Post Number 1,000!

-Image source

About two months ago I published a post entitled Priest. It was my intention then, as I noted, to offer a series of posts on that topic. I’m certainly behind schedule here but I want to pick up where I left off on June 7!

This is also my 1,000th post on this blog. On occasion I take a cyber stroll through the archived posts here and I never fail to come across items I’d forgotten I’d posted.! (I also come across graphics which I'd forgotten I'd found!) As I’ve written before, this blog has been a joy to write. Blogging has virtually eliminated my watching television and that in itself would be a good thing. In addition to that, I find writing here a great opportunity to use some talents and skills I have, to be creative and, most importantly, to minister to you. Given this blog's title, A Concord Pastor Comments, and its general contents, I think it’s fitting that this 1,000th post pick up the theme of priest.

I’m going to begin here by republishing the June 7th post for those who had not seen it and for those who may have forgotten it. It is followed below by a fresh post in this series which will, I pledge, be sustained and not suffer a two-month hiatus.

ADVISORY NOTE: Please keep in mind that these reflections are posts written on a blog - not a doctoral dissertation or a papal encyclical. I don't for a moment think that this series will say everything there is to be said about priesthood. You can expect, then, that this series of thoughts on priesthood will be INCOMPLETE! And, just because I may not mention something does NOT mean that I don't believe it!

First in the series: Priest (June 7)
What is a priest? Who is a priest? How does he pray? How often does he pray? Is the life of a priest a lonely life? a happy life? What does he long for? How much is he like everyone else? How much is he unlike everyone else? What makes him different? What makes him the same? What does he believe? Does he believe everything the Church teaches? Does he believe everything he says? What does he question? Is he closer to God than others? Does God pay special attention to a priest's prayer? What are his sins? What are his struggles? To whom does a priest go to for help?

I have my own answers to these questions. And you probably have yours. I wonder how similar they are - and how different...

Much of what we think and believe about the ministry of priests is shaped by our childhood experience of them - and what we were taught to think about priests. Perhaps some day someone will write a doctoral dissertation on the different understandings of priesthood held by those who grew up prior to Vatican Council II and those who never knew the pre-Conciliar Church.

Both the Council's recognition of the people of God as constitutive of Church and ministry and the reform of the liturgy contributed to rethinking and reshaping our understanding of the life and work of priests and how they function in the Church as servants of God's people.

With Vatican Council II, some significant changes in our understanding of who and what a priest is took place nearly "overnight." I was born (1947) into a Church culture dangerously close to deifying the person of the priest, a culture in which abuse of children could and did occur -- and a culture in which abuse could be and was tragically denied and shielded in nearly every place. Vatican II opened (1962) while I was in high school. My seminary training (1965-1973) was colored by the early days of post-Conciliar ecclesial life. By the time I was ordained (1973) the liturgy was celebrated in the vernacular, lay ministers of the Eucharist were increasingly common and a popular liturgical song included the refrain, Priestly people, kingly people, holy people, God's chosen people: sing praise to the Lord!

When I was in high school we had Mass in the auditorium on the first Friday of each month. Just introduced at that time was the practice of having people present the gifts of bread and wine as the altar was prepared for the Eucharistic Prayer. A table at the back of the auditorium was dressed in a white cloth and on it were small cruets of water and wine (we were not yet receiving Communion under both kinds) and a variety of ciboria, gold plated vessels containing hosts to be consecrated at that Mass. One of the Sisters stood at the table making sure that a white purificator (liturgical napkin) was wrapped around the base of each ciborium lest our unconsecrated fingers touch the vessels in which the unconsecrated hosts would be consecrated. Within a decade lay men and women (and high school students!) were assisting the priest in giving Communion (under both kinds) and everyone was touching the vessels.

I paint that picture to remind you of a time when there were things that priests did, places in the church where he went, prayers he said, things he touched - that ONLY a priest was allowed to do, enter into, say and touch. Then, almost overnight, much of what had been reserved to priests was shared with the laity. It was commonplace before the Council to understand that a priest did sacred things with sacred objects. But something significant occurred when things so sacred that only a priest could touch them became things now placed in the hands of all believers.

