Father John Hardon Writings

Apostolate for Priests

by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

Over the centuries, the Church has exhorted the faithful to do everything they can for the priests who trace their priestly ancestry to Christ’s ordination of the apostles at the Last Supper on Holy Thursday night. Catholics are to pray for priests. They are to make sacrifices for priests. They should have Masses said for priests. They should encourage priests to remain faithful to their high vocation and do everything in their power to ensure the sanctity of priests.

We know that, without the priesthood, there would be no Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist, no Sacrifice of the Mass, and no Holy Communion. Without the priesthood, there would be no sacrament of Confession, and therefore, no infallibly-assured means of recovering the friendship of God after falling into mortal sin.

Surprisingly, our focus in this conference will be, to say the least, unique. On the feast of the Assumption in 1997, the Holy Father ordered a several thousand-word document to be published on the collaboration of the non-ordained faithful in the sacred ministry of priests. In the time at our disposal, I will concentrate on what I consider the main issues about which the Holy See is most deeply concerned. Concerned about what? Concerned about the intrusion of the laity into the divinely reserved precincts of the sacred priesthood.

There is a widespread laicization of the Catholic priesthood. It is deeper than anything in the history of the Church since the Protestant revolution in the sixteenth century. Over the years, in teaching students in Protestant divinity schools, I have told them that my favorite definition of Protestantism is “Priestless Christianity.”

In one simple declarative sentence, I would say the principal responsibility of the Catholic faithful in the apostolate for priests is to put into practice their faith in the priesthood instituted by Jesus Christ.

The Ministerial Priesthood and the Common Priesthood of the Faithful

Jesus Christ is the Eternal High Priest, whose death on the cross merited our salvation and who continues offering Himself to His heavenly Father for our sanctification.

But Jesus Christ made sure that His followers would share in His priesthood in two different ways. There is what we call the ministerial priesthood, which is rooted in the apostolic succession and consists in the power and responsibility of acting in the person of Christ, the Head and Shepherd of His flock. It is the priesthood which makes its sacred ministers servants of Christ and of the Church by means of authoritative proclamation of the Word of God, the administration of the sacraments, and the pastoral direction of the faithful.

The common priesthood of the faithful is the privilege which all the baptized enjoy. They have a free will which they can surrender to the will of God and are thus able to live a life of sacrifice after the example of Jesus Christ, who offered Himself to the Father on Calvary.

Thus the ordained priesthood is absolutely irreplaceable. Without it, there would be no Church founded by the Son of God. No words can exaggerate the duty of fostering vocations to the priesthood. This duty falls on the whole Christian community, and they should discharge it principally by living full Christian lives.

Practical Provisions

Given the widespread confusion in Catholic circles, it is necessary to clear up the vocabulary. In countries like the United States, Protestantism is not only the dominant form of Christianity. It has determined our whole vocabulary. The word “minister” or “ministry” is applied to just about everyone who is engaged in some religious enterprise. As the pontifical document states, “the language becomes doubtful, confused, and hence, non-helpful for expressing the doctrine of the faith whenever the difference ‘of essence and not merely of degree’ between the baptismal priesthood and the ordained priesthood is in any way obscured.”

Therefore, Catholics must beware. “It is unlawful for the non-ordained faithful to assume titles such as ‘pastor,’ ‘chaplain,’ ‘coordinator,’ ‘moderator,’ or other such similar titles which can confuse their role and that of the pastor who is always a bishop or priest.”

Concretely, the exercise of the ordained ministry applies to giving homilies. Catholics are therefore being told that “the homily, during the celebration of the Holy Eucharist, must be reserved to the sacred minister, priest or deacon, to the exclusion of the non-ordained faithful, even if these should have responsibilities as ‘pastoral assistants’ or catechists in whatever type of community or group. This exclusion is not based on the preaching ability of sacred ministers, nor their theological preparation, but on that function which is reserved to them in virtue of having received the sacrament of Holy Orders. For the same reason, the diocesan bishop cannot validly dispense from the canonical norm, since it is not merely a discipline or a law, but one which touches upon the closely related functions of teaching and sanctifying.”

The Vatican document then goes on, “For the same reason, the practice, on some occasions, of entrusting the preaching of the homily to seminarians or theology students who are not clerics is not permitted. Indeed, the homily should not be regarded as a training for some future ministry.”

To close the issue once and for all, the document concludes, “All previous norms which may have admitted the non-ordained faithful to preaching the homily during the Holy Eucharist are to be considered abrogated.”

Is it any wonder that, within a week of the publication of these directives from the Holy See, there was a loud outcry verbally and in print throughout the United States. The new liturgists protested that their years of effort to clericalize the laity were being nullified.

However, it was not only the new liturgists who protested. It was also members of the hierarchy.

One bishop told his fellow-prelates at their national assembly that this Vatican document “eliminates everything we have been doing” for thirty years. Another bishop suggested that the document applies only to countries like the Netherlands, where people have “gotten used to worshipping without a priest.” [1] He feared that the Vatican declaration may be interpreted as “a great criticism of lay ministry in the Church.” [2]

The most unhappy bishops were the heads of large dioceses where for years they have been planning for priestless parishes and developing a Church run by the laity. The most critical prelates were those who had been promoting women preachers, allowing women to read the Gospel at Mass, and supporting theologians 3 who have built their careers on the assumption that there is no fundamental difference between ordained priests and the so-called priesthood of the laity.

I will never forget the prime-time lecture of Father Richard McBrien to an ecumenical audience of Catholic and Protestant theologians. For one hour, in the plainest language, he told us that Jesus Christ did not institute the sacrament of the priesthood. The priesthood, he claimed, was a second- and third-century invention of the Church. Out of a hundred theologians at the lecture, I was the only one who openly challenged the speaker, telling the audience that every sentence of McBrien was heresy.

Despite the papal condemnation to the contrary, in one parish after another, and not only in the United States, lay people are becoming involved in running the Church’s organization. Hence, the following prohibition of the Holy See. “Deacons, non-ordained members of the faithful, even if collaborators with the sacred ministers, and those priests who have lost the clerical state or who have abandoned the sacred ministry do not have either an active or a passive voice in the council of priests.”

Nor is that all. Throughout the western Church there are pastoral councils and parochial finance councils. As anyone familiar with the situation in our country knows, the laity are deeply involved in these organizations. Now comes a blockbuster. The Bishop of Rome, through his representatives at the Vatican, declares that these councils, “of which non-ordained faithful are members, enjoy a consultative vote only and cannot in any way become deliberative structures. Only those faithful who possess the qualities prescribed by the canonical norms may be elected to such responsibilities,” but they have no right to make decisions. This is reserved for those in sacred orders.

More still, in parishes and dioceses, there are what are called deans or assistant vicars. Says the Roman document, such persons “must always be priests. The non-ordained faithful cannot be validly appointed to these offices.”

We have so far covered about one half of what I am sure will become a historic document. As everyone knows, there are widespread abuses in liturgical celebrations, where the distinction between priests and the laity is being erased. In the words of our Roman legislation, these perversions “are to be eradicated.” To exemplify:

• In Eucharistic celebrations, deacons and non-ordained members of the faithful may not pronounce prayers, especially the Eucharistic prayer, with its concluding doxology — or any other part of the liturgy reserved to the celebrant priest.

• Neither may deacons or non-ordained members of the faithful use gestures or actions which are proper to the same priest celebrant. It is a great abuse for any member of the non-ordained faithful to “quasi preside” at the Mass, while leaving only that minimal participation to the priest which is necessary to secure validity.

• In the same way, it is absolutely unlawful for unordained members of the faithful to use sacred vestments, which are reserved to priests or deacons, for example, stoles or chasubles, at liturgical ceremonies.

• Every effort must be made to avoid even the appearance of confusion, which can spring from unauthorized liturgical practices. Sacred ministers are obliged to wear all of the liturgically prescribed vestments. So, too, the non-ordained faithful may not presume to put on clerical vestures which are not proper to them.

• The Vatican directive is especially hard-hitting on the subject of extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion. In the clearest language possible, we are told that the current practice in many places generates confusion. To be stressed is that the use of extraordinary ministers for distributing the Holy Eucharist is truly extraordinary. Two norms are specified. To avoid creating confusion, the following practices must be avoided if they are not yet in effect and terminated where they are practiced:

1. Extraordinary ministers may not receive Holy Communion apart from the other faithful as though they were somehow concelebrants of the Mass.

2. The habitual use of extraordinary ministers at Mass must stop. This practice arbitrarily extends the idea of “a great number of the faithful.”

No words can do justice to the massive laicization of the priesthood and the corresponding clericalization of the laity, which the rampant use of extraordinary ministers for distributing Holy Communion has produced in the Roman Catholic Church.

The Apostolate of Faith

In this conference, we are addressing ourselves to a subject which is as broad as the ocean and as high as the Rocky Mountains. No one who knows what is going on in the Catholic Church has any illusions. It is a massive crisis of faith, touching on every mystery revealed by the Incarnate God.

Among these mysteries that are being challenged and undermined in our day, none is more basic than the mystery of the Catholic priesthood. In the half-century of my own priesthood, I have found two passages from two Doctors of the Church telling us what a priest is and should be.

St. John Chrysostom, in the late fourth century, wrote his masterpiece De Sacerdotio, “On the Priesthood.” He says:

The priestly office is discharged upon earth, but holds the rank of heavenly things; and very rightly so. For not man, nor angel, nor archangel nor any other created power, but the Paraclete Himself, instituted this order, and induced those who yet abode in the flesh to make manifest the ministry of angels. Wherefore it behooves him that is consecrated to be as pure as one who stands in heaven itself among those powers.

St. Catherine of Siena was an academically uneducated person, but divinely enlightened to understand what God had revealed. Writing in the latter half of the fourteenth century, she is quoting our Lord in what He expects of His priests:

They are my anointed ones, and I call them my Christs, because I have given them the office of administering me to you, and have placed them like fragrant flowers in the mystical body of Holy Church. The angel himself has no such dignity, for I have given it to those men whom I have chosen for my ministers, and whom I have appointed as earthly angels in this life. In all souls I demand purity and charity, that they should love me and their neighbor.… But far more do I demand purity in my ministers, and love towards me and towards their fellow-creatures, administering to them the Body and Blood of my only-begotten Son, with the fire of charity and a hunger for the salvation of souls, for the glory and honor of my name.

These two passages from Sts. John Chrysostom and Catherine of Siena deserve to be memorized. They tell us what the apostolate for priests is all about. It is an apostolate which recognizes that very human, human beings are ordained by Jesus Christ to bring the Savior down to our earth and keep Him in our midst in the Holy Eucharist. To repeat, they are very human beings ordained by the Savior to absolve us from our sins, no less truly than He absolved the sinful woman in Palestine and promised the repentant criminal on Calvary that he would enter paradise.

The enemies of Christ know exactly what they are doing. They are seducing Christ’s priests into sin. They are using the media to discredit the Catholic priesthood as only the evil spirit could enlighten his agents to do. They are emptying seminaries and writing learned books in their demonic effort to erase the real distinction between the laity and the priesthood.

What, then, is at the heart of the apostolate for priests? It is nothing less than a re-education in the meaning of the priesthood instituted by the Savior, and putting that meaning into our daily lives.

However, none of us is blind to reality. It is not only deepening our faith in the priesthood that is the foundation of the apostolate for priests. It is also strengthening this faith in spite of the inhuman pressure under which we labor when we see so many priests who are not living up to their sublime calling. It was Cardinal Manning, writing in the nineteenth century, who made this memorable statement, “A blot upon a layman’s coat is little seen; a spot upon an alb cannot be hid.”

How sadly true this has been over the two thousand years of Catholic history. The sins of a priest are never passed over. They are never forgotten. They are remembered years after the sins were committed. They are a temptation to believing Catholics to question or doubt or even deny what their faith tells them is true.

That is why I recommend to all of you, not only to pray daily for us priests. I urge you especially to pray and sacrifice for those priests whom you know are not living truly priestly lives. There is such a thing as expiation for the sins of others. This means putting into practice what others should be doing but are not. Dare I say it? The very virtues that you see priests of God not practicing, are the very ones on which you should concentrate, to obtain for them the grace of repentance which they need.

Prayer

Jesus, I pray to you for your faithful and fervent priests; for the unfaithful and tepid; for those laboring at home or abroad in distant mission fields; for tempted priests; for the lonely and desolate; for young priests; for the aged, sick, and dying; for the souls of your priests in purgatory.

But above all, I commend to you the priests dearest to me: the priest who baptized me; those who absolved me from my sins; at whose Masses I assisted and who gave me your Body and Blood in Holy Communion; who taught and instructed me or helped me and encouraged me; all the priests to whom I am indebted in any other way, particularly (NAME). Jesus, keep them all close to your Heart and bless them abundantly in time and eternity. Amen.

[1] Likoudis, Paul. The Wanderer. November 20, 1997. New document ‘Eliminates everything We’ve Been Doing,’ Cries Archbishop.

[2] Ibid.

The Apostolate of Women

by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

Since the dawn of Christianity women have been outstanding in passing on the true faith to succeeding generations.

There is no doubt that Christ chose men to be His first Apostles; that He ordained them to the priesthood and gave them the breath-taking powers of changing bread and wine into His own living Body and Blood, and of forgiving sins in His name through the sacrament of penance. Christ made men the foundation stones of the hierarchy and made Peter and his successors the rock on which He built His Church.

All of this is part of our Catholic faith, and it is the irreversible expression of the divine will.

Saying this, however, only serves to emphasize the role of women as mothers in the Church, mothers in body and especially as mothers in spirit. Without them future generations of believers would not have been born in the flesh — which is obvious; and would not have been reared in the faith — which is less obvious.

My purpose in this short column is to ask three simple questions and answer them in a few words:

• How have women been the spiritual mothers of the Church since apostolic times?

• Why are women desperately needed as apostles of the faith in our day?

• What are some practical recommendations to Catholic women for the future?

Spiritual Motherhood

We have become so accustomed to identify women with bodily motherhood that we are liable to forget that, from the earliest days of the Church, they were also the spiritual mothers of those who believed in Christ.

Let us recall what happened on Calvary. Jesus was expiring on the Cross. Beneath the Cross were Mary and the apostle John. "When Jesus saw His mother there, and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His mother, 'Dear Woman, here is your son,' and to the disciple, 'Here is your mother'" (Jn. 19-25-26).

Ever since that dramatic occasion, we have come to call Mary "the Mother of the Church." Not only did she conceive her divine Son, without the cooperation of a human father, but she was commissioned by her Son dying on the Cross to mother the children of the Church until the end of time.

We know that Mary remained on the earth for some years after her Son's Ascension into heaven. We know she was among the disciples on Pentecost Sunday and therefore received the Holy Spirit coming down on them and her in fiery tongues.

We also know that through the centuries, it was the women, as natural mothers of their offspring, as supernatural mothers of their own and other people's children — who have literally enabled the Church to grow and reproduce herself beyond all human calculation.

I wish to emphasize both forms of regeneration, of body and of spirit, of flesh and of faith. On both levels and in both ways, it has been women, the married and the unmarried, who have not only kept the Church in existence but have extended the Church to the farthest reaches of the earth, and contributed mightily to the Church's sanctity.

Crucial Need

If all we are saying has been the story of Christianity for 1,900 years, the need for women to preserve the Church and sanctify the Church is desperately needed today.

In my estimation, one of the worst consequences of the limitations of births is the fact that literally millions of potential members of the Mystical Body are either not conceived, or snuffed out of existence before they are born.

In the same way, the widespread neglect of their role as mothers in the home by so many women, has deprived other millions of children of the nurture in the faith from infancy through childhood and into adult age.

In the same way, the massive exodus from our parochial schools of once dedicated religious women has left a spiritual vacuum that is crying to heaven to be filled.

