To a new young priest

I recently had a chance to talk about the priesthood when I was asked to give a homily in the first Solemn Mass of a newly ordained young priest. It was an occasion for me to review my own priestly life of some 17 years. I realize it has been a very exciting part of my life.

The theory about the priesthood is, of course, well known, and every priest tries his best to abide by what is indicated. Life, however, has its continuing challenges and surprises that can severely test but hopefully progressively perfect one’s understanding of the priesthood as defined and described in the books.

No matter how well-intentioned one may be with respect to being faithful to one’s vocation, the reality of things has a way of bringing one back to earth, of realizing that what was studied to become a priest even with utmost diligence was just given a lick and a promise. Many, endless things still need to be learned.

Priesthood is a continuing and living affair with God and men. It’s akin to a contact sport, since it involves one to be so close and identified with the people he should be willing to get dirty with them. But it also requires him to be truly in contact with God. Otherwise, everything will look funny indeed!

I know that everyone, the laity included, has this kind of affair too. But the priesthood has that distinctive mark of being an active, not passive, bridge between God and men.

This is because the priest is configured to Christ as head of the Church. His share of Christ’s threefold function of sanctifying, teaching and governing the Church assumes an active character. He is at once a leader, and because of that, a servant. Thus, the hybrid term, almost an oxymoron, ‘servant-leader’, to refer to a priest.

Not so with the laity. It’s true that they do play a very active role in the Church. They live a common priesthood which is somehow a participation of Christ’s priesthood. They do some sanctifying, some teaching and some governing in the Church. But for all that, they depend on the clergy.

This is how Christ established his Church. The power to act in his person and in name as head of his Church up to the end of time was given not to all, but to Peter and the apostles, transmitted to the bishops and shared with the priests.

Thus the priestly identification with Christ is different from the identification with Christ the other faithful have. Everyone is configured to Christ, of course. Everyone has equal dignity and mission. But there is functional diversity, and the difference between ministerial and common priesthood is essential and not only in degrees.

The priesthood has to be exercised for the benefit of the other faithful in the Church. This is the purpose of the priesthood. Without this objective, the priesthood can be fatally handicapped. It crashes. It goes kaput.

Thus, the priest has to undertake a continuing process of transitions and adaptations in the different levels and aspects of life, since he has to link and reach both God and men. He cannot be just his own self. By definition, he has to be identified with God and men.

That is, he truly has to be another Christ, echoing St. Paul ’s words: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” Or better still, echoing Christ’s words when he walked on the lake toward his disciples who suspected him to be a ghost: “Do not be afraid, it is I.”

He has to be both studious, prayerful, recollected, in fact, contemplative on the one hand, and active, immersed with the affairs of men and of the world, on the other. He has to have the mind of Christ, the sentiments and longing of Christ.

He also has to bear with him all the concerns of the men, since like Christ he has to be all things all men. In fact, he should carry within his heart the whole burden of the Church.

That is, he truly has to pray and to be willing to make sacrifices even to the extent of being crucified like Christ. Short of that, priesthood gets caricaturized into being a title only, or an office, or worse, a badge or costume to wear only on official functions. That’s when it deserves to be laughed at.

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