Decades of liturgical practice and the rise of lay leadership in administering the Church both on diocesan and parochial levels have changed the landscape of priesthood and our understanding of it.

More recently (2002) the story and scandal of the sexual abuse of children by priests has shaken to the core our understanding of who priests are. Who we thought them to be, what we trusted them to be: so much of what we took to be a surety about priests has become, for many, a large and troubling question mark. Centuries of a particular appreciation of priests and their work has been radically changed by the history of the past 50 years.

Second in the series: Priest (August 7)

This is the second in a series of reflections based on the italicized questions above, at the top.

The first of these - What is a priest? - is a big one! I’ll begin by offering you first some background on priesthood written by Thomas Richstatter, O.F.M., Th.D. (Take the time to read the excellent, longer, complete article here.)

Today, the question "What is a priest?" is not an easy question to answer.

Usually with questions such as this we can turn to the New Testament and ask, what does Jesus say about priesthood? What did the early Christian communities expect of their priests? Scripture does not provide an easy answer in this regard. For while there are many different ministries mentioned in the New Testament—teachers, prophets, healers, preachers, evangelists, shepherds—there is no mention of priests in the modern sense.

When the first Christians (who were Jews for the most part) thought of priests and sacrifice, they thought of their Levitical priests and the Temple sacrifices in Jerusalem (see Mark 1:44; Mt 8:4) and pagan priests from surrounding regions. In the Christian community we find no individual set apart as mediator between the community and God. Christians did not need a priest in this sense. Jesus himself fulfilled this role: "For there is....one mediator between God and the human race, Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5). There was no longer any need for a priest "to offer sacrifice day after day, first for his own sins and then for those of the people; he [Christ] did that once for all when he offered himself" (Hebrews 7:27).

By the same token we do not find any reference to lay ministry in the New Testament. Jesus did select some disciples and make them apostles, giving them a special mission in relation to the rest of the community. What these apostles did or what made them different from the other disciples is not clear in the New Testament. But we know that this apostolic ministry continues in the Church today. "Holy Orders is the sacrament through which the mission entrusted by Christ to his apostles continues to be exercised in the Church... It includes three degrees: episcopate, presbyterate, and diaconate" (Catechism #1536).

Originally "episcopate, presbyterate, and diaconate" referred to secular offices in Greek society. Episcopos means "overseer" or "leader"; presbyter means "elder" or "adviser"; and diaconos means "minister" (as in civil government today we might speak of the minister of finance or the minister of education.) We cannot find any distinct job description for these three offices in early Christian writings; it seems that their function varied from place to place. Early Christians used the terms somewhat interchangeably.

But as often happened in the history of the Church, time and pastoral experience have drawn uniformity from original diversity. By the third or fourth century the variety of ministries mentioned in the New Testament was assumed into the ministry of leadership. The episcopos, or bishop, became the primary minister.

The bishop exercised his ministry with the help of a council of elders (presbyters) who were his co-workers. Their principal function was to advise the bishop. They shared this responsibility for the local Church and sometimes stood in for him when he was absent. The bishop also had the help of deacons who were responsible for specific ministries, for example, assistance to widows and orphans, care of the sick, finances, education and administration. This threefold ministry continues today.

As the Christian community grew and became distinct from Judaism, it defended and explained its rituals in contemporary terms of the day. Christians gathered for the "Breaking of the Bread" and saw this sacred meal to be the sacrament of Christ's sacrifice on Calvary. Those who presided at this sacrifice—bishops and especially presbyters—came to be called "priests." Their function began to be seen as similar to the Jewish Levitical priesthood.

By the end of the third century the community leader was seen as a sacred person, one set apart to offer sacrifice on behalf of the faithful. The Orders of Bishops, Presbyters and Deacons became Sacred or Holy Orders.

From then until the time of Vatican II, Holy Orders was identified almost exclusively with the second of these three degrees: the presbyterate.

-Thomas Richstatter, O.F.M., Th.D.

Who am I, ConcordPastor, as a presbyter, a priest of the Roman Catholic Church?