But we should not be discouraged. On the contrary, I am confident that the Holy Spirit is sending down His gifts of fiery tongues on the Church today — and with emphasis on the women. He is inspiring them to follow in Mary's footsteps and do for the beleaguered faithful in our day what she did for the infant Church in her day.

Time and again our Holy Father has appealed to the faithful women as they stand beneath Christ's bleeding Mystical Body to carry on Mary's role as Mother of the Church in our time.

This is a strong statement, but I firmly believe that no small reason for the crisis in the Church today is due to the neglect of this spiritual motherhood by women in every state of life.

Correspondingly, I also believe that the future resurgence of the Church

• of strong faith in Jesus as the true Son of God

• of strong faith in Jesus really present in the Holy Eucharist

• of deep loyalty to the Holy Father as Vicar of Christ on earth

• of tender compassion for the spiritual and bodily suffering of sinful mankind&3133;all of this, and more, I am sure will be rekindled and burst into glowing flame in large measure because Catholic women, and girls will, like Mary, tell Our Lord, "be it done to me according to your word."

Then, as the angel promised Our Lady, what seems impossible to men will become possible with God. But, I repeat, it will take Mary-like women to achieve this miracle of renovation of the Church of God.

Practical Recommendations

We still have one short question to answer: "How are Catholic women to accomplish their providential role as spiritual mothers (with Mary) of the human race?"

The answer is simplicity itself. Like Mary —

• They are to know Jesus from daily intimacy with Him in prayer

• They are to receive Jesus by often receiving Him into their hearts

• They are to love Jesus, by spending themselves in serving the needs of Christ's children as they have never done before.

Know Jesus. There is no substitute for growing in the knowledge of Christ through daily prayer. Call it meditation or mental prayer, call it reading the Scriptures with prayerful reflection, call it reciting the Rosary, or spending some quiet time each day — just talking with Our Lord.

No matter. Our Lady we may be sure always had Jesus on her mind. Even when she did not speak to Him in vocal words, she was pondering on Him and speaking to Him in her heart.

Receive Jesus. Our faith tells us, that when we go to Holy Communion, we receive the same identical Jesus who was conceived in Mary's womb at Nazareth. Except for her, we would not have Jesus, and therefore would not have the Blessed Sacrament.

If women are to fulfill the awesome mission entrusted to them in our day, they must strive to be united with Jesus by receiving Him often into their hearts.

Why is this so important? Because the Christ whom they receive is Love become man. Receiving incarnate Love into their bodies will animate selfless love in their souls.

And it is selfless love, truly selfless love that is such a crying need in the world and the Church today.

God has made the hearts of women naturally self-giving. But their womanly nature must be fortified on the Sacrament of Love to give them the heroic strength needed to mother the Church today.

Love Jesus. Love is proved by service. It is in spending ourselves for others that we mainly show our love for Our Lord.

The apostolate of women in the modern world is not a moral option. It is a mandate. It is nothing less than a call from the Son of Mary, telling women who stand beneath the Cross with Mary, to carry on the work she began in first century Palestine.

Prayer

"Mary, Mother of Jesus and Mother of the Church, obtain from your Divine Son the graces that Catholic women need today to carry on your work as Queen of Apostles.

"Ask Jesus to inspire women to rise to their dignity as spiritual mothers to a suffering, bleeding human family.

"Above all, dear Mary, tell women today as you told the servants at Cana to do whatever Jesus tells them to do. You can obtain miracles from Jesus, not only at Lourdes and Fatima, but throughout the world. But on one condition, that we do everything that your Son tells us — especially today tells women — to do according to His will. Amen."

Today's Church needs miracles of conversion and repentance, and the miracles will take place, provided women do their part, through Mary, and in Jesus and with a woman's selfless love.

Internal Apostolate

When we speak of apostolate in the religious life, we must distinguish between what I call internal and external apostolate. By internal apostolate I mean the apostolate of supernatural living where my life of prayer and my practice of virtue even though deeply interior I believe in apostolically effective. Every prayer that I offer, every pain that I patiently endure, every act of sacrifice of love that I make, I believe on faith is apostolically useful. We are not specifically here talking about the internal form of the apostolate as spiritual formation, although I think it bears a little bit of emphasis especially during the years of formation where there is not that much opportunity for the external apostolate. That a religious should not feel that he or she is not engaging in the apostolate because they are not out using their muscles. Prayer can be apostolic; sacrifice can be apostolic; lying in bed weakened, paralyzed can be apostolic. Young people, still strong of body, and

10 vigorous of muscle should be told this; that your apostolate is not only moving about. You can be deeply apostolic down deep inside of your soul.

Remember St. Benedict's explanation of the spiritual life? St. Benedict distinguished the active life not only as the apostolic. The active life is distinguished from the contemplative. The active in Benedict's formation is the internal struggle with the world, the flesh and the devil. This is the active life. Then the Apostolate. Now the Contemplative is to be balanced with it. Then on the contemplative there is the personal contemplative life, but especially the communal which is especially the liturgy. Meditation and all the rest that has to do with personal contemplative prayer you might almost say this is mainly prayer. So we have really shifted gears and have quite changed the meaning of words. This is still to this day the Church's official acceptation. The active life is not to be distinguished as opposite to the apostolic. In other words, the active life may be the apostolate but the active life is first struggle with the World, Flesh and Devil.

The main single reason for the crises in religious communities is lack of prayer. In other words, the apostolate has been distinguished from the contemplative that the one has become a substitute for the other. Yet you cannot separate them. It is good theological language to speak of prayer as the soul of the spiritual life, because it is.

It should be made clear to those whom we train, that there is an apostolate even in the most interior forms of living in the religious community because there, nothing that we ever do that is pleasing to God which does not have a profound influence on souls.

External Apostolate

Now the external. When we speak of the external apostolate in the years of formation we should distinguish between that which is done within the community, that which is done outside the community. Here too, the young religious should be told that you are engaging in the apostolate not only when you work with people outside the community; the principal object of our apostolic zeal should be our own fellow religious. The way I behave, what I say, the way I dress, my observance of failure to observe religious rules and regulations have a deep apostolic influence on my fellow religious. It is remarkable how zealous some people can be with people outside and don't even give a thought to the fact that their fellow religious have the primary claim on their zeal. When members don't receive good example form their fellow religious it is hard because not only am I to edify people outside the community but the first person I should inspire and assist is my own fellow religious. Religious are on duty (to give a good example) all day. This should be given much attention

11 because unless religious are trained to recognize the influence and the impact they make on others right inside their family circle they can be on their better or best behavior but it is going to be put on to be able to talk the things of God to outsiders … I better train to talk all the things of God with the insiders. However, the principle focus is not only the apostolate within the community except to stress it, because rather on outside the community that is on person who are not members of our own institute.

A basic principle should be made clear. Having made the distinction we've already made what is the precise relationship of the apostolate and personal sanctity? Personal sanctity cannot be separated from the apostolate. Some will speculate and say that personal sanctity is a means to an end. The end being affective work for souls. That is true, but it works the other way too. Consequently, the apostolate and personal sanctity are interrelated as cause and effect or as means and end. Not everyone has this relationship clear. Let's take each one separately.

The relationship as personal sanctity being a means, and the apostolate being the end; or if you wish personal sanctity being the cause and the apostolate being the effect.

From the Gospels on, in fact, from Christ on we know that a person will be only as effective in bringing souls to God as that person is him or herself united with God. The greatest apostolate of all times was Jesus Christ where His humanity was hypostatically united with the Divinity. On the level of grace, in talking about meriting grace for others we merit, other things being equal, only as much grace as we have the state of grace in our own souls. This is so true that theologically speaking we cannot merit unless we are first in the state of grace. We cannot even begin to merit unless we are in the state of grace. Merit begins with that. That's why we even say as strange as the statement may sound that Christ Himself had in the state of sanctifying grace. This is in His human nature. His human soul had to be infused with sanctifying grace in order to make it possible for Him to merit our redemption. That being said of there is no merit without the state of grace the more sanctifying grace the more meritorious every act becomes. Memorize that. The single principal, most important cause of merit or source of merit for His grace for others is my own possession of sanctifying grace. That is why the Mother of Christ is called the mediatrix of graces. Moreover, not only is my state of grace a condition and a measure … both; condition because without it I can merit no grace for myself or others, and measure because the more grace I have within me the more I can obtain for myself and others. But as I work with God's grace to become more holy God will make me effective, more effective. I will be able to win souls; I will be able to teach souls. The deeper the faith of the teacher the more the students learn. Nobody can cheat here, because God determines how much those whom I try to teach on whatever level of pedagogy I am involved in.

Moreover, St. Ignatius compares the supernatural life here, in terms of the apostolate with the natural life. He says we are intended by God to reproduce ourselves. Those who have the vocation, and most people have this vocation to reproduce themselves, they are to reproduce themselves physically. The command given to our first parents … increase and multiply … is a command which not everyone has to observe. But those who are married are obliged to increase and multiply. That's the main reason why contraception is a sin because already in Genesis God commanded our first parents to increase and multiply. That's why He made two genders. But, while only the married are bound by the duty, and it is a command to increase and multiply and never to interfere with the life process, everyone is obliged to reproduce themselves supernaturally. This is our first duty in charity. In God's mysterious providence, which we would never had guessed, except for the Incarnation, one of the conditions that God sets down for the most effective supernatural reproduction is the sacrifice of physical marriage and physical reproduction. We cannot doubt it because that’s what Christ did, that’s what Mary did. The Queen of apostles was a physical virgin. Not only is that true, as a fundamental law of supernatural reproduction but God uses the same kind of person when he wants to reproduce that type of individual. Ignatius explains that in the natural order down to the lowest biological species—we, in fact identify a species by its capacity for reproduction. A zebra reproduces a zebra; a horse reproduces a horse; 12 cats reproduce a cat. Like reproduces like. God will not make anyone any more holy through us than we are first holy ourselves. He may use others but He won’t use me. That is frightening isn’t it? But in God’s providence we are the condition for other people’s sanctification. He may work a miracle, but it would have to be a miracle.

All spiritual masters say “we shall be only as effective in working for others as we ourselves are closely united with God.” Consequently those in formation from their earliest years should be impressed with the fact that they are even though they are concentrating on their own spiritual life, already engaged in the apostolate. Why is this true? Because we can distinguish two kinds of apostolate, the apostolate of holiness and the apostolate of service.

Apostolate of Holiness

The apostolate of holiness which goes back to the earliest monastic tradition means that I cooperate with God in the salvation and sanctification of souls by my own practice of virtue. Our Lady never preached a sermon. You just can’t imagine her competing with her son. Yet she is Queen of apostles. The apostolate of holiness is practiced through the liturgy and this again goes back to the Church’s earliest tradition. There wouldn’t be any intelligible sense in which men and women as they had from the second century on, had separated themselves from the world lived often in complete isolation from the outside world. Yet as Christ tells us we are to exercise charity in favor of our neighbor, except that by my prayer both personal and especially liturgical I am of immense benefit to souls by obtaining grace for others, than which there is no more important apostolate.

Again the apostolate of holiness is practiced by witness, and we witness mainly by what we are. Secondly, give witness by what we do, and thirdly by what we say. I am afraid that for many people the apostolate has been almost identified with talking. The most influential people in my life have said the least. You engage in the apostolate first and mainly in terms of this apostolate of holiness by who and what you are, then by the way you behave and then thirdly and only thirdly by what you say. Whether by what we speak or by what we write and anytime I get any big ideas about how much good my speaking or writing does I remind myself that neither Christ or Mary have left us anything in writing. Mary has only a few scattered phrases in the Gospels and Joseph nothing. The patron of the Universal Church has left us nothing. . . not only in writing but not even in speech.

Apostolate of Service

There is also the apostolate of service. You might say holiness is also a form of service. But we distinguish. Holiness is a conscious going out to meet other people’s needs. Concretely it is covered by the traditional spiritual and corporal works of mercy. Where mercy is defined as love meeting people’s needs. A word of distinction and clarification of those two forms of the apostolate of service. Between the two there is no question which is the more important. But not only are the spiritual works of mercy more important but they must always be the object of event he most down to earth corporal works of mercy. For a religious the apostolate in terms of the corporal works of mercy never stop with the corpus, the body. We are not social workers. Whatever we do for the body must always go beyond the body or through the body to the soul. Christ’s practice of mercy toward the bodily needs in His day was as so many passages in the Gospel indicate a means to an end. All I know is that so many communities engaged in the corporal works of mercy overlook 13 sometimes to the point of ignoring their main purpose of existence which is to reach the soul. If there is one area religious should be prepared to cope with is the lack of freedom that as religious we have to engage in such corporal works of mercy as will indeed meet the spiritual need of those whose favor we labor so that we are never limited or constrained in making sure that whatever care we have for those whom we serve in body will be only a means to help them in soul.

The Marian Apostolate of Women

by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

Since the dawn of Christianity women have been outstanding in passing on the true faith to succeeding generations.

All of this is part of our Catholic faith, and it is the irreversible expression of the divine will.

Saying this, however, only serves to emphasize the role of women as mothers in the Church, mothers in body and especially as mothers in spirit. Without them future generations of believers would not have been born in the flesh—which is obvious: and would not have been reared in the faith—which is less obvious.

My purpose in this short presentation is to ask three simple questions and answer them in a few words:

1. How have women been the spiritual mothers of the Church since apostolic times?

2. Why are women desperately needed as apostles of the faith in our day?

3. What are some practical recommendations to Catholic women for the future?

Spiritual Motherhood of Women

Let us recall what happened on Calvary. Jesus was expiring on the Cross. Beneath the Cross were Mary and the apostle John. “When Jesus saw His Mother there, and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His Mother, ‘Dear Woman, here is your son’, and to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother’” (Jn. 19:25-26).

Ever since that dramatic occasion, we have come to call Mary “the Mother of the Church”. Not only did she conceive her divine Son, without the cooperation of a human father, but she was commissioned by her Son dying on the Cross to mother the children of the Church until the end of time.

We know that Mary remained on the earth for some years after her Son’s Ascension into heaven. We know she was among the disciples on Pentecost Sunday and therefore received the Holy Spirit coming down on them and her in fiery tongues.

We also know that through the centuries, it was the women, as natural mothers of their offspring, as supernatural mothers of their own and other people’s children—who have literally enabled the Church to grow and reproduce herself beyond all human calculation.

I wish to emphasize both forms of regeneration, of body and of spirit, of flesh and of faith. On both levels and in both ways, it has been women, the married and the unmarried, who have not only kept the Church in existence, but have extended the Church to the farthest, reaches of the earth, and contributed mightily to the Church’s sanctity.

Crucial Need Today

If all we are saying has been the story of Christianity for 1900 years, the need for Marian women to preserve the Church and sanctify the Church is desperately needed today.

In the same way, the widespread neglect of their role as mothers in the home by so many women has deprived other millions of children of the nurture in the faith as infancy through childhood and into adult age.

In the same way, the massive exodus from our parochial schools of once dedicated religious women has left a spiritual vacuum that is crying to heaven to be filled.

But we should not be discouraged. On the contrary, I am confident that the Holy Spirit is with the Church as she is undergoing her Passion today—in a special way with the women. He is inspiring them to follow in Mary’s footsteps and do for the beleaguered faithful in our day what she did for the infant Church in her day.

Time and again our Holy Father has appealed to the faithful women as they stand beneath Christ’s bleeding Mystical Body to carry on Mary’s role as Mother of the Church in our time.

Practical Recommendations

We still have one short question to answer: “How are Catholic women to accomplish their providential role as spiritual mothers (with Mary) of the human race?

The answer is simplicity itself. Like Mary

• They are to know Jesus from daily intimacy with Him in prayer

• They are to receive Jesus by daily receiving Him into their hearts 15

• They are to love Jesus, by spending themselves in serving the needs of Christ’s children as they have never done before.

