in the many dark and agonizing years after my wife’s death. He helped me to see the truth about why God allowed my wife to die. Father spent many hours during those years patiently listening to my frustrations and struggles. He helped me to see that God had a special job for me, one that I would never have even considered; nonetheless, this father helped me see that God was indeed calling me as well to be His priest.
How many other priests I could talk about with you today. I am sure many of you have your own stories of how priests have touched your lives. These priests that I mentioned served this member of God’s people, as well as countless others, extremely well. I honor them and all the priests that have had an impact on my life. I would not be here in front of you today if it wasn’t for their incredible lives of sacrifice. I can only hope that I can be half the priest that they were and are.
I also think about all the priest friends that I have today. I am humbled when I see their dedication and love for Christ, his Church and the People of God. I hear their joys and their pains and have seen their tears.
Even though one might think that the past scandals of a few have caused them much pain, more pain is caused by the indifference and the lack of understanding of some of the souls that they care for. They know that all priests are not perfect, much less holy, and they pray to God that they, themselves, may be always both faithful and holy. We too should pray for them that they always be holy and faithful.
These holy priests love the priesthood, not just because they are priests, but because they too, like me, have themselves been given the love of the Father through the many faithful and dedicated “fathers” that have been there when they needed them. They know the great gift of the priesthood by priests they themselves have come in contact with and also by the many incredible works that they see Jesus perform through their own priesthood. It hurts them when people don’t love or understand the priesthood, not because they are personally slighted, but because the office of the priesthood is slighted. They are hurt when people don’t see that there is a difference, not only in degree, but in essence between the royal priesthood of the laity received at baptism and the ordained priesthood.
The power of the priest does not come from the people, his authority is not given to him by a delegation of the community; the priest's power and authority comes from none other than God himself, given through the laying on of the hands by the bishop as successor of the apostles. In his Encyclical, Mediator Dei-The Mediator of God, Pius XII wrote the following speaking of the priest as the mediator before God:
"Prior to acting as representative of the community before the throne of God, the priest is the ambassador of the divine Redeemer. He is God's vice-regent in the midst of his flock precisely because Jesus Christ is Head of that body of which Christians are the members. The power entrusted to the priest, therefore, bears no natural resemblance to anything human. It is entirely supernatural. It comes from God himself. "As the Father hath sent me, I also send you [40]. . . he that heareth you heareth me [41]. . . go ye into the whole world and preach the gospel to every creature; he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." (Mediator Dei. Pius XII)
At the Holy Mass only, only a validly ordained Catholic priest can act in the name and in the very Person of Christ, or I should say, can Jesus act in the person of the priest, in persona Christi et capitis (in the person of Christ, the Head). Because of ordination, there is an ontological change in the priest’s being and an indelible mark placed on his soul. This ontological change means that the priest is given a new capacity so that when the priest acts, it is Jesus Himself who is now able to act in, with and through the priest. When the words of consecration at Holy Mass are spoken by the priest it is actually Christ Himself who speaks these words through the priest. Or as John Paul the Second put it, the priest says these words; or rather he puts his voice at the disposal of the One who spoke these words in the Upper Room.
So the priest, and he alone, possesses Christ’s power to consecrate bread and wine changing them into the true body and blood of Christ (into God Himself); and the power to then to offer Jesus sacrificially to the Eternal Father on behalf of the whole Christian people, in order that the power of Christ sacrifice and resurrection would be made available to those same Christian People. And so, No priest--no Holy Mass, no Holy Mass--No Holy Eucharist, no Holy Eucharist--no heaven for anyone. (This is also true with all the sacraments. So that when the priest gives absolution, the anointing, or marries, it is Christ Himself who does so through the priest).
But this "in persona Christi et capitis (in the person of Jesus the Head)," is not just limited to the Sacraments. Even when the priest blesses, when he prays, teaches, when he visits the sick or even when he visits your home, it is Christ himself who actually does these things through, with and in the priest; and they could not be done with the same efficacy (the very efficacy of Christ), without the priest.
It is a strong sign of the great loss of faith in our age, when this correct understanding of what a great gift the priesthood is to all of us is not held and practiced by the very people to whom God has given the priest. This loss of faith results in people not honoring or even opposing the priest who literally brings the light, life and love of Christ to them; it is literally, "biting the hand of the one who feeds you." In this case, the one who feeds you the Bread of Life--Jesus in the Holy Eucharist.
As we all honor those priests this weekend that have made an impact on our lives let us look for some ways to show them our love. I speak to myself as well as to you, because I too need to honor priests in my life that I depend on for the sacraments, especially that of confession. The priesthood doesn’t belong to me, because I am a priest, it is great gift for me as well as for you, so I too need to have great love and respect for it. Let us recognize that if not for the priesthood, there would be no Sacraments, no Holy Eucharist and thus no possibility of us receiving the Father’s love and forgiveness and no possibility for us to reach heaven. This is why St. John Vianney said that, “The priesthood is the very love of the Heart of Jesus.”
So, let us pray and offer up sacrifices for all priests that they may be holy and faithful priest. We all have a great responsibility to do so, and if we do not pray and offer our sufferings for them, then we all share in the responsibility when they fall, to the extent we don’t pray and suffer for them. Yes, there are those who have fallen, those who have even lost their faith and so teach something other than the Gospel. Then there are those who teach the truth but don’t live it. But there are, thank God, those who are holy and faithful priests. It is these chosen that literally bear the sufferings of the Crucified Christ on their person and in their lives…
So let us indeed pray for our priests and thank God for them and the great gift of the priesthood. Let us forgive those priests that may have failed us through their human weaknesses. Let us give true obedience to the priest as our spiritual father in Christ. The priest is more deeply a father to us than our biological father; our biological father gives us life, but our spiritual father gives us spiritual life, and so offers us eternal life. And let us pray that all people might see clearly the incredible gift of the priesthood of Jesus Christ that he shares with imperfect and sinful men like me.
If we pray for the priest, and don't condemn him or oppose him when he is trying to do nothing else than to be faithful to the dictates and teachings of the Church and Holy Father, then he, the priest, will have the strength and holiness to literally spend himself bringing you the graces, helps, blessings and love of God without which you cannot get to heaven.
If we pray for him and support him, then he, the priest, will have only one aim and ambition in his life, to ensure that the great marriage feast of heaven will be full. With your prayers and sacrifices offered to the Father on the priest’s behalf, he will be able to be a man apart, yet belonging to everyone. He will then receive your respect, your cooperation, your love, and your devotion. Have a place for him always in your prayers and heart, just as every one of you has a place in his prayers, in his heart, and in mine as well. God bless you! Holy Mary, mother of priests, pray for us.
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