Thoughts on the Holy Priesthood, April 3rd/2010

 
​The man after Priestly Ordination is ontologically different then he was prior on account of the sacramental character he receives from the Holy Spirit's embrace. Yet you say I knew so and so before he was a priest and so I call him by his first name. Do you do this because you want to highlight an 'in' you have with a priest or is it that you do not acknowledge the Work of the Holy Spirit in his soul. If you would grow in true devotion and fear of the Lord you should not cease to speak of those whom He has set apart as such. 'Father', after all is not a title but a statement of identity from which a priest's mission flows. To call a priest by his name without 'Father' unless you are a brother priest is to reduce that which is holy to the state of the common. This is one of the weeds which attack the virtue of fear of the Lord. The priest is not just another guy just as Christ is not just another guy for the priest is another Christ(alter Christus). And even though the priest is not without sin unlike Christ, he still is another Christ and this will be esteemed in the hearts of those who enjoy intimacy with the Transcendent God who condescends in His incarnation so as to lift us to the dizzying heights of holiness.
​Is the Priest your sibling, remember that he is first your 'Father' and this not of his own will but by the will of God the Almighty Father. Is the priest your uncle, your son, your cousin, classmate, childhood buddy? Remember, he is now your 'Father' by the will of God. Remember the story of Joseph and the dream in which the sheaves of wheat fell prostrate before his sheave. This excited pride and jealousy in his brothers who were unwilling to humbly acknowledge the plan of God. Even Joseph's parents were surprised that even they were to be subject to him, but once again if this had been the will of Joseph himself his parents and siblings would be right in the attitude they showed to him but when it stems from the will of God  such an attitude testifies to an irreverence whether knowingly or unknowingly before the mind and heart of God who has called this person. (Genesis 37:5-11)
​Those who attack the priest attack Christ. Those who seek to usurp the ministerial identity of the priest in the Most Sacred Liturgy by assuming to themselves the ministry proper to him are in fact robbing from Christ Himself and are making the claim whether consciously or not that Christ the Priest is not needed to attain union with God for we can still take in this day and age the fruit of the Tree without any mediator. To attack the priest is to attack Christ the Savior. To seek to make the Priesthood common is to say in essence to Christ: we acknowledge you as brother but not as Lord, we can save ourselves. The Priest stands among the mystical body of Christ as Christ the Lord. Any attempt to reduce the identity of the priest to simply be one who presides over the assembly is to emphasize that he in the person of the body but such a truth only has significance and bearing in so far as he is first in the person of Christ just as the moon has light as a result of standing in the direct path of the Sun's light.
​We are not saved by ourselves but by Christ alone. It is Christ who gives us the Liturgy; we do not concoct our salvation. It is by uniting ourselves to Christ as His body that we pass beyond the veil. Salvation is entirely gift and this stems from the saving sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, who in Himself is the Priest. Therefore when you prayerfully gather for Holy Mass with your eyes you see a mere man but by the power of the Holy Spirit before you stands another Christ to whom you must humbly unite yourselves if you would be saved for there is no other name given under Heaven by which we can be saved and this name and identity are engraved in the soul of the man who becomes priest so that Christ being in your presence can save your soul.
​Is not the priest who is not treated as such like the Suffering Servant of whom it was said, “There was in him no stately bearing to make us look at him, nor appearance that would attract us to him. One of those from whom men hide their faces, spurned, and we held him in no esteem.” (Isaiah 53:1-3)
​The Holy Sacrifice of Calvary is not a mere abstraction that happening nearly 2000 years ago saves us. Rather this Holy Sacrifice is concretely present to us at each Mass as time gently bows its head and genuflects as eternity shines for a brief 60 minutes. The Holy Sacrifice is eternal. It happened in time but because it was an offering of the Eternal Son of God it has an eternal quality which transcends the limits of time. This eternal quality Christ alone can accomplish and He perpetuates this Holy Accomplishment in every day and age by tightly and intimately hugging the man He calls to be Himself so as to conceive in this man's soul by the working of the Holy Spirit the same who was conceived in the womb of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, Jesus Christ the Author and finisher of our faith.
​Are you going to exalt your knowledge of one who becomes priest over God's knowledge of the one He configures to Himself as priest? Are you exalting your awareness of the priest over his consecration and dedication? If you answer yes then you are offending God more so then the man whom God configures to Himself as Priest and this is because by virtue of the priest's ordination God makes Himself present in the soul of the Priest and to dishonor the priest or to treat him with worldly familiarity is to treat God with worldly familiarity and to claim that what God calls consecrated you insist on calling common. This is evidence of a shameful irreverence. If I were given the gift of an unconsecrated Chalice and then it was consecrated by the Bishop, would I dare to drink orange juice out of it because I once possessed a familiarity with it before it was consecrated?