Know Jesus

There is no substitute for growing in the knowledge of Christ through daily prayer. Call it meditation or mental prayer, call it reading Scriptures with prayerful reflection, call it reciting the Rosary, or spending some quiet time each day—just talking with Our Lord.

No matter. Our Lady we may be sure always had Jesus on her mind. Even when she did not speak to Him in vocal words, she was pondering on Him and speaking to Him in her heart.

Receive Jesus

Our faith tells us that when we go to Holy Communion, we receive the same identical Jesus who was conceived in Mary’s womb at Nazareth. Except for her, we would not have Jesus, and therefore would not have the Blessed Sacrament.

If women are to fulfill the awesome mission entrusted to them in our day, they must strive to be united with Jesus by receiving Him daily into their hearts.

Why is this so important? Because the Christ whom they receive is Love become man. Receiving incarnate Love into their bodies will animate selfless love in their souls.

And it is selfless love, selfless love, selfless love that is such a crying need in the world and the Church today.

God has made the hearts of women naturally self-giving. But their womanly nature must be daily fortified on the Sacrament of Love to give them the heroic strength needed to mother the Church today.

Love Jesus

Love is proved by service. It is in spending ourselves for others that we mainly show our love for Our Lord.

The present age—I think, is of historic importance. It allows us to say that, “Women are the Hope of the Modern World.” It is nothing less than a call from the Son of Mary, telling women who stand beneath the Cross with Mary, to carry on the work she began in first century Palestine.

Prayer

“Mary, Mother of Jesus and Mother of the Church, obtain from your Divine Son the graces that Catholic women need today to carry on your work as Queen of Apostles.

Ask Jesus to inspire women to rise to their dignity as spiritual mothers to a suffering, bleeding human family.

Above all, dear Mary, tell women today as you told the servants at Cana to do whatever Jesus tells them to do. You can obtain miracles from Jesus, not only at Lourdes and Fatima, but throughout the world. But on one

16 condition, that we do everything that Your Son tells us— especially today tell women—to do according to His will. Amen”.

Challenge Vol. 14-#5, February 1988, pp. 3-4

The Handmaid of Humanity: Mary, Woman of Salvation History

by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

Sponsor Vol. 26 - #3, October t980, pp. t 8-2 t

Pope John Paul's devotion to the Blessed Virgin is so deep and pronounced that it is not surprising that she finds a place of honor in almost everything he says and writes. In Poland, at the shrine of Our Lady of Jasna Gora, he addressed this prayer to Mary:

"Once more I consecrate myself to you in your maternal slavery of love. Totus Tuus `I am all yours.' I consecrate to you the whole Church everywhere, to the end of the earth I consecrate to you humanity; all men and women; my brothers and Sisters; all peoples and all the nations. I consecrate to you Europe and all the continents. I consecrate to you Rome and Poland, united by a fresh bond of love, through your servant. Mother accept us! Mother do not abandon us! Mother be our guide!"

In Mexico at the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, in his stirring prayer to Mary, he once again made an act of consecration.

"Mother of Mercy. Teacher of hidden and silent sacrifice, to you who comes to meet us sinners, we dedicate on this day all our being and all our love. We give to you our lives, our work, our joys, our infirmities and all our sorrows."

In Ireland, he told the people that it was Our Lady of Knock who had brought him to the land of St. Patrick, and 500,000 people cheered his words.

Let it be noted further, that the inscription on Pope John Paul's coat of arms is the lone letter M which stands for Maria.

On October 7th, the last day of the Sovereign Pontiff's visit to America, where his formal address at Washington D.C. was to be to the Women Religious, he first spoke to all the people about the Mother of God.

"My first desire in this National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception is to direct my thoughts; to turn my heart to the Woman of Salvation History.

In the eternal design of God, this Woman, Mary, was chosen to enter into the work of the Incarnation and Redemption. And this design of God was to be actuated through her free decision given in obedience to the Divine Will. Through her `yes,' a yes that pervades and is reflected in all history, she consented to be the Virgin Mother of our Saving God, the Handmaid of the Lord and at the same time the Mother of all the faithful, who in the course of time would be the brothers and sisters of her Son. Through her, the Sun of Justice was to rise in the world. Through her, the great healer of humanity; the reconciler of hearts and consciences; her Son, the God-Man Jesus Christ, was to transform the human condition and by His death and resurrection, uplift the entire human family. As a great sign that appeared in the heavens, in the fullness of time, this Woman is to dominate all history as the Virgin Mother of the Son, as the Spouse of the Holy Spirit - as the Handmaid of humanity. And this Woman becomes also, by association with her Son the sign of contradiction to the world and, at the same time, the sign of hope whom all generations will call blessed: the Woman who conceived spiritually before she conceived physically; the Woman who accepted the Word of God and who was inserted intimately and irrevocably into the mystery of the Church, exercising a spiritual motherhood with regard to all peoples; the Woman who is honored as Queen of the Apostles, without herself being inserted into the hierarchical constitution of the Church. And yet this Woman made all hierarchy possible, because she gave to the world the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls. This Mary of the Gospels, who is not mentioned as being at the Last Supper, comes back again at the foot of the Cross in order to consummate her contribution to salvation history. By her courageous act, she prefigures and anticipates the courage of all women throughout the ages who concur in bringing forth Christ in every generation At Pentecost the Virgin Mother once again advances to exercise her role, in union with the Apostles, with, in, and over the Church She conceives the Holy Spirit to bring forth Jesus in the fullness of His Body, the Church - never to leave Him, never to abandon Him, but to continue to love and serve Him through the ages. This is the Woman of History and Destiny who inspires us today - the woman who speaks to us of femininity, human dignity, and love and who is the greatest expression of total consecration to Jesus Christ in Whose Name we are gathered here today.

There are many facets of Marian faith and piety contained in this preliminary address which the Pope gave the day before he left the United States. We can only choose a few for our further thought Let us consider: Mary the Woman of Freedom: Mary as the Sign of Contradiction and Hope: Mary Queen of the Apostles, and Mary, the Woman of History.

Mary the Woman of Freedom. The Holy Father stressed the fact that Mary freely chose to become the Mother of Christ and therefore the Mother of God. We believe that under God's Providence, the salvation of the world depended on Mary's `Fiat' "Be it done to me as Thou will." This tells us first that God though Almighty wants our voluntary cooperation with Him that others may be redeemed.

There are only two ultimate mysteries in Christianity: in heaven, the Trinity, on earth, man's liberty. They are mysteries that we cannot comprehend. But though mysteries we must believe them, - that the God Who made the sun, moon and stars, Who made us `without us', will not redeem us `without us'. That is the first lesson – Mary's liberty determined man's redemption.

The second lesson is that sinless Mary was impeccable, preserved by an extraordinary grace from God from ever being capable of offending God by deliberate sin. Yet though impeccable Mary was able to choose. This bears emphasis. We are so accustomed to identifying freedom as choosing between good and evil that

we forget the highest use of our liberty is not to choose "not to sin", but rather to choose to do more than we have to do or that we are obliged to do – in a word, to choose to be generous. Like Mary, then, we can choose to give God more than He demands under pain of sin. We can choose to love God with our whole heart and not just to avoid His punishment.

Mary, the Sign of Contradiction and Hope. She is indeed a sign of contradiction because, humanly speaking, it seems contradictory to obtain by yielding; to get by giving. Yet that is what Mary teaches us. We gain most when we give most; we grow when we give up; we merit before God when we surrender. You don't explain that - you believe it. Mary is also the sign of Hope because we see in her what marvels God can do in human nature. She was told by the Angel and believed that "nothing is impossible with God". Mary's whole life proved how right she was. She shows us what it is to hope from God for everything, provided we give God everything.

Mary, Queen of the Apostles. The Pope declared that Mary without being inserted into the Church's hierarchy, as she was no Bishop nor Priest, yet she was the Woman who made all hierarchy possible, because she gave to the world the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls. If our zeal is truly apostolic; if we want to win souls for Christ and for Heaven; if we are ambitious to conquer the world; let us look at Mary. By her hidden conformity with God's Providence and her generous cooperation with His Will, she became greater than all the Apostles, indeed their Queen. From the first century until the end of time, God uses the obedient, the docile and the simple to achieve His redemptive designs. Those do most in the apostolate who are most submissive to the Will of God. Brains, ability, education, money, are sometimes meaningless.

God builds His Kingdom on obedience: He saves souls through conformity to His Will.

Finally, Mary, the Woman of History. Mary has remained for all ages the model for all mankind to imitate. The prophecy she made in the Magnificat, "all generations shall call me blessed" has been literally fulfilled. She has become the "Woman of History" without intending it; she had learned from the Son, Whom she bore, that God chooses those who are little in their own eyes to do great things for Him. She knew what her Son meant when later on, He taught "Learn of Me, for I am meek and humble of heart." She learned from experience that God uses humility to do what He wants in order to save and sanctify the world.

There is, in all our hearts, an ambition to greatness, while the real key to greatness is to remain small. The more humble we are, the greater we shall become. As Mary's Son foretold All those who humble themselves will infallibly be exalted, even on earth but especially in Heaven; not only in time but for all eternity; and not only before men, but what is more important in the eyes of God.

Mary, Model of Faith for Priests

by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

There is no doubt that the Blessed Virgin promises to become a providential means of assisting the Church in the future even as she had so mightily helped the Church in critical times in the past. After all, she is and had

19 most solemnly been declared by the Vatican Council as Mother of the Church for the best of reasons. As Mother of the Church she may be assumed to protect and provide for the faithful in times of great need, as ours certainly are, and this no less then she helped to nurture the mystical Body in apostolic times. We speak of Mary being the Mother of Christ twice over; the mother of the physical Christ whom she brought into the world and the mother of the mystical Christ whom she also nurtured and continues to care for until the end of time.

But there is one aspect of Mary's role as Mother of the Church that deserves more attention than it has been getting, namely, her role as the pattern of faith that we are all to imitate. Whatever else we say about the Church in modern times, we must say it is going through a crisis of faith. Hence the dire need of a model for us to follow if the faith that was purchased and still is being paid for with the blood of so many martyrs is to grow in the hearts of believers and propagate among the millions who after 1900 years have not yet even been evangelized. I strongly recommend careful reading and prayerful meditation on Pope Paul VI's most important declaration on evangelization, his Apostolic Exhortation "Evangelii Nuntiandi", issued to the Catholic world in December of 1975.

There is no better pattern for imitation of the faith than Mary who, next to Christ, is the perfect example of what we should be. But unlike Christ, her holiness was founded not on vision but on faith, where she and we are so totally in common. Our focus of reflection is more specific, however. We wish to consider Mary not only, though also, as the paradigm of faith for Christians. A pattern is a model or an exemplar that one can profitably imitate; a paradigm is the fundamental pattern. Mary is the fundamental pattern for Christians to imitate in the practice of the faith. She is the most effective model of faith not only for all Christians, but, for our purpose, especially for priests.

In these reflections we will address ourselves to two simple questions and answer them briefly but pointedly: first, "Why is Mary specially appropriate as the model of faith for priests?" And, "How can the practice of faith teach all the faithful, but especially priests, to live more faithfully our Christian commitment, and priests their priesthood to which her Son has ordained them?"

Mary's Nearness to Her Divine Son

First, why is Mary the perfect model of faith for priests in the Catholic Church? This should not be a difficult question to answer. The reason, ultimately, is her close intimacy with Jesus Christ comparable to the intimacy that a priest is expected to have and cultivate in virtue of his office.

Where shall we begin to describe Mary's nearness to her divine Son? He was near her because He was within her during the nine months of His conception in her womb. He was near her as the one she brought forth at Bethlehem and as the one she nursed; as the one she clothed and fed in infancy. And, we might add, Christ being an infant (which means "speechless" - He was "the speechless one"), how near she must have been when she first taught Him how to use His lips. She must have told Him to watch hers, and then He imitated His mother.

He was the one she spoke with and cared for and talked about all through His days at Nazareth; the one who was constantly on her mind during His public life; the one she accompanied on the way to Calvary and with whom she remained as the valiant woman to the last as He expired on the cross. Mary would have made a good nurse; she was not afraid of blood.

As we turn to a priest, is not his life so much like Mary's in his own closeness to the physical Christ in the Eucharist? It is the lips of a priest that bring down Christ on the altar, and his words that make possible the renewal of Christ's death in the sacrifice of the Mass, as I learned the first time I genuflected at the altar after my first consecration. Talk about having to make an act of faith, to believe that what you said changed bread into Christ!

It is the hands of a priest that handle the sacred elements which contain the person of Christ the Son of God but also the Son of Mary. It is the person of the priest to whom the eternal high priest continues His presence in our midst no less (though now invisibly) than He was present among His contemporaries in Palestine. He is just plain here. No wonder the priest has been par excellence identified in Catholic history as the "alter Christus" (the other Christ), since he more than any other Christian is privileged to deal on such close terms with the Savior.

But for this very reason, the priest must learn from Mary that just being close to Christ is not enough. Judas was close to Christ when he kissed Him. Pilate was close to Christ when he condemned Him. Those who scourged Christ were close to Him when they shredded His body with thongs. Those who placed the crown of thorns on the head of Christ were very close to Him, as were the executioners who nailed Him to the cross. Unlike these but like Mary, the priest must not only be close to Christ; he must also be familiar with Christ. You see, closeness is of body, familiarity is of spirit.

A priest must not suppose that nearness is the same as intimacy, or that proximity is the same as familiarity. What a mistake and by now what a tragedy, because unless this closeness or physical nearness is cultivated to become also spiritual intimacy, it can degenerate first from casualness and indifference to a positive cynicism and the most incredible distance in spirit from the Christ that a man is, perforce by his office, near to physically.

It is true of any two people. A husband and wife while living together in physical cohabitation must really either begin to grow in love, in spiritual intimacy, after their courtship or their physical nearness will become painful and, if it gets too bad, unbearable. There is no one from whom we can become more estranged than the one who is near us in body but from whom we have become separated in soul.

Let me add some observations which are meant not only for priests, but all those who in any way are called upon to assist priests. All the faithful have a God-given responsibility to help priests grow in that intimacy with Jesus on which all their efficacy in the priesthood depends. Of course they can validly administer the sacraments and offer the Mass, no matter how unholy they may be. But how sadly we know the consequences of unholiness in the priest, in whom the faithful should see their Savior.

This familiarity applies to all of us, because we are all called upon to grow intimacy with Jesus, but especially it applies to the priest; it requires, first of all, sacrifice of other intimacies to which we have no right. A priest grows in familiarity with Christ as he sacrifices all other familiarities that are incompatible with his priesthood - and don't tell me that does not mean sacrifice! But that is the first price of the priesthood: the sacrifice of all intimacy that is incompatible with familiarity with Jesus.

It means effort. If we are to grow in intimacy with anyone, we must necessarily have that person on our minds. We love only what we know; and we love only as much as we know, though we can love less. But we won't love more. If the priest is to grow in intimacy with Christ, he must have Christ always on his mind.

If anyone is to grow in intimacy with the Redeemer, he must keep Christ in his heart. Our hearts, being made to love, can go in only two possible directions: either towards creatures or towards God. And they go in the direction of God only insofar as they do not indulge in but rather give up and mortify going out to creatures. Reread some of the most frightening passages in St. John of the Cross. "The heart of man," he says, "was made 21 for God; and it can love God only by giving up creatures." "Only", so that whatever creatures are loved, are loved only because of and insofar as the love of God dominates our hearts.

