Untitled Sermon

LESSON: The Priesthood Is a Gift from God for the Church (catechetical homily in three parts)

The priesthood is one of the seven sacraments - the precious channels by which God pours his grace into this needy world.

Even though not all Catholics are called to priests, all Catholics are called to understand, appreciate, and benefit from this sacrament - it's a sacrament given by God for the whole spiritual family of the Church.

Here is what Bl John Paul II said about the dignity of the priesthood:

"The world looks to the priest, because it looks to Jesus!  No one can see Christ; but everyone sees the priest, and through him they wish to catch a glimpse of the Lord!  Immense is the grandeur of the Lord! Immense is the grandeur and dignity of the priest!" 

The more we appreciate this gift to the Church, and understand it, the more fully we will be able to benefit from it - both us priests, and also the laity.

And today's Second Reading points out three aspects of the priesthood that can help us grow in our appreciation and understanding of the priesthood.

ILLUSTRATION: Part I: The Priesthood Is a Call from God

The first key aspect of the priesthood is that it is a vocation, not a career.

The Reading tells us: "No one takes this honor upon himself, but only when called by God."

This reminds us that the priesthood is one of the seven sacraments – the sacrament of Holy Orders, which has three different levels: deacons, priests, and bishops..

The other sacraments are: baptism, the Eucharist, reconciliation, confirmation, marriage, and anointing of the sick.Every sacrament was established by Jesus Christ as an instrument of divine grace.They are not merely human inventions.They are pipelines between heaven and earth, and God's saving grace flows through them in a unique, certain, powerful way.So no one has a “right” to the priesthood: it is a gift from God to the Church, a sign of his generosity and desire to be our guide and companion through life and death.

If you have never heard a priest explain how God's call came into his life, and the drama of how he tried to ignore or respond to it, invite one of us over for dinner and ask to hear the story.

[Here you can share with your congregation an episode from your own vocation story, illustrating that point that it was God who called.][At this point, you may also want to explain the importance of praying for vocations, since it is only God who can give the gift of a call.]Sometimes the young man whom God calls is eager to accept, as in the case of St John Vianney, who wanted to be a priest from a very young age, but whose lack of education almost disqualified him.Other times, the young man whom God calls is horrified by the prospect, as in the case of St Ambrose, who put on a disguise and escaped from the city at night, just to avoid getting ordained – thanks be to God, he was unsuccessful.

The priesthood is a sacrament and a vocation, not a career; it comes from God.

ILLUSTRATION: Part II: A Priest Is a Servant

The second key point about the priesthood concerns what the priest is called to do.

A priest is a servant: he serves God, and he serves God's people.The Reading tells us that a priest is "taken from among men and made their representative before God."The priest offers gifts “and sacrifices” to God on behalf of the community of believers.

We all need God's grace in our lives.

We need his wisdom, his forgiveness, his strength, his comfort.

If we become separated from God, our lives will slowly fall apart, like a building without a foundation.

It is the priest's job to keep us connected to God.

The priest prays for the people of God, and teaches them to pray.The priest intercedes with God for the forgiveness of the people's sins, and teaches the people to forgive one another.The priest spends his time filling his own heart and mind with the light of God's divine truth, and then carries that truth, like a flaming torch, into the lives of God's people.

Through the priesthood, God makes himself present in every corner of the world.

St Damien of Molokai, the Belgian priest just recently canonized by Pope Benedict XVI (11 October 2009), served the island leper colony of Hawaii, back in the 1800s.He served them so faithfully that he contracted the disease himself and died among the lepers.When St Maximilian Kolbe was in the concentration camp at Auschwitz, before he was executed, he treated his fellow prisoners as his parishioners.At night, prisoners used to crawl out of their bunks and over to where St Maximilan was sleeping, and he would hear their confessions, right there in the barracks. When he and a group of fellow prisoners were starved to death as punishment, every day for two weeks the other prisoners heard only hymns and prayers coming from the starvation bunker.[You may want to relate a different story about a heroic priest, one that has inspired you personally, instead of speaking about St Maximilian Kolbe or St Damien.]

The priest is ordained to be a servant: a servant of God on behalf of God's people, and a servant of God's people on behalf of God.

ILLUSTRATION: Part III: A Priest Is a Normal Human Being

The third key aspect of the priesthood is that every Catholic priest is a normal human being.

A young man is not called to the priesthood because he is superior to others.A young man is not called to the priesthood because he is some kind of spiritual superman.And once someone is ordained, it is no guarantee that they will suddenly become perfectly angelic and wildly holy.

The Reading points out that a priest "...is able to deal patiently with the ignorant and erring, for he himself is beset by weakness..."

Every priest, like every Catholic, has the opportunity and responsibility to seek holiness.

Every priest, like every Catholic, will have to make a reckoning on Judgment Day for how faithfully, or unfaithfully, he fulfilled his mission.

But even if a priest is unfaithful, mediocre, or downright hypocritical, God will still work through him.

A beautiful, big, stainless steel pipeline can deliver cool and refreshing water to your house, but so can a small, narrow, rusty old pipe.The water remains the same.The priest is not the source of the grace that he communicates; he is the channel through which God sends it.The holier he is, on a personal level, the bigger the channel, but the channel itself comes from God, not the priest.Even if a priest is in a state of mortal sin, his Mass is still valid, his confessions still confer God's mercy and grace.In the 1920's, when the revolutionary government in Mexico tried to stamp out the Catholic Church, they didn't exile and execute only the holy priests; they relentlessly pursued every priest.

Priests are normal human beings, and although we expect and hope that they will honor their high calling, God still remains faithful even when they don't.

APPLICATION: Conclusion: Praying for More Priests (with optional quotation from St Gregory Nazianzus)

A priest is a normal human being, whom God, for a mysterious reason known only to himself, calls from all eternity to be his servant and the servant of his people.

We should remember, reflect on, and thank God for this sacrament.

Today, as we continue with this Mass, in which Jesus Christ will once again come into our lives through the ministry of his priest, let's do so; let's thank God for the sacrament of Holy Orders.Let's pray for our priests.And let's pray for God to raise up many more priests - holy, dedicated, humble servants of the Church, courageous enough to leave behind the seductions of popular culture in order to devote themselves entirely to Christ's Eternal Kingdom.

[OPTIONAL QUOTATION FROM ST GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS]

I would like to finish by reading a quotation from St Gregory Nazianzus that can help us appreciate the gift of this sacrament:

"...I know whose ministers we are, where we find ourselves and to where we strive. I know God's greatness and man's weakness, but also his potential. [Who then is the priest? He is] the defender of truth, who stands with angels, gives glory with archangels, causes sacrifices to rise to the altar on high, shares Christ's priesthood, refashions creation, restores it in God's image, recreates it for the world on high and, even greater, is divinized and divinizes." [reproduced in the Catechism, #1589]