To get at that question I need to "peel the onion" of my existence which reveals the following layers:

I am a human being.
I am male.
I am baptized and Roman Catholic.
I am celibate.
I am ordained.

I’ll begin at the most basic level: I am a human being.

This may seem obvious on the face of things and yet there are some who expect priests to be, somehow, more than human.

At the same time, others think that priests, on account of celibacy, are somehow less than human.

Then there are those who believe that because of ordination, a priest should or can somehow suppress his humanity with the grace of divinity.

But wait a minute: we don't even believe that of Christ! We profess that Christ, the Son of God, was both fully human and fully divine. In fact, the Church calls heretics those who believe that Christ's humanity was overcome by or subsumed into his divinity. The mystery of the incarnation is that Christ was fully human and fully divine.

Our humanity is always subject to the power of grace but to deny or denigrate our humanity is to forget that we are "created in the image of God; in the divine image we are created, male and female we are created." (Genesis 1:27)

Before all other identity, then, I am a human being, created in God's image and given a soul that gives me life. Just like you. Just like every other human being who ever has or ever will come into the world. Although I am a child of Ruth and Austin Fleming, I was known to God before I was "knit in my mother's womb." (Psalm 139) Even before I was conceived, I was known to God.

My humanity never ceases to bless and plague me!

That my humanity somehow images God is a blessing, a gift and the source of everything good and beautiful about me and my life. That my humanity is tarnished and scarred by that original brokenness we all share with the whole of creation leaves me vulnerable to the temptation to choose less than what I was made for. Like St. Paul (Romans 7) I often find myself doing not what I want but what I hate - and very much in need of God's mercy and grace.

We have, in the last several years, discovered the danger of thinking that somehow priests are not human like everyone else, that they enjoy some perfected existence beyond reproach. So many times the cries of abused children were shushed or ignored because people believed or wanted to believe that, "Father would never do such a thing!" The sexual abuse of children is an extreme example of the whole spectrum of ways in which priests are human and are subject to the brokenness and temptations that all human beings experience - without exception.

Priests have good days and bad days - just like everyone else. Priests sometimes judge rashly or act imprudently - just like everyone else. Priests get sick, get old and live with all manner of aches and pains - just like everyone else. Priests have emotions, feelings, moods, desires, hopes, wishes, dreams and fantasies, yearnings, tastes, attractions, prejudices and biases - just like everyone else. Priests have joys and sorrows, hurts and healings, problems and confusion - just like everyone else. Priests sin, repent, confess and are forgiven - just like everyone else. Priests die - just like everyone else and priests are judged by God – like everyone else.

A good friend from a parish I once served often told me that as a priest I had nothing to worry about because priests had a “free ticket to heaven.”

I wish!

So is a priest only like everyone else? In most ways, yes – and in some ways, no. A priest lives the ministry of holy orders and with that sacrament God offers a priest the grace to live what he has been called to. In much the same way, God offers a married couple the grace to live their marriage; a single person the grace to live a single life; and a widowed person the grace to live in the shadow of a lost spouse. Grace can't be measured in pounds or square feet nor do I think priests get “more grace” than other people. I believe that each of us receives just as much grace as we need to live in fidelity to the Lord and his word.

In a sacramental way, too, priests are called to represent Christ. Of course, every baptized person is called to be an ambassador for Christ. But the Church teaches that a priest is called to image Christ in a particular way and that is most clear in how the Church believes a priest acts in the person of Christ in the celebration of the eucharist and in absolving from sin. As a Catholic priest I recognize that my ministry includes activity through which Christ the High Priest continues to minister to his people through my service. This, along with preaching the gospel, is the heart of my ministry as a priest. The wonder here is that Christ chooses to minister through the person, the life, the words and the actions of a human being like me: that the Risen One continues to blend divinity with humanity in ministering to the members of his body, the Church.

So, a priest is first of all a human being. When I post again in this series, I'll look at the second layer of the onion peel: I am male.

In the meantime, I look forward to reading your reflections in the combox. (Please keep in mind that I can't answer or even respond to every question that comes in. The main conversation in the combox is between the readers, a conversation which my posts begin and which I may occasionally enter.)

-Concord Pastor