And finally, to grow in this indispensable intimacy with Christ, a priest must pray, pray for the grace to do what Christ especially wants him to do, to be to the faithful Jesus on earth. It is for this reason that the faithful must pray and sacrifice for their priests, because in the Providence of God the Church's well-being, her very existence in any period of history or region of geography, depends on the sanctity of her priests. Another word for sanctity is "familiarity with Jesus Christ". So much for part one.

How Mary's Faith Teaches Priests

We now ask, "How does Mary's faith teach priests?" This is our main concern here, to see how Mary's manner of acting on what she believed can teach all the faithful, but especially priests, to do the same. What were the qualities of Mary's faith that a priest should imitate?

Mary's faith was a trustful faith. Hers, therefore, was a faith built on confidence. At the Annunciation, as Luke describes the event, Mary was invited to become the mother of the Holy One who was to be called the Son of God. Remember, unlike us, she had none of the evidence we now possess to the truth of the Incarnation. She was the one who got the Incarnation started; there was no incarnation before the Incarnation. She had none of the centuries of believers that we do to build our faith upon as on a secure refuge for reason to undergird the faith. She stood alone as the bridge between the Old and New Covenants; it was her faith that bridged the two Testaments.

She was a young girl who had just heard a strange, we may be sure heretofore unseen messenger call her "full of grace", and ask her to consent to becoming the mother of the Savior. How strange of God. Really, how normal of God! God asks us to do His will. She consented, and the second person of the eternal Trinity was conceived in her womb, but only because she had first conceived Him in her mind by faith. As all the Fathers of the Church testify: she was worthy to conceive in body, because she had first conceived by faith in spirit. But that was only the beginning.

After she had conceived without carnal intercourse, Joseph her husband soon discovered she was with child. Grace began the Incarnation, but now nature took over. Now this is really strange of God. Having invited Mary to become His mother, and having inspired Joseph to become Mary's spouse, you would think that Joseph would have been given some explanation. Trust God to leave us in the dark. The narrative in Matthew is one of the most poignant in the annals of revealed history.

Her husband Joseph, being a man of honour and wanting to spare her publicity, decided to divorce her informally. He had made up his mind to do this when the angel of the Lord appeared to him a dream and said, 'Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because she has conceived what is in her by the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son and you must name him Jesus, because he is the one who will save his people from their sins.'

How odd of God, we are tempted to say, to wait so long to tell the one person who had the most human right to know how Mary had conceived. This also says something about Mary's ability to keep a secret. What a lesson to women; but how important it is to everyone, especially in today's much too communicative world, where the

22 very word "secret" has almost lost its meaning, where everything is blazoned across the pages and the media of the world.

By our human standards it was strange of God. Really, though, it was predictable of God who wished in this way to give all of us, but especially priests, a perfect example of trusting in Divine Providence and not for a moment doubting that what God has initiated He will also always carry through-note the divine adverb "always". That's all we have to know, that God starts something. What He most wants of us is total and unwavering confidence in His care.

Mary knew how to believe trustfully as Christ began His physical existence in her womb and as He began years later His public ministry of the Word. We all know the situation well. There was a wedding at Cana of Galilee and the mother of Jesus was there along with the Savior and His disciples. When the wedding feast ran out of wine, immediately Mary noticed it. Without a moment's hesitation she went to her Son to tell Him simply (as all mothers do-their sons never grow up), "They have no wine." After all, she had been in the habit of telling Him what to do for so many years.

Even Christ's apparent rebuke did not stop her from promptly going over to the servants and telling them, "Do whatever He tells you" - talk about a woman having her mind! She knew her boy. Whatever learned exegetes think Christ told His mother, she knew what He said. Six large stone jars were then filled with water at Jesus' command, and as the poet says, "the water recognized its Maker and blushed". The water had become wine through the power of Christ no doubt; but only because of the trustful faith that Mary had in he Son's divinity.

Not only was Mary's faith trustful; Mary's faith was charitable. The same event at Cana also reveals the fruitfulness of Mary's faith in the practice of good works. It is not commonly adverted to that what Mary believed she also put into practice and specifically in the practice of charity.

Reread the famous thirteenth chapter of Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. Remember? There is one passage that is frightening: "Though I have faith that moves mountains, but have not charity, I am nothing" I have lost more than one friend and more than one audience when I have said and spelled out that orthodoxy of faith is not enough. It is not enough to be strong in faith, even militant in defense of the truth. We must also love. Orthodoxy alone save no one; it must be orthodoxy and charity.

Mary was the most orthodox of Christians-what a statement. It is not just her soundness of faith that we are called upon to imitate; it is her soundness of faith fructified in charity. No sooner was she told that she was to become the mother of the Most High, and pronounced her Fiat, than she set off on a long journey to assist her kinswoman Elizabeth who, the angel intimated, was already in her sixth month and might need help. And commentators have always remarked on what Luke said" "…and she hurried." They add, "Love is always in haste."

Love is not ponderous, it is not cautious. Love wants to do, and if there is one failure in love, it is that it is impetuous in its desire to give. Love runs. And we know this is not just locomotion through space. Being advanced in years, Elizabeth would need help. So Mary went to help her. What a sublime lesson in mysticism, doing good. That, by the way, is the only authentic mysticism in the Catholic Church, a mysticism that does good.

Pagan mysticism, in spite of the word "mysticism" which is not appropriate, is all preoccupied with self. How we can be deceived! We have to be very careful in not being too ready to admire pagan mystics' endless hours of meditation, because most of the meditation of these non-Christian mystics is on self, on the ego. That is not the mysticism of Mary. It is not the mysticism of Christianity. Mysticism that is authentic gives, it loves, it goes out of self. 23

Not the least problem that a priest faces in his pastoral, academic or administrative life is the hard alliance he must make between prayer and external activity. So true is that, that some have almost given up the effort to reconcile what must be reconciled if a priest is to minister effectively to the people. Hence the value of reflecting on Mary's example of faith that nourishes prayer indeed, even a deep and intimate union with God, yet a faith that does not remain sterile, but becomes fruitful in the practice of outgoing generosity.

But we have one more level of reflection on the character of Mary's faith. It was a much-tested faith. It is not for nothing that Mary has been called the Mother of Sorrows, or that the Church has been speaking of her as the Queen of Martyrs. When, at the Presentation, Simeon told Mary that "a sword will pierce your soul", he also gave the reason why: "…so that the secret thoughts of many may be laid bare".

We believe that after Christ no one suffered more, among His believers, than Christ's own mother. Her faith cost her immensely; she paid dearly for believing that the promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled. The promise was fulfilled amply and magnificently and gloriously, but only after Christ's Resurrection and the descent of the Holy Spirit, whom He sent. But during His mortal life, He involved His mother in every aspect of His passable mortality, which means His suffering mortality. Thus He left her as the best evidence we have that to believe in Christ is to suffer with Christ; and that the measure of our willingness to sacrifice is the index of the depth of our faith.

How we all, but especially Christ's priests, need to learn this hard lesson from Mary. A priest believes he has been called to join in the priesthood of Jesus. Priesthood, he knows, means to sacrifice. What he must also know is that the closer a person is bound to Christ in the redemptive work of saving souls, the more he should expect to share with Christ in His sacred Passion. These are not idle words, and they are no mere rhetoric. They are borne out in the lives of the great priests of history, whether canonized or known to God alone. To a man they were priests who not only offered the Holy Sacrifice in the person of Christ, but who offered themselves, because they suffered for Christ as part of the holocaust on the altar. Yet, like Mary, they considered themselves blessed (which means happy), because what was promised to them also was fulfilled. What is the promise? The promise is that to share in Christ's sufferings is to share in Christ's joy.

It is comforting to recall that while on the cross the Savior paid tribute to His mother's patient loyalty by entrusting her to His newly ordained priest and beloved disciple, John. This entrusting was meant to be more than symbolic. It is profoundly significant when we consider that not only was Mary entrusted by Christ to John, but John was entrusted to Mary.

What the Savior did on Calvary He has been doing ever since. He has confided His mother to be the mother of priests, to lead them and teach them in many ways. But in no way is Mary more necessary to the priests of the New Testament than as the one to teach them what it means to believe in her Son. It means to participate in His cross.

Priests are chosen to be partners in the Savior's work of redemption, to save a sinful world from its folly and bring it to the wisdom of God. But souls are not redeemed except by blood, either the physical blood of martyrdom or the spiritual blood of pain. Mary shed her blood in spirit, in union with her dying Son. She wants all, especially her priests, to learn from her to do the same. Every priest who is seriously trying to live his priestly life in today's world knows what this means. We priests need to be reminded of our noble responsibility. But mainly, we need to have someone show us the way. Mary, the Virgin Most Faithful, makes the road very plain.

The beauty of this mystery is that already in this life and not only in the life to come, those who have resolved to suffer with Christ discover what happiness there can be in total submission to the divine Will, even when this Will presses hard on our own and makes demands on our generosity. After all, what greater joy can anyone, 24

surely a priest, ask for here in this world than the joy of total surrender to the Son of God, who is the Son of Mary.

The Real Presence and Mary

by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

There is so much confusion in professedly catholic circles about the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist that someone had better make things clear. We begin to understand what the real presence means once we realize that the Holy Eucharist began in the womb of Mary the moment she told the angel, “be done to me according to your word,” God became man and began to dwell among us. God was in the world He made from the moment of creation He had to be. Otherwise the world He created out of nothing would have lapsed into the nothingness from which it came.

But the Creator began to be present as man at the moment of the Incarnation. He became man, God will never cease to be Incarnate. The Incarnation began in the womb of Mary and will continue unto all the reaches of eternity.

Why did God become man? God became man first of all that He might be able to suffer and die on the cross. He assumed a human body and soul that could be separated by death, which occurred on Calvary. But as man, He also assumed a human will by which He could choose to die for our salvation. His choosing to die for us on the cross was the sacrifice He offered for our redemption.

But, and this is the most important adversative in our language. But God became man not only to die for us on Calvary. He became man to live with us and among us as man in the Holy Eucharist. On Holy Thursday night, Jesus changed bread and wine into His own living body and blood. At the same Last Supper He told his apostles, “Do this in commemoration of me.” Thus Jesus ensured that He would remain on earth as man until the end of time.

That is what the Holy Eucharist is. It is Jesus Christ, the same one who was conceived at Nazareth, who was born at Bethlehem, who lived in Nazareth for thirty years, who preached the sermon on the mount, and worked the miracles which proved His claims to being the living God in human form.

In the Holy Eucharist, we have the same Jesus Christ who rose from the dead on Easter Sunday and ascended into heaven on Ascension Thursday. Certainly Jesus is now in heaven at the right hand of His heavenly Father. But he is also present on earth in the Blessed Sacrament. In the infallible language of the Church, “the whole Christ, with His humanity and divinity, is contained under the elements of what had been bread and wine in the Holy Eucharist.”

We dare not qualify. It is the same identical Jesus now on earth on our altars, in our tabernacles, in the Blessed Sacrament as He is in heaven with the fullness of His human nature united with his divinity.

Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is present in his body and soul, with His hands and feet and face and pulsating Sacred Heart. In a word, it is Jesus Christ.

Why is He on earth, the Incarnate Son of God who became the Son of Mary? He is present here among us that we might come to Him and tell Him that we love Him. He is here that we might come to ask Him for whatever 25 we need. He is here to enlighten our minds and strengthen our wills with the graces that only He the Son of God who became the son of Mary can confer.

Why is Jesus here on earth in the Holy Eucharist? He is here to continue working the miracles which He performed in Palestine two thousand years ago. Remember what the evangelist tells us: that in many places Jesus could not work miracles because of the people's lack of faith. So it was then and so it is now. The same Jesus who calmed the storm at sea and raised Lazarus from the dead is ready to perform similar miracles in our day, if only we believe. We are now living in the most critical century in human history. Millions of once professed Christians have abandoned their Christian heritage. Millions of innocent children are being murdered every year. No merely human power can bring the world to its senses. Only the Son of God who took flesh of His virgin mother can change the course of history and restore human society to its moral sanity. This almighty God who became flesh of His virgin mother is now in our midst waiting for us to come to Him and ask Him to do the humanly impossible. The Real Presence is our one hope for the restoration of humanity, in fact, for the preservation of the human race in the most crime-ridden century of human history.

All we need is to believe. But we must believe. Believe what? Believe that Jesus Christ, the same Jesus who died on the cross and rose from the dead is on earth today. All we need is to believe.

Prayer

“Lord Jesus, Son of God and son of Mary, You are really present in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, You are here the wonder worker of Palestine who wished to be the wonder worker of America. You are ready to restore our human race to its union with God and give us hope of eternal joy, provided we believe. With St. Thomas, ‘my Lord and my God.’ We believe in your real presence. Help our unbelief.”

Sacrifice and Vocations

Rev. John A. Hardon, S.J. SRV Chaplain

Every vocation is born of sacrifice, is maintained by sacrifice and is measured in the apostolate by the sacrifice of those whom God calls to the priesthood or the religious life. This should not be surprising, once we realize that it was by His sacrifice that Christ redeemed the world. The servant is not greater than his Master. In fact, the more intimate is one's vocation to the service of Christ, the more demanding will be the sacrifices required.

Barring an extraordinary grace from God, He generally calls those persons to follow Him as priests or religious, who have been taught the value of sacrifice from childhood. The experience of self-denial in the use and enjoyment of material things is the normal predisposition for a lifetime practice of evangelical poverty. Training in self-control of the senses, especially in the use of the media, is the ordinary preparation for a lifelong dedication to consecrated chastity. Careful and loving nurture in self-denial, almost from infancy, is God's usual way of conditioning the human will for commitment to the counsel of obedience.

If sacrifice in childhood and young adulthood is the seedbed of vocations, continued fidelity in serving the Church is impossible without the habit of self-surrender. There are many reasons for the tragic loss of so many once-dedicated persons in affluent countries like America. But surely one of these reasons is the prior loss of a willingness to give in to the sometimes hard demands of Christ's love. We may, therefore, say that vocations are nourished on sacrifice as the body is sustained on food. Or, as the Savior told His followers -- and bade them follow His example -- "My meat is to do the will of Him Who sent Me."

Sacrifice is finally the condition and norm of apostolic work in the priesthood and religious life. Who have been the great achievers in the vineyard of the Lord over the centuries? Have they not been the men and women who never said, "Enough" in their zeal for souls; who labored, like St. Paul, in season and out of season, selflessly and exhaustingly; who never counted the cost in time or effort or personal preference; in a word, who lived lives of heroic sacrifice?

All of this is common knowledge for those who have come to know Christ Who, "having joy set before Him, chose the Cross." But this kind of knowledge needs to be taught -- and learned -- if the vocations which the Church so desperately needs are to be fostered and preserved in our day.

The Value of Prayer and Sacrifice for Priests

by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

I would like to address myself to the subject of the value of prayer and sacrifice for priests – the value of prayer and sacrifice for priests. If there was ever a need to pray and sacrifice for priests for their preservation and sanctity it is today. It is not exaggeration to say that the Catholic priesthood in countries like our own is going through the most difficult ordeal in the Church's history. That is no exaggeration. We have lost well over ten thousand priests in the United States since the close of the Vatican Council.

Vocations to the priesthood in our country have dropped almost seventy-five percent since the Council. Countless seminaries have closed there is confusion in many Catholic circles as to what is the priesthood. As a result we can safely say that the welfare of the Church in our country and in many other so-called, developed countries is at stake. Having taught priests over 30 years.

I am now teaching priests having lived with priests and having labored for them loving them suffering with them. No words I can use would be to strong to state that the Catholic priesthood needs prayer and sacrifice as never before since Calvary.

