Year for Priests
“For you I am a Bishop, with you I am a Christian” (St. Augustine)
Our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI officially opened the Year for Priests on the solemnity of the Sacred Heart (Friday 19th June 2009) and wrote a letter to priests worldwide. The letter carries the title: “There is little love of God in that parish; you will be the one to put it there.” These were the words of the Bishop of John Mary Vianney (now saint) after appointing John as the parish priest of Ars in France:
Then during the homily during the Vespers inaugurating the Year for Priests the Holy Father said painfully, “How can we forget, that nothing makes the Church, the Body of Christ, suffer more than the sins of her pastors, especially the sins of those who are transformed into ‘a thief and a robber’ of the sheep (Jn 10:1ff), or who deviates from the Church through their own private doctrines, or who ensnare the Church in sin and death?”
As I read the letter and the Holy Father’s homily I was reminded, by the Spirit I believe, of a memorable phrase that St. Augustine used to describe his state as a Bishop; he said, “For you I am a Bishop, with you I am a Christian” (Sermo, 340, 1). These words of Saint Augustine have remained with me for long in my priestly life and has given me the right orientation in many ways. Hence I wish to write in brief these double aspects of the life and identity of a priest.
“For you I am a Bishop”
St. Augustine first of all understood his priesthood as a gift of God for the Christian community. It is a great act of love on the part of Christ the High Priest to gift the family of God with people consecrated in his own model, as teachers, priests and shepherds. Christ had already begun the preparation for this great act of love, when he formed a special group of twelve disciples (cf. Mt 10:1-4; Mk 3:13-19; Lk 6:12-16; Jn 6:70). They were selected out of a much larger number of disciples (cf. Lk 6:13, 17). They were called to be with him and then to be sent out to preach and cast out demons (Mk 3:14-15). They were to do what Jesus himself was doing (cf. Mt 10:1-21; Mk 6:7-13; Lk 9:1-6). They were representing Jesus in their own person. So much so, those who accept the twelve accept Jesus himself (cf. Mt 10:14-15; Jn 13:20) and those who reject the twelve reject Jesus (cf. Lk 10:16).
Besides, Jesus also taught them privately and more fully (cf. Mt 11:1; 13:36f; Mk 4:10ff; 8:31; 9:30-37; 10:32). This was because of the future role that they were to fulfil, of teaching, shepherding and sanctifying the family of God (cf. Mt 18). After the Lord’s death and resurrection these men were sent out as primary witnesses to his life, to his teaching and above all to his death and resurrection (cf. Mt 28:18-20; Mk 16:15-16; Lk 24:45-49; Jn 20:21-23; Acts 1:8). Their ministry consisted of preaching (cf. Acts 2:14; 2:37; 2:42), a pastoral role of guiding (cf. Acts 4:35), and of praying and laying hands (cf. Acts 6:1-6). Besides these, it also involved a role of authority in the community of disciples (cf. Mt 28:19-20). The early Church understood that this was true also after the resurrection, and continued to stay united with the apostles, as well as with the Churches that the apostles had founded and left behind.
When we think of priests and priesthood, we think of these apostolic origins. Jesus instituted the priesthood together with the sacrifice of the Eucharist during the Last Supper as a great act of love for all those people who would become part of his new family. No one can claim this dignity himself, but only those who are called by God. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews wrote that Jesus the priest (and all those joined in his priesthood) was “taken from among men and made their representative before God to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins” (cf. Hebrews 5:1). This is one of the best definitions of the priest’s identity. Every priest, according to the gifts bestowed upon him by the Creator, can serve God in various ways and with his priestly ministry, can reach various sectors of human life, bringing them closer to God. However, he remains and must remain a man chosen among others and “made their representative before God.” It is a reality that is constantly examined and verified by the faithful, because the priest is “taken from among men and made their representative before God to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.” He is so important for the life of the Community that the holy Cure of Ars, Jean Marie Vianney, taught in his Catechism on the priesthood, “Go to confession to the Blessed Virgin, or to an angel; will they absolve you? No. Will they give you the Body and Blood of Our Lord? No… A priest however simple he may be, can do it”. So much so he continued in his catechism (with a bit of pious excess), “If I were to meet a priest and an angel, I should salute the priest before I saluted the angel. The latter is the friend of God; but the priest holds His place.”
However, de-linked from its biblical and patristic origins, the concept of priesthood underwent a crisis, which was more than evident in the protestant reformation. Luther, offended by the concrete situation of the Church of his days, considered medieval ritualism and priesthood as a degeneration of a true Christian spirit. In the De Captivitate Babilonica he wrote, “Of this Sacrament (Order) the Church of Christ knows nothing: it is an invention of the Church of the pope. Not only is there nowhere any promise of grace attached to it, but there is not a single word said about it in the whole New Testament. Now it is ridiculous to put forth as a sacrament of God something that cannot be proved to have been instituted by God.” This is what many of our protestant brothers and sisters still think today. They consider priesthood as a human creation. However, studying ever deeply our traditions, both biblical and patristic, we believe and know that priesthood is a great gift that Christ left for his Church, for the sanctification of her Children. In the face of anti-sacerdotal movements, much fierce in our situation in Kenya as well, we believe priesthood is a gift to the Church, “For you I am a Bishop”. It is a vocation for the Church. If we devalue ordained priesthood, knowingly or unknowingly we are destroying the Church itself.
