Some Thoughts For A Special Year

Details: 21 May 2010

Ordination Day

As the special Year for Priests (Year of the Priest) winds down to its close and as the approaching days of priestly ordinations for our Diocese come nearer, it is most useful and suitable to give some thought and reflection to the great and precious gift that Jesus gave to us in His Catholic Church, when, in that Upper Room in Jerusalem, He instituted the Blessed Sacrament of the Most Holy Eucharist, and then, to make its perpetuation possible to the end of time, He instituted the sacrament of Holy Orders, ordaining His Apostles as His first priests, the first men to share in His unique and eternal priesthood (Luke 22:19). It was in that same Upper Room also that our Savior later instituted the Sacrament of Penance, giving to His newly ordained priests the power and authority to distribute or withhold all the forgiveness of sins which He merited for our human race on His cross (John 20:22-23).

Blessed Columba Marmion, the saintly Benedictine Abbot, wrote: “Remember what happens on the day of ordination. On that blessed morning, a young levite, overwhelmed by the sentiments of his own unworthiness and weakness, prostrates himself before the Bishop who represents the heavenly Pontiff. He bows his head under the imposition of hands by the consecrating Prelate. At this moment the Holy Spirit descends upon him and the eternal Father is able to contemplate with ineffable complacency this new priest, a living reproduction of His Beloved Son: This is My Beloved Son! While the Bishop holds his hands extended and the whole assembly of priests imitate his gesture, the words of the Archangel addressed to Mary are accomplished anew: The Holy Spirit shall come upon you and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you (Luke 1:35). At this moment, full of mystery, the Holy Spirit takes possession of this chosen one of the Lord and effects between Christ and him an eternal resemblance. When he rises, he is a man transformed: You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchisedech (Psalm 110:4; Hebrews 7:11-24).

The Character

Father Charles O’Connor explains that the “eternal resemblance” mentioned by Blessed Columba Marmion is “another way of describing the character (indelible mark) of Holy Orders.” Along with Baptism and Confirmation, Holy Orders is an unrepeatable sacrament, “able to be received only once in the course of a lifetime.” He says, “The priestly seal or character (2 Corinthians 1:22; Ephesians 1:3 & 4:30) is separate from, yet much related to, the baptismal one. It too may be received only once, imprints something permanent on the soul, and follows naturally from the characters given in Baptism and Confirmation. Saint Augustine was the first to write about the sacramental character of Holy Orders, and he viewed its permanence as completely unaffected by one’s leaving the priestly ministry, sinning mortally, or in any way separating oneself from Christ’s Mystical Body (the Catholic Church). A priest is always (at the very least ontologically, in the depth of his being) a priest.”

The fine christological expert and theologian, Father Jean Galot S.J., notes, “The mark is indelible. Its permanency is not dependent on whether this or that priest has what it takes to carry out an activity. Nothing can erase it. Nothing can cause it to vanish. The indelibility, affirmed by the Council (of Trent) applies at least to our earthly life during which the sacrament may never be repeated. As to its permanence in the next life, nothing has been explicitly declared. The Council’s own declaration was not intended to address this issue, which is rather speculative and without direct relevance to the life of the Church here and now. However, since the character is a spiritual mark, it is difficult to see how death could prevail against it.”

Father Galot goes on to teach, “Once the priestly character is again set in this original perspective, it can be understood as the Father’s imprint on the Son, an imprint which, at the incarnation, makes of the Man-Jesus the image of the Supreme Shepherd. This constitutive imprint of Christ’s fundamental priesthood goes on to impress itself on each one of those who receive a participation in His pastoral ministry. The Father, Who inscribes His own Self on the Son, inscribes that same Self on priests in a very special way. What Jesus was in His own priesthood, as the Word made Flesh, namely the Father’s inscription and signature on human life, an inscription that recounts the ineffable (John 1:18) and renders visible the One that no one has ever seen, this is what priests are called to be in their turn by virtue of the priestly character. Their mission as heralds of the Word rests upon the same foundation, upon the Father’s self-revelation imprinted on their own human selves.”

St. Thomas Aquinas

One of the most learned American commentators on the writings of the Angelic Doctor was Father Walter Farrell O.P. He once paraphrased some of Saint Thomas’ views on the priesthood: “When a man becomes a priest, he becomes another Christ. Before his ordination, he received a grace from others, but after ordination he can communicate grace to others. He is the active, human instrument through which the grace of Christ passes to men. This makes it apparent that Holy Orders is a social sacrament. Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Communion, Penance, and Extreme Unction sanctify the individual for his own advantage. But, Holy Orders sanctifies a man for the benefit of others. It makes him holy so that he can communicate holiness to others.”

“A priest is a man of power and authority. By his preaching, example, and counsel, he directs the lives of his parishioners in accordance with the revealed wisdom of God and the laws of the Church. In his administration of the sacraments and the blessings of the Church, he is the human channel through which the power of the passion of Christ is transmitted to men for their salvation. No man could ever give himself such power or arrogate to himself such authority. No mere man could even dare to choose himself for so stupendous a role in the life of men. Only God can make a man a priest and He does so in the Sacrament of Holy Orders.”

Other Comments

Cardinal Avery Dulles wrote: “Sacramental ordination to priestly office confers the power to pronounce the words of consecration at Mass in such a way that Christ is the principal Speaker and Actor. Only in this way is it possible for the Eucharist to be identically the same sacrifice that was offered on Calvary. As the Council of Trent clearly taught, the priest and the victim are the same. Only the manner of offering is different.”

Archbishop Fulton Sheen reminded Christians: “Some things are too beautiful to be forgotten...Arnold Toynbee reminds us that we have roses in June so that we may have memories in December. Our blessed Lord came not to live but to die. He would not, therefore, leave to the chance recollection of men the memory of His victimhood. He Himself would institute the precise means of its recall: Do this as a memorial of Me (1 Corinthians 11:24).” This is basically what the Catholic priesthood is all about!