I would like to ask a series of questions to spark an answer that should be a prayerful reflection on our own responsibility. First, briefly, why the priesthood. In a single sentence the most important reason we need the priesthood is: That without the priesthood there cannot be the Eucharist. Without the Eucharist there would be no sacrifice of the Mass, No Holy Communion, no Jesus Christ, no Real Presence on earth to continue His work of salvation in the world. As I sometimes look at photographs of the monuments of genius, the cathedrals of France and Germany, Italy, I say to myself the only reason that generations were sometimes spent in building these tributes to the faith of those who constructed them is that every Catholic Church from the smallest Chapel to the Cathedral of Notre Dame or St. Peter’s in Rome. These are all, we believe, literally houses of God, Jesus

Christ. The Son of God who became the son of Mary really dwells. But without the priesthood, Jesus Christ would not be on earth. That is our Catholic faith.

We go on. Why do priests need special graces from God? They need special graces because they have extraordinary responsibilities before God. They are to be more than ordinarily holy, more generous, more zealous, more patient. In a word, those who are responsible for Christ's presence on earth they are to be, of all people, most Christ-like. They are to be patterns of what Christ wants all of us to be. Count all of the grave crises in the Church over the centuries. Every single one of them, somehow at heart, was due to the fact that priests had failed the people of God.

As long as I live, I will never forget the retreat of the late Fr. Daniel Lord gave us scholastics before our ordination. He recalled the episode of a conversation that Pope Pius had with Fr. Edmond Walsh, then of Georgetown who had just returned from a mission in Russia, where millions were starving because of the treachery of their Communist overlords. After the famine had abated, Fr. Lord was told to meet with the Holy Father. Late into the night Pope and Jesuit were in conversation over the conditions of the Church in that day. And the Pope asked Fr. Walsh who do you think are the greatest trials to the Church? Are they the persecutors, the Neros and Attilas, the Communists? The Pope answered his own question. No, they are unfaithful priests. It is no overstretch of language to say as the priesthood goes, so goes the Church.

We go on. In our day, more than I believe in any other day before, there are pressures on all those who wish to remain faithful to Christ such as were not experienced ever before. But the pressures are experienced by priests with a violence and a virulence such as no one else but a priest can understand. One saint after another has declared that the devil’s principal target on earth is the Catholic priest. Stands to demonic reason – if the devil can deceive and delude a Catholic priest and draw him away from Christ, what happens? What happens is what we see happening in our world today. Priests are subject to extraordinary temptations from the devil, first and mainly, but also from the world.

I never dreamed that I would be told this, but told this I was. Six months after being on the faculty of a state university, one of my fellow faculty members told me John, you are the first priest that this university has ever had. I happened to be the first Catholic priest hired by a state university to teach Catholicism and paid to do so by the state. John, he said, we wanted to test you, especially in your chastity. You didn't know this, but women students on campus found out you are genuine.

Priests need, Lord how they need, special graces from God. We ask, why pray, then, for priests? We should pray for priests and bishops because this has been the practice of the Church since apostolic times. It’s a matter of revealed truth. It is a divine mandate. Whatever we find, certainly in the Scriptures of the apostolic age, we believe has been revealed by God. In the Acts of the Apostles, we are told Herod had James the Apostle beheaded. He then put Peter in prison. Then says Saint Luke, I quote, "All the time Peter was under guard the Church prayed for him unremittingly." I like that adverb, unremittingly. As a priest, may I beg you to pray unremittingly for Christ's unworthy servants whom He ordained as priests.

In one of the seven letters that Saint Martin of Antioch wrote on his way to martyrdom in Rome, date 107 A.D., the future martyr begged the people, "Pray for me who stands in need of your charity who stands before the mercy seat of God."

Why, then, pray for priests? Because through prayer we gain graces for them which otherwise they would not obtain. If we all need the help of one another, and we do to receive the graces we need, how much more should we pray for priests from whom we have received Jesus Christ in the Eucharist – and by whom we have been so often absolved from our sins. I don't want to even think of the state of soul I would be in except for the absolutions that over the years I have received from priests. As fellow members of the Mystical Body priests 28 need, desperately need, our help and in no way more urgently than to obtain through the prayers we offer for them the graces from God of which, in my judgment, no one stands in greater need than do priests.

Why sacrifice for priests? Our prayer for priests should be joined with sacrifice. In other words, our prayer should be united with the practice of patience, selfless charity and mortification. Why? Because the most effective prayer is the prayer that costs – costly prayer, otherwise known as sacrificial prayer. How powerfully before the throne of God are the sufferings of the sick, the lonely, the abandoned, the poor, the crushed offered up to God for our purpose, when offered up for priests.

After all, that is what a priest’s life is supposed to be, a life of sacrifice. By now I have told hundreds of priests, “Fathers you are not only to offer the Mass, you are to live the Mass.” But if priests are to be truly priestly, they need, how they need, to have the faithful to offer their own trials and temptations to obtain from the great High Priest, Jesus Christ, the light and strength that the priesthood demands.

What grace does a priest most need? There is no doubt in my mind that the one grace that the priest most needs is to embrace the Cross. His union with Christ Crucified is the priest’s key to an effective priesthood. His power as a priest comes from the Cross as he identifies himself with the Crucified Lord. What are we saying? We are saying that a priest must be willing and able to have happen to him what happened to his Master in Palestine. As I've told so many priests and by now have so often told myself, I am only as much a priest and genuinely priestly as I am ready and willing, like Jesus Christ, to suffer for souls.

Can we be more specific? Yes, the principal cross which priests experience today is the suffering they feel with the situation in the Church today. As one priest put it I quote, “The cross is the present, the now experience and not some imagined and future pain.” That is why making the Way of the Cross – and I am now recommending the Stations of the Cross to others – I consider a most effective way of praying for priests. To make the Way of the Cross, uniting oneself with Jesus Christ, no longer suffering in His physical body, but suffering in His Mystical Body, which is the Church.

I would recommend that all the faithful daily offer at least one prayer for all the priests in the Church and especially for those who have done most for them in their lives. I try to remember at Mass every day the priest who baptized me, the priest who heard my first Confession, who gave me my First Holy Communion, the bishop who ordained me, the bishop who confirmed me. I recommend, therefore, that all the faithful daily, in a special and concrete way, pray for priests. I further strongly recommend that all the faithful offer up each day some sacrifice. I am tempted to say some little sacrifice. NO! I suggest it be the most difficult sacrifice of the day for priests. I further recommend that when we hear about a priest who has been unfaithful to his high calling, that our first and immediate reaction should be to pray for him. I finally recommend we do everything in our power to extend and propagate the apostolate of prayer and sacrifice for priests.

Needless to say, the Church of the future will not only survive, but please God in our own country, will thrive. But that will occur only where and insofar as the priests have not only been faithful to their vocation, but have lived their priesthood how I like to say this, in a living martyrdom in union with the first martyr, Jesus Christ. It is, therefore, no mere recommendation or exhortation as far as I can make an imperative. Pray and sacrifice for priests.

Closing Prayer

Lord Jesus Christ, you ordained the apostles priests at the Last Supper to continue your mission of mercy to the end of time. We believe that every Catholic priest traces his ordination to that first ordination on Holy Thursday night. We know how much you expect of your priests and we also know how weak and human they are. Inspire us, dear Jesus, to pray and sacrifice for your priests who are also our priests that by their faithfulness to you in this life they may bring countless souls to you in the life to come. Mary, mother of priests, pray for priests that they may love your Divine Son, even as you did unreservedly, all the days of their lives. Amen.

Prayer and Suffering

Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

Christianity is unique among the religions of the world in giving a rational and adequate explanation of suffering. In fact, it goes beyond giving a strong motive for suffering, this motive being the fact that God became man in the person of Jesus Christ. Those who love Christ are to love the whole Christ, the child of Bethlehem and the naked, condemned criminal on Calvary, the Christ in the manger and on the cross. Those who love God, therefore, on Christian terms, do not or should not run away from suffering. If anything, they expect it, and for nineteen centuries they have not been disappointed. In every age and in every stage of their passage through time, the experience of Christians has been a share in the experience of Christ which includes joy and peace, of course, but also and emphatically includes suffering.

Our focus in the present reflections, however, is more particular. We wish to look at two cardinal mysteries - the mystery of prayer and the mystery of suffering.

What Is Christian Suffering?

We begin by looking at what may seem plain enough on the surface, but is not as plain as many people think, namely, just what is suffering? If there is one thing that everybody experiences but few people define, it is suffering. As commonly understood suffering means the experience of pain. It may be due to a variety of causes. Every organ of the human body, every limb and joint, in fact, every cell is capable of greater or less, and at times, excruciating pain.

So great is the horror of bodily pain that annually billions of dollars in our country are spent by those who can afford it to avoid pain or lessen it. And every drugstore is a symbol of man's dread of pain and his desire to be relieved of bodily suffering. But there is pain not only in the body. It is not just our body that suffers, it is we.

There is pain in the human soul. To be rejected by those we love is pain. To be misunderstood and worse still to be misrepresented is pain. To be passed over when others are chosen or ignored when others are recognized and praised, or forgotten when others are remembered, is pain. To have strong desires, noble desires like union with God and a sense of His nearness, and not have these desires fulfilled, as the mystics tell us, is great pain. To make mistakes and as a consequence be embarrassed, or to do wrong, then have to live with the memory of our sins, is pain. So the litany of pain goes on and its experience is suffering.

The Sanctification of Suffering

But Christian suffering is not the mere experience of pain, nor even just the tolerance of pain. In the Christian philosophy of life suffering is to be sanctified and the sanctification of suffering is called sacrifice. It took me twenty years to reach that definition. I share it with you.

Every human being suffers, some more and others less, but all have to undergo pain. But sadly and most tragically, not everyone sanctifies their suffering to make it a sacrifice. And it is here that Christianity has so much to teach the world, in fact, so much to teach Christians. So we ask: How do we sanctify our sufferings such as they are and change them by divine alchemy into sacrifice? We do so through the mysterious power of prayer.

What do I do when I suffer prayerfully?

Now that is a new term, I suppose. When I suffer prayerfully I do many things but especially these:

First, I see that behind what I endure is not the person or the event or the mishap or even the mistake (as obvious as these may be). I acknowledge that the real active agent responsible for my suffering is the mysterious hand of God. When David on one dramatic occasion while on the road, was being insulted by a certain Shimei who cursed the king, called him a scoundrel and an usurper and began to throw stones at him, David's armed guard exclaimed. "Is this dead dog to curse my Lord, the King? Let me go over and cut off his head!" But David would not let him. "Let him curse," he replied. "If Yahweh said to him 'Curse David.' what right has anyone to say 'why have you done this?' Perhaps Yahweh will look on my misery and repay me with good for his curse today." David was inspired by Yahweh.

First, then, when I suffer prayerfully, I recognize that God is behind the suffering and I humble my head in faith. Second, when I suffer prayerfully, I trust that God has reasons for permitting what I endure and that in His own time and way, the experience now suffered will eventually somehow be a source of grace. What David did in the Old testament, Christ, the Son of David, not yet born, enabled him to do by anticipation because of the mystery and merit of the Cross. If ever we are tempted to doubt the value of suffering patiently, according to the will of God, we have only to look at the Crucifix. Talk about value in suffering! But the value derives not from physical or spiritual pain. It comes from the Infinite God who showed us - this is God teaching us - by His own passion and death how profitable prayerful suffering can be. The most important single lesson mankind has to learn is the meaning of suffering and its value. It took God to teach us. And He has to resort to the extreme expedient of becoming man and suffering Himself to prove to us that suffering is not meaningless: that it is the most meaningful and valuable experience in human life.

For reasons best known to the Almighty, once sin had entered the world, grace was to be obtained through the Cross, which really means, through the voluntary acceptance of God's will crossing mine. This voluntary acceptance on our part is what the Father required of His Son as the condition for opening the treasury of mercies. It is still the condition today for conferring these blessings on sinful mankind.

Suffering Elevates Prayer

No one who understands even the rudiments of Christianity should doubt that prayer is necessary for every believer if he wants to be saved. It is further well known that progress in virtue, and growth in holiness depends absolutely on fervent and frequent prayer. What is perhaps not so well known is that prayer has interior depths 31 that are not exactly the same as having ecstasies or even going through what some of the great friends of God, as Francis of Assisi or Catherine of Sienna, received from the Lord. Those are depths, though I suppose more accurately, are heights of prayer.

We are talking about depths. These interior depths of prayer are not phenomena that some people mistakenly take to be God's special presence and evidence of the miraculous diffusion of His gifts. The depths of which I am speaking are those of the souls in love with Christ the Savior in prayer, when this prayer is joined with suffering willingly undergone or even willingly undertaken as evidence of a generous heart.

St Ignatius, My Father and Guide

There is a passage in the writings of St. Ignatius that I almost hesitate quoting for fear of having him misunderstood. The saints sometimes said strange things. But it is worth the risk in order to make clearer what I think is so much needed today to protect people from what I consider the heresy of instant mysticism. When all sorts of fads and gimmicks are being sold to the faithful as means of becoming "their oneness with the Absolute." I quote St. Ignatius:

"If God gives you an abundant harvest of trials, it is a sign of great holiness which He desires you to attain. Do you want to become a great saint? Ask God to send you many sufferings. The flame of Divine Love never rises higher than when fed with the wood of the Cross, which the infinite charity of the Savior used to finish His sacrifice. All the pleasures of the world are nothing compared with the sweetness found in the gall and vinegar offered to Jesus Christ. That is, hard and painful things endured for Jesus Christ and with Jesus Christ."

We may object that these are the sentiments of a great mystic who, as all mystics, spoke in symbolic terms and are not to be taken literally. Not so. They are the prosaic words of all those who believe that the most pleasing prayer to God is one that proceeds not only from the lips or even from the heart indeed, but one that is suffering in union with the heart of the innocent Lamb of God. Not all the faithful are called to the heights of this kind of prayer, although no Christian is exempt from his share in the life of the Master whose prayer to His Father was so elevated by the Cross.

Other things being equal, the more my prayer life is crucified, the more meritorious it becomes. The more what I say to God is combined with what I offer to God, the more pleased He will be. The more my petitions to the Lord are united with sacrifice willingly made, the more certainly what I ask for will be received.

There is such a thing as cheap prayer. I call that comfortable prayer. There is such a thing as dear prayer. I call that sacrificial prayer. I don't know where the idea came from that the essence of prayer is just praying and presto, we have satisfied our prayerful duties and can go on to other things. Not at all. Prayer is an ongoing enterprise and its continuance is especially a prolongation of what I say to God (which may not be much) with what I endure and suffer for God (which can be very much).

Peaceful Endurance through Prayer

We still have one more reflection on our general theme of prayer and suffering that should not be omitted: how to maintain one's peace of soul while undergoing whatever trial God may send us. This is no trivial question because for failure to answer it - either at all or at least satisfactorily - I am afraid that many otherwise good 32 people do not grow to the spiritual stature that Providence intends for them, and certainly do not accomplish in their service for others all that they could.

What are we saying? We are asking ourselves a very special question. How can I live up to the sublime teaching of my faith and suffer as God wants me to without becoming anxious, worried and irritable in the process? Christ could not be plainer in telling me not to worry, but to be at peace. The problem is: how do you combine the two? How can I practice the one that is, carry the Cross: and maintain the other, that is, be at peace? I am afraid that sometimes God often tells us: "Well, if that's the way you feel about it, all right. All right, no more Cross, at least of that kind, for you. I can see you can't take it." The answer on how to combine the two is the prayer of sacrifice.

We begin by admitting, without deletion, that suffering means suffering and there is no disguising the fact. But there are two sides to every painful experience. There is objective pain and there is subjective reaction. The same objective source of pain, say a cut or wound in the body, an insult or humiliation in the soul, can produce only a mild reaction in one person and invoke a delirium of agony in another. Or even the same person, on one occasion is not much disturbed over the painful experience he has, and at other times, feels it excruciatingly or worries himself sick over some future suffering or convulsive fear. Our interest here is not to know how psychologically to cope with the trials of life so as not to suffer more than we should; it is rather to see how we can preserve ourselves in peace whenever God's hand touches us, or He asks us, as He does to carry our cross.

