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Our Bishop

James D. Conley

 
 

Homilies

Priesthood ordination 2018

Priesthood Ordination Mass 2018 - Gift and Mystery
Cathedral of the Risen Christ
May 26, 2018
Bishop James D. Conley


Bishop Bruskewitz, Bishop Finn, my brother priests, newly ordained deacons, consecrated religious men and women, beloved seminarians, friends in Christ, and especially dear families of our ordinandi, and my dear sons in Christ, Luke and Doug, who in just a few moments will be ordained priests of Jesus Christ.

Karol Wojtyla was ordained a priest on November 1, 1946. He was in an ordination class of one -- no one else was ordained with him on that cold November day in Poland. And, he was not ordained in Krakow’s glorious Wawel Cathedral, but in the upstairs private chapel of the archbishop’s residence.

As a young seminarian, the future saint would secretly serve the archbishop’s Mass in that same chapel, during the Nazi occupation of Poland. He had often served with another seminarian, a good and close friend of his, Jerry Zachuta. One day, Jerry was absent from Mass. Wojtyla went to his house to find out why. He learned that Jerry had been discovered -- the Nazis had forbidden Poles to study for the priesthood. In the middle of the night, the Gestapo had taken him away. Jerry had been executed.

On the day he was ordained a priest, Karol Wojtyla thought about his friend Jerry. He thought how strange it was that they had often served Mass, side by side in that chapel together, and now, while he was being ordained, his friend Jerry had passed into eternal life.

Wojtyla believed that Jerry was united to the mystery of Christ’s passion through his tragic death, a kind of martyrdom, and that he -- becoming a priest -- would now be united to that same mystery -- the mystery of Christ’s passion, death and resurrection -- in a new and more real way in the holy mystery of the priesthood.

Dear sons, today you enter into the very heart of the mystery of Christ’s passion, death and resurrection. As priests, you will make present that mystery in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. You will dispense the grace of that mystery in sacraments of penance and anointing. You will give witness to that mystery in your preaching and in the witness of your own priesthood.  Karol Wojtyla remained close to his friend Jerry for the rest of life, in the mystery of the priesthood, and is now, enjoying that friendship in heaven.

While the priesthood is certainly a gift, a gift that none of us have earned or even have deserved, the priesthood is primarily a mystery. In fact, in the early Church the sacraments were referred to as the mysteries – mysterium.  One of the reasons for using this word “mystery” to describe the sacraments, was because of they were kept hidden from the pagans, the so-called Disciplina arcani, lest they become objects of ridicule or sacrilege, and they were introduced gradually to the catechumens, the new converts to Christianity.

The priest, therefore, is ordained to be the “steward” or the “custodian” – if you will -- of the mysteries of God.  In the words of St. Paul to the Corinthians: “This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God (1 Cor. 4:1).”

And so, Luke and Doug, as stewards of God’s mysteries, you have been called to enter into the mystery -- the mystery of Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection.  Configured to Christ in the sacrament of Holy Orders, you become that mystery, you become an alter Christus, “another Christ” -- dispensing the grace of Jesus Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit, in the mystery of Christ’s sacred priesthood.

Pope St. John Paul II put it this way: “The priestly vocation is a mystery. It is the mystery of a ‘wondrous exchange’ between God and man. A man offers his humanity to Christ, so that Christ may use him as an instrument of salvation, making him, as it were, another Christ.”

This, my dear sons, is the mystery into which you enter today.

And at the heart of that mystery is an exchange of gifts. God has called you to be a gift.  He has given you a new and intimate union with him, not because you have merited it, but because he has called you. For no other reason than the call of the Lord, do you become priests today. You are called to put on Christ in a new way -- and that is a gift that cannot be merited, it can only be given and received.

But Christ calls you to freely offer yourselves as a gift. St. Paul, in his letter to Romans, calls you to offer your very bodies as living sacrifices. A living sacrifice gives himself over and over again, for the sake of others. He stands in solidarity with the spotless victim, the perfect sacrifice, Jesus Christ. He offers that sacrifice, the sacrifice of Calvary, and he hands himself over to his people, to his bride, the Church, to Christ himself -- so that he, in offering himself as a gift, is drawn up into the sacrifice of Calvary.  At the heart of that offering is the mystery of faith -- the mysterium fidei – the offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Holy Eucharist.

Dear sons, the priesthood which you receive today is both gift and mystery.  This gift and mystery will deepen as the years go by, both will become fuller expressions, more beautiful, more demanding, more graced. But at the heart of the gift and mystery is the Holy Eucharist.  The “source and summit” of the gift and mystery of your priesthood is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. That is where the Lord calls you, and that is where you will find meaning. Ultimately, as priests of the Lord, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is where you will find yourselves -- because it is the place where you will find Jesus Christ.

Each one of your brothers here is praying for you. Each one of us knows what the gift and mystery of the sacred priesthood means in our lives. We know that Christ has called us into something mystical, something sacred, but something that can only be experienced in the concrete demands of priestly life – a life spent for Christ – a life in which you will soon enter and experience.

We also know that the concrete, the tangible, the practical, come into union with the mystical, the profound, and intimate at the altar. All things, for a priest of Jesus Christ, come together in the Holy Sacrifice which you will offer at the altar.

We invoke the Holy Spirit. We invoke the saints. We pray in thanksgiving now, as the Lord confers upon you the “gift and mystery” for which you were created -- the gift and mystery of the sacred and holy priesthood. 

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