Parish Missions

Priest, Prophet and King

We have just concluded the “Year of St. Paul” and now it’s the Year of the Priest. Paul is surely worth honoring with “a year,” though I’m not so sure that my brother priests and I are anywhere near his league to have a year in our honor. But with the help of Paul and the Scriptures proclaimed today, we might learn something about the priesthood and about ourselves.

Though the lessons offered by the Scriptures today might easily be applied to the ordained priesthood, our common baptism calls us all to be “priest, prophet, and ruler” in Christ. I would propose that this “year of the priest” include the “priesthood of the baptized” in the spirit of St. Pope Leo the Great who wrote in one of his sermons on the priesthood:

For all, regenerated in Christ, are made kings by the

sign of the cross; they are consecrated priests by the oil of

the Holy Spirit, so that beyond the special service of our

ministry as priests, all spiritual and mature Christians know

that they are a royal race and are sharers in the office of

the priesthood.*

So the picture Ezekiel paints of a proclaimer of the Word is not simply the fate of the ordained, but of every disciple who undertakes the proclamation of the reign of God. There will be forces of opposition at every turn. Even from within our own assemblies we find those who resist the vision of a new creation of peace, justice and equality.

Witness the reluctance to accept the prophetic voice of equality for women in the Church or for the immigrant in our society. Preaching by word or example the Gospel of inclusion often places the proclaimer in the crosshairs of criticism. If we aspire to live out the commission of our baptism as “priest, prophet, and ruler” we will also have to live with the what Ezekiel calls the "hard of face and obstinate of heart.”

St. Paul’s confession in his letter to the Corinthians is a profound admission of human frailty that is essential for anyone who would be priest. The most important fact of all forms of ministry is that we ourselves are powerless. Further there is no requirement of innocence, but rather the necessity of being what Henri Nouwen called “the wounded healer.”

Both the ministry of the baptized and the ministry of the ordained require people who are broken--human enough to accept the power of Christ working in and through us. In a day of recollection I facilitate on sanctity, the first criteria I offer is that a saint must first be a sinner who recognizes that she/he is loved unconditionally. It is especially in ministry that "power is made perfect through weakness.”

Finally, in the spirit of Ezekiel, Mark makes it clear in the Gospel that, like Jesus, our ministry will more than likely fall short of the expectations of others. One of the reasons Jesus was rejected was because he didn’t fit the expectations of the authorities. There was a particular way a rabbi was to behave. He was so focused on the reign of God that he often disregarded or minimized ritual traditions. The religious leaders found Jesus altogether too much for them. Not unlike the current suspicions of the Vatican about the ministry of religious women!

Jesus also rattled some in his own community. Wasn’t he one just like them? How could he claim such authority? They failed to see that Jesus’ authority was an authority of service. To be a minister of the Gospel in our day requires a thick skin and an unflinching focus on the Gospel of love and compassion. Rejection by our own and even by some in authority may dampen our spirits but should never deter us from our baptismal call.

In our celebration of “the year of the priest” we should recognize that we are all called by our baptism to be priests. Again the words of St. Pope Leo the Great:

Although the universal Church of God is constituted of

distinct orders of members, still, in spite of the many parts of its

holy body, the Church subsists as an integral whole, just as the

Apostle says: "We are all one in Christ." No difference in office

is so great that anyone can be separated, through lowliness,

from the head. In the unity of faith and baptism, therefore, our

community is undivided.*

This is most true in our celebration of the Eucharist. Though the ordained priest presides, it is the entire assembly who, as the Body of Christ, offers the sacrifice with the presider/celebrant. We are not spectators; our full, active, and conscious participation is essential to the celebration. We join with our priest-presider as concelebrants.

As we continue our Eucharistic celebration, we embrace as our own the Word proclaimed today, celebrating it now and always. Perhaps if in this “year of the priest” we would reiterate the power of the common priesthood of the baptized and the ordained, the journey to the reign of God, the path to the New Creation, would be more readily recognized and more joyfully celebrated. Perhaps then there would really be no shortage of priests..

* From the Office of Readings, Roman Breviary, for November 10, Feast of St. Leo the Great