The method, we said, is through the prayer of sacrifice. What does this mean? It means that whenever any trial enters our life, no matter how small, we prayerfully place ourselves in God's presence and voluntarily accept the trial. Memorize that. We prayerfully place ourselves in God's presence and voluntarily accept the trial. I said, we should do this no matter how small the trial may be, and one index of how big we are or how grown-up spiritually, is the little things that can rock us. After all, most of our difficulties are not individually major problems and there is great wisdom in spelling them out and dealing with each one as it comes; one trial at a time. These trials can be humiliating small things taken separately but together they can become oppressively big.

A priest confrere of mine tells the story of a pilgrimage he once attended and how, during the pilgrimage, he shared his room with another man. The priest said, "Hardly had my partner gone to bed than he began to snore loudly, loud enough to waken the dead. At first I started to be impatient, then I applied the remedy: I willed to listen to the snoring and hear it clearly, tranquilly observed it and, a little later fell asleep. Waking up once during the night (the noise was terrific!), I used the same method again and returned to sleep."

There are in the lives of all of us countless sources of annoyance, all kinds of noise and distasteful persons, place and things. We can be opposed or oppressed but we should never be depressed by no-matter-what tribulation enters our lives. The way to retain our peaceful serenity is to promptly ask God for the grace to endure what cannot be changed or in His own time, to change what for the time being is to be endured. What God wants of us is a pure sacrifice unalloyed by our reluctance to suffer at His hands or made worse than His Providence intends. He will never give us more than we can bear. What He does not want is to have us spoil the opportunity for sacrifice by making an issue of what is, after all, the normal way He deals with those whom He calls His friends. This is God's way of embracing those that He loves. What God wants is that "we", by resigning ourselves to His gracious will, may do His will, which can sometimes be hard but always is to be done in peace. This is what Christ must have meant when He told us: "My yoke is easy and My burden is light."

Surely, serving God does mean carrying the yoke and the burden that He sends us. He wants us prayerfully to realize that they are His yoke and His burden that He places upon us, and let us be sure that is plenty and for that we have the grace. If we can keep this vision before us through life, we shall not, of course, be spared the Cross - that would be unthinkable - but we shall be at peace. Peace is the absence of conflict between wills, here 33 between the will of God and ours. It is open to everyone who is willing to pray and live by His prayer: "Lord, not my will but Thine be done."

The Priesthood

by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

What is the priesthood? Before dealing at length with the meaning of the priesthood in the Catholic Church, there is value in first looking at the priesthood in general, as revealed to us by God in the Sacred Scriptures, because today in so many circles there is such widespread confusion. People are being told that priests are really no different from the rest of the faithful. They are being told that at most priests are only ministers of the Gospel. Yet they have learned over the years that the priesthood is the sublimest dignity that God can confer on a human being.

Whatever happened to that sublimity when they see thousands of priests leaving the active priesthood, as they say, to be laicized? In many countries, especially in North and South America, vocations to the priesthood are at an all time low. Large archdioceses have had as few as one ordination in four years. Some have had at least a few vocations; none have had many; but many have had almost none. Permanent deacons are being ordained in quantity, partly to supplement the dwindling ranks of the priesthood. But a deacon is not a priest. All of these and some other phenomena make the question we are asking ourselves crucially important. If the future of the Catholic Church in countries like the United States is to be assured, we need to understand better who a priest is, what his dignity is, and above all appreciate his absolute indispensability for the people of God.

This concept has been refined, deepened, and expanded but not substantially changed from the Old Law to the New Law. He stood between the people whom he represented and the God whom he addressed.

Yet as we know in the Old Testament there were two kinds of mediators between God and the people. There were mediators from God to communicate His mind and His will to the people. These mediators were called prophets. They were from God to the people. We might call this downward mediation: from heaven to earth. There were also mediators from the people to God to offer Him the people's adoration, invoke His aid, and beg His mercy for the people's sins. These were in Old Testament parlance called priests. This was the upward mediation: from earth to heaven. Moreover, the priests of the Old Testament were not only to mediate from the people to God, they were to do so in a distinctive, indeed, unique way. They were to offer sacrifices (the plural is of the essence of the Old Law) of goats and sheep, of oxen and cattle, of bread and wine, of wheat, barley, and oats, and fruits of trees.

If the first function, therefore, of a priest was to be mediator from the people to God, his second function was to offer sacrifice. A priest, then, was a mediator who offered sacrifice. However, not everyone was allowed to exercise the priestly office. Only those specially chosen by Yahweh were permitted to offer sacrifice. When on one dramatic occasion, King Saul, as we recall, dared to arrogate to himself the offering of sacrifice, he was severely punished. It was in this context that the phrase was first spoken, "Obedience is better than sacrifice". Saul was disobedient and God was displeased with his sacrifice because, though king, he was not a priest. He was not chosen for that office.

Thirdly, then, beyond being a mediator and beyond offering sacrifice, a priest was one specially chosen by God to do the mediation and to offer the oblation to God. In a word, a priest must be divinely chosen. No one presumed to be a priest on his own. So much for a thumb nail review of some two thousand years of Jewish prophetic and priestly history.

Let us consider the priesthood in Christianity. With the advent of Christ, the priesthood of the Old Law was elevated to the height it had never before possessed. It also became the cornerstone of the Christian religion so much so that we might almost define true Christianity as the religion of a divinely revealed priesthood. Christianity is indeed priestly and the priesthood is of its essence: no priesthood, no Christianity.

This priesthood of the New Law is really three kinds of priesthood; all, however, take their origin from and depend on the Incarnation of the Son of God. There is, first of all, the priesthood of Jesus Christ. By His Incarnation, Jesus offered to His heavenly Father all the acts of His human will. Remember, a priest is one who offers. God could not offer to God. God had first to become man to make it possible for an oblation, or more accurately, a sacrifice to be offered. God had first to have a human will to make the priesthood possible.

Christ's priesthood, therefore, began in Mary's womb. He lived His priesthood during the nine hidden months within His mother, then through the many years at Nazareth, and while preaching and doing good throughout Palestine. But especially on the cross did He live this priesthood, where He united all the acts of a mortal human being capable of suffering and of death into one supreme sacrifice, by which He became the Mediator par excellence between the human race and God, our priest and pontiff for a sinful mankind. Such was Christ's priesthood in His mortal flesh on earth. But we are not finished. In fact, Christ's priesthood in a profound sense only began during His mortal sojourn which ended on Calvary. Jesus continues His priesthood even now. He had better; otherwise, we could not have a Mass.

As our eternal High Priest He worships, praises, and thanks the divine majesty in His own name and in the name of His people. But, though sinless Himself, He is head of a very sinful human family. So He intercedes before the throne of the Father for us. Being heard by the Father, He keeps sending down blessings on us from His heavenly home. This priesthood of Jesus Christ is the only one fundamental priesthood now in the Church. 35

All other priesthoods are participations in this one. The participation takes place in two different ways. First and mainly, by those ordained to the ministerial priesthood and secondly, by all the faithful as belonging to the priesthood of the faithful.

We have, therefore, because of Christ's priesthood, first of all the ordained ministerial priesthood which we identify with the sacrament of orders. Who belongs to this priesthood? All those who are of the sacerdotal rank: priests, bishops, and the Pope at their head. When did this participated ministerial priesthood of Jesus begin? It came into existence at the Last Supper when the Savior did two things. He first changed bread and wine into Himself and already offered, the night before He died, the death He would endure. Then He told the disciples to do what He did "in commemoration of me". It is a defined article of the Catholic Faith that the ordained ministerial priesthood, the sacrament of orders, was instituted personally by Jesus at the Last Supper.

Finally, beyond the ordained ministerial priesthood, which is unique and possessed only by those who receive the sacrament of orders, there is a true although subordinate sense in which all the baptized faithful belong to the priesthood of Christ. We begin to share in the priesthood of the Savior when we are baptized into the priesthood of Christ. This sacramental character which we receive at Baptism is deepened by the sacrament of Confirmation and the Holy Eucharist. It is because of this sharing in Christ's priesthood that the faithful are able to receive any of the other sacraments; without this one no other sacrament can be received. It is because of this share in Christ's priesthood that they are enabled to offer with the priest at the altar the body and blood of the Son of God to His heavenly Father, which is why it is said, "Pray, brethren, that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father."

Our enablement is conditioned by our sharing in this priesthood of Christ. Because we are baptized, we participate in the role of Christ, the High Priest; we are thus able to be victims with Jesus-victims like Jesus as man, but victims for Jesus who is God. This is the priesthood about which Saint Peter wrote. We should recall the first Pope reminding the faithful that they share in Christ's royalty because they share in His capacity for sacrifice; our King is a crowned King indeed, but crowned on earth with a crown of thorns. That is the kind of priesthood that we are all privileged to participate in. While the fact of sharing in this priesthood is an article of our faith and made possible by our Baptism, the degree of this participation, its intensity, and its fruitfulness for the good of our souls and the souls of others, depends on the willingness with which we are co-offerers and especially co-offered with the Savior.

It is almost too ambitious for words to try to exhaust the meaning of the priesthood. My first recommendation, therefore, is to spend much more time than perhaps what we have been doing in meditating on the priesthood. Where can we find material from which we can gain deep insights on God's revealed wisdom regarding the priesthood? First of all, read Saint Paul's letter to the Hebrews. Many people do not meditate much on Saint Paul, and Hebrews is not his easiest letter. In any case, the thirteen chapters of the letter to the Hebrews are the most exhausting revelation we have on the meaning of Christ's priesthood and of our share in that priesthood.

Secondly, look into the teachings of the Church. Here I would especially single out "Mediator Dei" of Pope Pius XII on the sacred liturgy. There are many beautiful and profound things about the priesthood in general in this document. There is an especially clear distinction between the priesthood of the ministry (those who are ordained) and the priesthood of all the faithful, with a long, elaborate explanation of how we faithful might more effectively live out our own baptized priesthood.

The priesthood is indeed important; without it there is no Church. Needless to say, the priesthood is challenged. The late Pope Paul VI more than once said that never in the history of the Church has the priestly office been more attacked than today. Hence, if ever the priesthood needed support—of the priests, first of all, of their fellow-priests, and of all the faithful through prayer and sacrifice—it is today.

Consequently, not merely knowing about the priesthood, but praying and offering God sacrifices for the priesthood are indispensably important in our day. Undoubtedly God is allowing the shepherds to be struck and thus the sheep to be scattered. May we offer our petitions and pains to God that He might have mercy on His people by restoring His priesthood to that dignity, that importance, that respect, and that multitude of ministers of the Gospel and the sacraments, without which, as we now sadly see, millions are literally wandering about as sheep who are lost because they do not have those who, under God, should help lead them back to Him.

Christ in the Eucharist - Presence and Reality

by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

I would like to address myself to another aspect of the priesthood, namely, the priest's faith in the Eucharist, directing our attention to the specific aspect of the subject by reflecting prayerfully on "Christ in the Eucharist- Presence and Reality". It is perhaps remarkable that we should consider what must seem like a strange title, because most Catholics, including priests, are not accustomed to separate the two words "presence" and "reality" when they speak of the Blessed Sacrament.

We commonly and correctly say that we believe in the Real Presence and seldom give the matter a second thought. But today is not even yesterday, and it is certainly not 1965 when Pope Paul VI published his now historical encyclical "Mysterium Fidei" on the Real Presence. The Pope reminded the people and especially priests that there is a crisis of faith regarding the Eucharist, and that Catholics had better awaken to the fact; otherwise they are likely to be swept off their feet by subtle theology, and their faith, including the faith of priests, in the Eucharist will be weakened if not destroyed by the current assaults on this cardinal mystery of our faith.

Somewhere near the center of the theological controversy about which the Pope warned us is precisely the question that no Catholic should raise, namely, "Is the Holy Eucharist presence or reality? Or is it, as the Church teaches, presence and reality?" There is more at stake here than meets the eye-I mean the eye of the mind.

My purpose will be to defend the following statement: The Holy Eucharist is Jesus Christ, who is in the Blessed Sacrament both as reality and presence. He is in the Eucharist as reality because the Eucharist is Jesus. He is in the Eucharist as presence because through the Eucharist He affects us and we are in contact with Him-always depending on our faith and devotion to the Savior living really in our midst.

The Eucharist as Reality - The First Crisis of Eucharistic Faith

The Eucharist as reality. There have been, before modern times, two major crises of faith in the Real Presence in Catholic history. The first crisis occurred in the early middle ages when theological speculators (it's always theological speculators) mainly in France, raised doubt about the reality of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. This first crisis reached a peak in the person of one Berengarius of Tours, who died in 1088. 37

Berengarius denied the possibility of substantial change in the elements of bread and wine, refusing to admit that the body of Christ exists corporeally on the altar. His argument was that Christ could not be brought down from Heaven before the Last Judgment. He held that Christ's body, existing as he said "only in Heaven", is effective for humanity through its sacramental counterpart or type and that Christ, therefore, is not really in the Eucharist except 'ideally or symbolically".

Pope Gregory VII ordered Berengarius to subscribe to a profession of faith that has become the cornerstone of Catholic Eucharistic piety. I recommend memorizing this profession of faith. It was the Church's first definitive statement of what had always been believed, but not always clearly understood. It is a declaration of faith in the Eucharist as unquestionable, objective and unqualified reality.

I believe in my heart and openly profess that the bread and wine placed upon the altar are, by the mystery of the sacred prayer and the words of the Redeemer, substantially changed into the true and life-giving flesh and blood of Jesus Christ our Lord, and that after the consecration, there is present the true body of Christ which was born of the Virgin and, offered up for the salvation of the world, hung on the cross and now sits at the right hand of the Father, and that there is present the true blood of Christ which flowed from His side. They are present not only by means of a sign and of the efficacy of the sacrament, but also in the very reality and truth of their nature and substance. Words could not be clearer. If reality means actuality, and if actuality means objectivity, then the Catholic Faith believes that the Christ who is in the Eucharist is the Christ of history: the one who was conceived at Nazareth, born at Bethlehem, died, and rose from the dead at Jerusalem, and is now seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, The Eucharist is the same Christ who will call us when we pass out of time into eternity. It is the Christ who will appear at the end of the world to judge the living and the dead; it is the Christ who is the Omega of the universe and the goal of human destiny. That was the first crisis.

The Eucharist as Reality - The Second Crisis of Eucharistic Faith

Five centuries after Berengarius, the second great crisis of faith in the Eucharist arose, at the time of the Protestant Reformation. Again, many of the same objections were raised and theories disseminated as in the Berengarius controversy a half millennium before. Once again the Church countered, this time through the Council of Trent, to revindicate the reality of Christ who is in the Blessed Sacrament.

The Tridentine profession of faith is not unlike that Pope Gregory VII required of Berengarius. "The Holy Council teaches," declared Trent, "and openly and straightforwardly professes that in the Blessed Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, after the consecration of the bread and wine, our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and true man, is truly, really and substantially contained under the perceptible species of bread and wine."

But then Trent added, with characteristic vigor, that this is the plain meaning of Christ's words when at the Last Supper He said, "This is my body; this is the chalice of my blood." Consequently, the faithful were told, "It is an infamy that contentious evil men should distort these words into fanciful imaginary, figures of speech that deny the truth about the Body and Blood of Christ contrary to the universal understanding of the Church."

The reality of Christ in the Eucharist is no figure of speech; it is no fanciful rhetoric. It is, in the clearest words that can be expressed, it is Jesus Christ. It is the Incarnation extended into space and time, literally the Emmanuel made flesh, the God-man who is, we assert, here and now living in our midst. Therefore, it is not that Christ lived only then, 1900 years ago, and there, in Palestine-He is here now.

The Eucharist as Reality - The Crisis of Eucharistic Faith in Modern Times

Four centuries after the Council of Trent, the Church is now in another crisis of Eucharistic faith, and we had better realize it. This is the real crisis in the Catholic priesthood today; all others are secondary to this one, as I well know; this is my twenty-fifth year of teaching priests.

Palpable evidence of such a crisis is seen in the practical disappearance in so many dioceses of the Forty Hours Devotion and the corresponding disappearance of Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. How often I have planned for Benediction but could find no monstrance! It is seen in the complete revision of Constitutions of once flourishing contemplative religious institutes that had specialized in worship of the Blessed Sacrament on their altars. It is seen in widespread neglect of showing any of the customary signs of reverence to Christ's Real Presence in the tabernacle and in the removal of the tabernacle in churches to some obscure and unobtrusive place where the Real Presence is isolated from even possible devotion by the faithful.

There is the mounting literature in still nominally Catholic circles that seldom touches on the Real Presence, or that explains it in a way congenial to those who do not believe in Christ's corporeal presence in the Eucharist. This is totally incompatible with the historic faith of Catholicism. There is the dissemination of religious education textbooks, teachers' manuals and study guides that may make an apologetic mention of this physical presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, but that leave the distinct impression that this presence is peripheral to Catholic faith and practice and is certainly not the fundamental mystery of the Church founded by Christ.

Though seldom averted to, part of this same crisis about the Real Presence is the contemporary desacramentalization of the Catholic priesthood. Priests are said to be essentially preachers of the Word or ministers of the Gospel, organizers of Christian communities or social leaders, spokesmen for the poor or defenders of the oppressed or political catalysts, academic scholars or theological appraisers of the faith of believers. So they are, depending on their talents and the circumstances in which they find themselves. But is that all? And is that the primary purpose of the Catholic priesthood? No.

The primary meaning of the priesthood is its relationship to the Eucharist as reality, as sacrament, and as sacrifice; and among these three primarily as reality, because obviously, unless Christ is really there, we cannot speak about the Blessed Sacrament or the sacrifice of the Mass. It is to make Christ present on earth, really, that Christ instituted His priesthood.

Once again, as in previous ages, the Church's magisterium has reaffirmed the real existence of Christ on earth in the Eucharist, but in accents and nuances that were not called for in previous times. Pope Paul VI, in "Mysterium Fidei" was concerned about those who in spoken and written word "spread abroad opinions that disturb the faithful and fill their minds with no little confusion about matters of faith."

Among these opinions was and is the theory that so redefines the meaning of Christ's real existence in the Eucharist as to obscure, if not deny, the reality. Mark this sentence, because it is the transition of part one to part two of our conference: it is as though someone said, "I believe in the Eucharist as presence but not as reality, or as reality that is only presence and not objective actuality." So far then about the Eucharist as reality.

The Eucharist as Presence

Now about the Eucharist as presence. The moment we hear the word "presence" we naturally tend to think of a personal relationship between two or more people. We are present to someone, or someone is present to us, when we are aware of them or they of us; when we have them on our minds and in our hearts, or they think of us and sense a kinship and affection for us. We are not exactly present to stones or trees, nor they to us, no matter how real they may be. Presence always implies rational beings. Something happens between people to make them present to one another.

Presence as such also transcends space and time. Saint Paul or Saint Augustine may be present to us, although they are long since dead and although they are not physically where we are physically. They can be present to us mentally or volitionally or spiritually. She can be in New York and he in San Francisco. Yet as soon and as often as he thinks of her with love, she is present to him. Whenever she does the same, he is present to her, reaching over the distance of miles and irrespective of the fact that neither is where the other is in body. No matter, they are with each other in spirit. That is what spirit is all about: it is independent of space.

Presence, therefore, does not deny physical reality, because two people can be both near to each other in body and intimately united in spirit. But, neither does presence require nearness in body. It rather stresses intimacy of mind and heart. Herein rests both the dignity and the danger of some current theories about the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, some that have infected the lives of not a few priests.

There are those who laudably emphasize the subjective aspect of Christ's presence, but at the expense of the objective reality. Let me not be misunderstood. There is great need, even crucial need, to talk about and act upon the awareness of Christ in the Eucharist, and to raise our sentiments of love towards Him; but this cannot be at the expense of ignoring the prior fact that Christ is actually in the Eucharist, that in the words of the Church's solemn teaching, "He is contained under the perceptible species of bread and wine." What was bread and wine, after the words of consecration are no longer bread and wine but the living, physical, bodily presence- in a word, the real Jesus Christ. To believe in the Real Presence means to believe in the real absence of bread and wine after the consecration.

We might say, then, that the Eucharistic Presence of Christ is at once a reality and a relationship. It is a reality because Christ really is in the Eucharist, so that the Real Presence of Christ postulates on faith the real absence of bread and wine. He is now, where before the consecration were bread and wine; they are gone and He is here. What before was real bread and wine is only to external properties of bread and wine. He is here in the Eucharist truly present; they are no longer present but only their species or their appearance. Transubstantiation is a fact of faith. All the twisted but learned criticism of the Church's doctrine as being Hellenistic or Aristotelian is learned stupidity, which is the most dangerous.

For the soul that believes, transubstantiation is no Hellenistic or philosophical terminology; it is the expression of the truth. If we must use Greek, we can; the Greek tells us that the words of Institution institute a "metaousiosis", meaning that the "ousia" or the being, the "whatness" of bread and wine become the "ousia" or the being of what constitutes Jesus Christ-body, blood, soul and divinity. In a word, in the Eucharist there is present the "totus Christus" (the whole Christ) just as truly as He was present on earth in Palestine and as He is now in Heaven. It is the total Christ in the fullness of what makes Christ Christ, with no real difference between who He was in the first century on earth and who He is now in the twentieth century on earth. Jesus Christ is in Jemez Springs as He is also everywhere where a duly ordained priest has changed bread and wine into the Body and Blood of the Savior.

How this needs resaying in today's Catholic world. But we are not yet finished. As so often happens, error arises among men because they have been neglecting the truth. The hydra of Communism is partly God's visitation for the neglect by Christians of their practice of community love. So too with the Eucharist. Too many Catholics, including priests, have taken the Real Presence for granted. They complacently assume that Christ is in the Eucharist, and they proceed to leave Him there, in empty churches and empty chapels, with seldom a worshipper before the tabernacle and seldom a eucharistic thought among millions of believers, who would be offended if they were told that they ignored the greatest reality in the universe right in their midst.

What we need today in the present crisis regarding the Eucharist is another Saint Francis of Assisi, who was raised by God to remind the world of his day of what a priest is, and what his words of consecration produce in this valley of tears. The lack of such faith is the main reason for the most massive defection of men from the active priesthood in the last five hundred years. Francis was never himself ordained to the priesthood: strange as it sounds, he never considered himself worthy. But he had an extraordinary reverence for priests; because he saw them as the divinely enabled consecrators of the Holy Eucharist.

In his last will and testament Saint Francis wrote what we in our sophisticated age of agnosticism need to hear. "God inspires me, " he said, "with such great faith in priests who live according to the laws of the holy Church of Rome, because of their dignity, that even if they persecuted me I should still be ready to listen to them. I do this because in this world I cannot see the Most High Son of God with my own eyes except for His most holy Body and Blood which priests alone administer to others."

Saint Francis concluded on a superlative tone which was not customary with him. "Above everything else, I want this most holy Sacrament to be honored, venerated and reserved in places which are richly ornamented." This is the simple poor man whose name have become synonymous with total poverty, even to destitution, in imitation of his poor Master. But it is also the mystic who saw more clearly than most of his contemporaries who it is that dwells among us in the Blessed Sacrament. It is, in Francis' words, "the Most High Son of God" in human form, who is always here in reality; but He is not always present to us in spirit. We do not always honor and venerate Him reserved in the Eucharist in places which are richly ornamented, not so much in silver and gold as in acts of faith, hope, and love. That is why He is here, that we might also be where He is, united with Him in spirit as He has united Himself to us un body as a prelude to that union where the Eucharist will be unveiled and where vision will replace what our faith now tells us is true. Truth became incarnate to teach us how much God loves the sons and daughters of the human family. The Priesthood and the Sacrifice of the Mass

by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

By now, there must be as many definitions of the priesthood as there are dictionaries in print. But in the Catholic Church, the priest exists for one main purpose: to offer the Sacrifice of the Mass.

So true is this that, without the priesthood, there would not only be no Sacrifice of the Mass. There would be no Catholic Church. This may sound strange, even exotic. But the fact of life is that God became man in order to sacrifice Himself on the Cross by dying for the salvation of the world. Having died once on Calvary, He continues offering Himself in every Mass so totally that He would be willing to die every time that Mass is offered.

It is impossible to exaggerate this identification. The Catholic Church exists mainly that the Sacrifice of the Mass may continue to be offered from thousands of altars every day, even until the end of time. True, Jesus died

41 only once physically. But every time that Mass is offered, He is ready and willing to die and offer His life for the salvation of the world.

It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of identifying Christianity with the Cross. The human race began to sin from the time of our first parents. It has continued sinning over the centuries throughout the world. We can safely say that God would long ago have destroyed the world because of its sin, except that the Sacrifice of the Mass had been offered by now on thousands of altars throughout the world. People may wonder why the Catholic Church so emphasizes the importance of the Mass, or why Catholics are encouraged to assist at the Mass, not only once a week, but even every day. For those who have the faith, the reason is obvious. The world was saved from destruction only because the mercy of God has been appeased by now through thousands of Masses offered every day.

To begin to appreciate the importance of the Catholic priesthood, we must first understand the tragedy of sin from our first parents to the present day. God is a just God. The human race has deserved to be annihilated many times because of its sins. What has appeased the anger of God? What has placated the justice of God? Why has the world been spared over these centuries? The world has been spared the penalty it deserves because God became man, He died on the Cross on Calvary to redeem a sinful mankind. But His death on Calvary has been repeated, and is being repeated every time that Mass is being offered. It is no exaggeration to say that except for the Sacrifice of the Mass, the human race would long ago have been destroyed by an offended God for its countless crimes.

But then we ask the most important question: what makes the Mass possible? The Mass is possible only because Christ’s death on Calvary is literally repeated in every Mass offered on Catholic altars throughout the world. This is not indulging in rhetoric. This is the literal truth! Except for the Mass, the justified anger of God would long ago have wiped out the human race because of its multitude of sins.

How we need the Mass! But there is no Mass without the priesthood. That is why Christ instituted the Sacrament of the priesthood, to ensure that His sacrifice on Calvary would be renewed and repeated in every Mass until the end of time. It is impossible to overestimate the importance of the Mass being offered on thousands of altars every day. Except for the Mass, I repeat, the world would long ago have been destroyed because of its sins.

That is the fundamental meaning of the Sacrifice of the Mass. Its daily oblation throughout the world ensures the appeasement of God’s mercy on a sin-laden world.

Humility and Obedience in the Priest

by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

You would expect priests to be reminded to practice especially the two virtues on which so much depends in their lives and ministry. Why? In answering this question I will take up each virtue separately and try to show why it is so important for priests, if they wish to be priestly priests, to be humble and obedient, and how they can grow in humility and obedience.

The virtue of humility in all of us is that disposition of will which makes us see ourselves for what we really are in relationship to God and our neighbor. In relationship to God, if we are humble, we see ourselves totally dependent on His power and His love; in a word, it is recognizing our creaturehood. In relation to our neighbor, we see ourselves, as a fellow creature, and by seeing ourselves we are fully conscious of our sins. In a word, humility is truth. It is keeping ourselves within our own bounds, not going outside the fence within which God has placed us.

As we apply these ideas to a priest, we see immediately that he will have difficulties above the ordinary in keeping himself humble. Faith tells him, and the faithful recognize the fact, that he is possessed of extraordinary powers. On his consecrated words depends the Real Presence of Christ on earth. No priests, no Eucharist. On his intention to separately consecrate the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ depends the continuance of the sacrifice of Calvary. On his words of absolution depends the reconciliation of sinners with God. On his anointing of the sick depends their remission of sin and the gaining of strength, when needed, to enter into eternity. On his teaching the revealed Word depends the faithful's possession and preservation of the faith. On his counsel depends, in large measure, the growth of souls in sanctity.

And so the list might go on. Every facet of the ministry is the exercise of such influence in the lives of others that no one under Heaven is more exposed to the temptation of pride than a priest. Perhaps some people, especially in academic circles, still wonder why the Church is suffering so gravely at the hands and lips of her priests. We need not wonder. Most of the chaos in the Catholic Church today is due to the pride of priests.

What adds to the gravity of the situation is that the media (the radio and television, newspapers, magazines and publishers) give priests so much occasion for publicity and such opportunities for recognition, especially if they have strange ideas, that unless priests are extremely careful, their vanity and desire for praise will be exploited by the enemies of the Church to the detriment of the people of God. It is hard enough to be humble when a person is educated, as priests certainly are, or not to be held in honor just in virtue of their office. A youngster in his mid-twenties is just ordained, and immediately the faith of the people sees in him a man apart. He gets respect and attention that no one else, naturally speaking, could get.

Combine all these factors and we begin to see what a great responsibility a man assumes when he is ordained: the responsibility for the practice of the most fundamental of virtues, humility. How hard is the task he has to face, as no one but a priest understands.

When the great Doctor of the Church, Saint John Chrysostom, as a simple hermit was being urged to become a priest, he strenuously resisted what he called not an invitation but a temptation, before he finally was ordained. Later on he wrote a book about it, a masterpiece on the priesthood. One of his main fears, as he confessed, was the dread of pride. He said to his friend Basil (later on, Basil the Great), who was telling him to be ordained, "I beg and beseech you, I know my own soul, my weakness, my infirmities. I know too the greatness of this ministry and all the difficulties of its office. The waves which break upon the priestly soul are greater than those which the winds raise upon the seas and the worst of these is that most terrible rock which is pride." Is it any wonder that the greatest mystic since Saint Paul, Francis of Assisi, did not dare to be ordained? Thus spoke and acted the saints and thus speaks every honest priest in the depths of his heart. He knows that his single worst enemy in the world is the demon of pride.

How does the priest cultivate this indispensable humility? The simple answer would be, as everyone else cultivates humility: by humble prayer; by daily reflection on his failings and sins; by humbly performing the menial duties and not looking for positions or places where he can shine. In the case of a priest there is, I believe, one distinctive path to humility, one specially his own, and this is not seeking to please; and when duty requires it, and it often will, being willing to displease. It is impossible for a priest to remain humble if he is always trying just to please people.

His time is for all who need his ministrations and not only for the more insistent or those who make demands. His message of salvation is the teaching of Christ, which includes penance and self-denial and carrying the cross. Not everybody, to say the least, wants to hear about the cross. But if a priest is to be humble, he will not qualify the hard sayings of the Master. His affection is to be universal; to be given to all without discrimination, according to their spiritual needs. He must be willing to displease, humbly, those who would monopolize his attention and preoccupy his heart. And he must hold his heart with both his hands; otherwise, somebody is sure to steal it from him.

A humble priest is therefore no respecter of persons. And if anything, he prefers the poor and unimportant, the simple and unattractive, the lowly, the ignored-people who will not nourish his self-conceit, or throw fuel on his pride.

There is a long passage in the Second Vatican Council's Decree on the Life and Ministry of Priests that deals with the subject of their obedience, and it intertwines the practice of obedience with the virtue of charity. Certain key passages in that Decree bring to the surface important implications for priestly obedience.

Priests are told that, "The priestly ministry, being the ministry of the Church itself, can only be fulfilled in the hierarchical union of the whole body of the Church." Consequently, a priest is obedient and obediently working with and under and through the hierarchy, or his work will not be blessed by God. There is no such thing as a priest going off on his own, independent of ecclesiastical obedience, and expecting God to grace his labors. A priest is not ordained for himself; he is ordained as the Vulgate has it "ad alios", for others. But being a priest, he is not only ordained for others; he must also work with others, "cum allis", and those others are his fellow priests united under the hierarchy.

There is an important observation to be made regarding bishops, because all that I have said about priests applies, sometimes with greater importance, to bishops. The Church teaches that a priest must be united with the hierarchy to expect God to bless his work; that also means that bishops must be united among themselves as the successors of the apostles and under the Vicar of Christ. This condition is so imperative that where and insofar as a bishop is not obedient to the Vicar of Christ, to that extent he loses the divine light to know what to teach and what is most terrifying, he loses the divine right to command people. They are to obey him only insofar as he obeys the Vicar of Christ.

Second, priests are told by the Second Vatican Council that by obedience they dedicate their own wills to God. Obedience is the sacrifice of the human will to God. The dignity of any sacrifice is measured by the sublimity of that which is offered. There is nothing that man possesses that is more precious to him than his own will. This is the heart of the priest as sacrificer, because standing at the altar, though he does indeed offer the Holy Sacrifice, yet there he is only the instrument of the great High Priest Jesus Christ who is the principal priest sacrificer at Mass. But the one thing which the priest can most call his own, his own free will, is what he surrenders when he obeys. It is that surrender that is so pleasing to God and so demanded by God of the priest.

Third, priests are told to carry out obediently the commands and suggestions of the Pope, their bishop and their superiors. There are two profound insights here. The first is that perfect obedience in anyone, here in a priest, does not wait to be commanded. In fact, by the time a person has to be commanded, he or she may still obey of 44 course, but that is not the main function of obedience, to give solemn commands. True obedience responds even to the suggestions or intimations of ecclesiastical authority.

Notice too, that the first one that a priest is told to obey is the Pope. Thirty or forty years ago, had a Council been held at that time, that Council probably would not have felt it necessary to explicitate Pope, bishops and superiors. In today's Church this can be a difficult obedience indeed. Part of the crisis in the Catholic Church is that some of the most explicit directives of the Holy See are given lip service but are not seriously put into practice, or for priests, are not preached.

We have, for example, the Pope's most formal, authentic, and solemn condemnation of contraception. How seldom in these United States do we find any pastoral letters from bishops, or sermons from priests reemphasizing the Church's solemn teaching; a recent poll claims that between seventy and ninety percent of Catholic American married couples practice contraception.

The Holy See insists on first confession for children before their first Communion. Yet, in traveling across the country, I hear some of the most pathetic stories from mothers who are trying to find priests who will hear the confessions of their young children.

The Holy See has given the clearest declarations on the grave obligation to recite the Divine Office. The Pope, following the Council, gave unequivocal directives on clerical garb. Is it any wonder so many religious women have removed their habits? Priests, who themselves are disobedient to the Church's directives for them, in turn tell the women religious that they too don't have to be identified as consecrated to God. The Holy See has repeated forthright statements on the sacred vestments to be worn for the offering of the Mass. I've attended the Divine Service where angels would weep to see how the priest or priests were undressed at the altar. They would show more respect to a policeman than to the Son of God.

Rome has repeated warnings about following the prescriptions of the Liturgy, about not making up one's own Eucharistic Canons or substituting other prayers or readings for those clearly indicated and prescribed, with manifold options, but nevertheless prescribed by the Church.

Anyone who knows the state of affairs today can testify, a priest's obedience is mightily tested, especially in these crucial areas of the mind of the Vicar of Christ and of the Holy See.

How is a priest to cultivate this priestly obedience which the Church tells him is so needed in his sacerdotal ministry? He must of course pray, especially when either the directives are hard or, what may be harder today, when he sees his fellow priests disobedient. He must pray and ask his Lord,"Help me; keep me straight".

But especially, he needs to meditate, first of all on the blessings that God will give him if he is obedient. We do nothing without our reason. Being obedient has cost the priest much these days. He needs to be strongly motivated. But meditation shows the priest that obedience will give him power and influence over souls and absolutely nothing else can substitute for it. His meditation will also show him that if he wants people to listen to him, he must listen to those to whom he owes obedience.

The priest should read, maybe just a page or two a day, from the life of some great priest whose life reflects the influence of obedience on souls. They must read of such men like the Cure of Ars, who was almost illiterate but who created a history of his own because he was simply and totally obedient. The priest might also, once in a while, reflect on some of the giants in the priesthood that he knew or that he reads about who, because of their disobedience, not only fell from their priestly office, but did incalculable damage to the Church of Christ.

A priest should also ask the faithful to pray for him, and pray especially asking the dear Lord that God might keep him humble and obedient. In his humility and obedience is the strength of Christ, who will work through him, provided he is little in his own eyes and totally submissive to the authority that Christ placed over him, in order that through him, humble and obedient, souls might return to God.

The Priest and the Ministry of the Word

by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

Since the life of a priest is to be modeled on the life of his Master. Even as Christ went about preaching and teaching the word of God, so the primary duty of a priest after the offering of Mass and the administration of the sacraments is to proclaim God's revelation to a world that needs nothing more than to hear the message of salvation.

The term primary duty may seem too strong. The Latin expression in teaching this as I did to priests is, premarioum monum, the fundamental responsibility of priests, assuming that he offers the Holy Sacrifice, is to proclaim God's revelation. That's the terminology used by the Second Vatican Council in its decree on ministry and life of priests.

Let me quote the passage. In fact it opens the whole decree. "Since nobody can be saved who has not first believed it is the first duty of priests as the coworkers of bishops to preach the word of God to all men."

My purpose then in this conference is to do two things but treat them more or less together. To spell out in some detail the Church’s teaching on the duty of priests to proclaim the message of salvation and then as we go along to identify what responsibility this places on priests if they are to live up to the Church's, which means Christ's, high expectations. I never feel I need to apologize, for this may sound like an apology, for quoting or commenting on the documents of the Second Vatican Council. All I know, how well I know, is that many people have scarcely read them. And even when perhaps when they first came out they may have been read, by now there has been such a degree of second and third rank commentators that many people are quite thoroughly confused as to what the Church really taught.

The Church’s Teaching on The Duty of Priests to Proclaim The Message of Salvation

In any case as we address ourselves to the subject of priests as proclaimer's of God's word, let's first read by quoting at some length how this duty spelled out by the late ecumenical council. Priests owe it to everybody to share with them the truth of the Gospel in which they rejoice in the Lord. Therefore whether by having their conversation heard among the Gentiles they lead people to glorify God or by openly preaching proclaim the mystery of Christ to unbelievers or teach the Christian message or explain the Church’s doctrine or endeavor to treat a contemporary problem in the light of Christ, "In every case their role is not to teach their own wisdom but the word of God and issue an urgent invitation to all men to conversion to holiness." Out of this document I would like to select certain passages that are especially even embarrassingly significant. First, priests are said to owe it to everybody to share with them the truth of the Gospel in which they rejoice in the Lord.

Sometimes as I myself reread the councilor statements I say to myself now what does that mean? Or does it really mean what it seems to say? What is the Church telling her some four-hundred thousand priests in the Catholic Church? First of all, there is no option when it comes to proclaiming the Gospel – It is no luxury - It is an obligation. They owe it to everybody. If priests owe it, others have the right, we have a right, a God-given right to hear God's word proclaimed to us by our priests. They are further told they are to share with everybody. Now that's a large statement. Everybody? Everybody. It means therefore that the Gospel is to be shared with all who are under my immediate care. But not only is a priest never off duty, or as I have told so many of them, a priest never retires. I can't say I do this because I read it in the documents. All I know is that with all my migrations I try, because I am so conscious of my sworn duty, I try to tell everybody who is willing to listen and even some that are not about the Faith that if they don't have it, they should. And if they have it, they can always live it better. It means, therefore, whatever weakness a priest may have, it should never be human respect.

One of my own great teachers was a Father Edwin Healy who taught me moral theology. He himself came from a very wealthy family of multi-millionaires. Among the many things he taught us was to make sure that we would never hold back or qualify the hard sayings of the Gospel. For example he says if you’re preaching in a wealthy parish, and it happens to be in the Gospel or you take the occasion to make it the topic to preach on the difficulty of the rich to save their souls, tell them, he said, like it is. They may never call you back, no matter that they have heard the word of God.

Then a most curious verb, priests are to share with everybody. Now you don't share except what you yourself already have. Evidently a priest himself already possesses a large storehouse of God's wisdom. And if a priest is never off duty so a priest should never stop learning and acquiring. Because we are here speaking of the ocean of divine wisdom, priests are told to share the truth which means they know the truth and know the difference between the truth and the untruth. Too often I'm afraid when we talk about discernment of spirits, we conger up correctly, but inadequately, discerning between the spirit of good and the spirit of evil. No question about it, we, and priests especially, are to make that discernment. But even more fundamental than discerning the difference between the spirit of good and the spirit of evil is between the spirit of truth and the spirit that is the father of lies. By now given the times in which we are living, we hear too much about the devil, and not always by people who believe in him. Oh, he is real all right, but the one thing we should know about the devil is that he is a deceiver. And a priest better know when somebody is trying to deceive him.

One final observation; from the short, less than a sentence statement, which we quoted. Priests are to share with everybody the truth of the Gospel in which they rejoice in the Lord.

Now what does that mean? Well it must mean what it says. There is such a thing as enjoying the truth. In fact if a priest himself does not enjoy what he believes the odds are that he won't bother sharing it.

It means therefore to both have the truth and to live it. This is one of my definitions of joy, living the truth. There is no joy in living a lie.

Second Injunction: Priests are to Share the Gospel with Believers and Unbelievers

Priests are to share the Gospel not only with believers but with unbelievers too. How that needs to be emphasized and every time I look at the latest world statistics they bother me more. The world's population is growing, as we know geometrically. It is now close to four billion. Four thousand million and the chasm 47 separating the numbers of Christians in any shape or form, from those who are not Christian, the difference is becoming greater by many millions every year. Dear Lord I pray. Who is at fault? I believe You became man and died for the human race, when less than half the world population has heard Your name.

Now I know enough theology. I can make all the careful distinctions. I know it's possible, who doubts it, for the good Buddhists or the pious Shinto to be saved? I know that. But is that why Christ came into the world and died not to have known that the Son of God is in our midst in human flesh? Not to believe in the Real Presence, not to know that God so loved the world as John tells us that He sent His only begotten Son to become one of us? Not to be really clear and lucid to really know the purpose of life. And we don't have to go to Japan or India to find the most atrocious confusion in otherwise learned minds on the purpose of life. I don't know why, only God knows. But I do dare say that a good half of America does not really know why it exists.

Who is at fault ? All of us. Because Christ, having done His work, He left not only the preservation of the Faith but it's propagation to all of us. According to our respective states of life. But among the responsible persons are especially priests.

When I sometimes reread the letters of St. Francis Xavier from India that he wrote back to Europe, they almost seem like the letters of a mad man overcome by the teeming millions all around him hungry for the word of God and there is no one to tell them. So much so that as he wrote more than once to Ignatius that his hands actually dropped dead, that he sometimes had to have them supported to baptize the people who want to become Christians once I tell them how much God loves them. That He died on the Cross and shed His Blood for them. That kind of a God they want to believe in.

No wonder he wore himself out. He lived a very short life, died exhausted preaching the Gospel.

Third Injunction: Priests are to Teach the Word of God

Priests are to teach not their own wisdom but the word of God. This means that they meditate on the word of God daily. In St. Dominic's prayers which he made the model for his Order, appropriately the Order of Preachers, do you know why they came into existence? Ultimately because God wanted them to come into existence but proximately because the clergy of Dominic's day were just not preaching the word of God. So the motto I pass on to you (contemplata palies traterae) means to pass on to others what I have first contemplated. Ah! But I must have first done the contemplation. A priest must through his daily meditation - in a word – through contemplating the truth become so enamored of that truth, so imbued with its depth, so on fire with zeal to share it that he can't wait until he gets out and shares it with as many who are willing and even those who are unwilling to listen.

Daily meditation is absolutely essential for a priest.

Fourth Injunction: Priests are to Teach by Way of an Invitation to Conversion and Holiness

Priests are to teach in such a way that they invite people to conversion and to holiness. Note these are the two goals of priestly zeal. First to conversion, this means that the first object of their preaching and teaching the 48

Gospel should be to bring sinners back to the God from whom they are estranged. And it's not only the ignorant or the unlettered but often it's the very lettered, the too learned and educated.

I am afraid that many wealthy people, who perhaps have become so immersed in the things of this world that in the process they have lost contact with God. I don't know how many. I am practically quoting Christ in saying this. It seems not a few will be lost and if they are, I partly blame priests who have not often had the courage to insist with those on whose generosity they may depend. That's what makes it hard.

It's when you have to bite the hand that feeds you. Or on another level, a priest should never apologize to anyone for his own lack of learning. If he is not as learned as he thinks he should be then let him learn more. So he can cope with the educated world.

He gets an assignment, say to a university parish. He better measure up to the academic level that as far within him lies of the people in whose favor he is to preach the Gospel. So they will listen and not turn him off, so he can use the saqupadielian words they use. In telling them in their own jargon, they are sinners. And in plan old Anglo-Saxon they are going to hell unless they repent. I know a lot of learned people and they are not all holy. I also know they expect priests to talk this way. And they are scandalized when a priest plays up to them or caters to them or may God forgive him, if he is afraid of them.

Moreover it is not only to convert sinners, it is, as the Church tells her priests, to invite people to holiness. Never, I believe, have the people’s desire for things of the spirit been greater than today. The editors of Double Day tell me that in their more than seventy-five years of publishing existence, they have never had so many people buying so many books, often the great classics people may have thought were outmoded. John of the Cross I am told is selling well. They just made a brand new, sparkling new edition of de Caussade’s Abandonment to Divine Providence because of the clamor for this kind of reading. People want it. And the more demonic the forces outside in the world become, the people will tell themselves and tell the God in whom they believe, “Lord who else but You can save us?” It was in this phenomenal context of our strange world, the Second Vatican Council has explained in the clearest terms how God is calling all His faithful to holiness. Yes all of this is true but it can be pathetically true. Unless these people find among their priests those who are willing to talk to them about the things of God and give them counsel and direction. Teach them and train them in the things of the Spirit. It is especially priests with themselves being holy are to teach holiness to others and holiness can be taught always, of course, with the assistance of the Holy Spirit.

On both levels of this teaching, conversion and on leading people to holiness, a priest will only be as effective as he is first of all knowledgeable. So we ask where does he get this knowledge? Holiness by itself is not quite enough, he must know. He gets this knowledge from study but it must be sound authentic orthodox doctrine that he learns. As only a person knows whose profession has immersed him in the contemporary theology. I should call it the contemporary jungle of theology. I can say it is not easy for a priest to always to distinguish between the sound and the spurious in the books and the journals he reads, the lectures he hears, or even the guidelines he sometimes receives from those in his diocese or community who are to direct his preaching and teaching ministry.

Yet distinguish he must - a priest learns - he must read, he must listen. But either he reads and hears the truth or the faithful will not receive the truth from him.

I finished this fall by all odds, the most atrocious traveling schedule of my thirty years in the priesthood. Twice on the West Coast, then northern Canada, then south to Texas from East to West mainly speaking to and with the laity. How my heart went out to them, and I share with you, the single deepest lesson I learned. The laity need priests who teach them God's truth and nothing but the truth. Sadly they are not always getting that truth. The miracle I think that it's a miracle of grace that our laity have by and large remained so faithful to the 49

Church. In spite of the sometimes atrocious nonsense they are being taught in religious education programs in lectures, in the sermons, in the conferences they hear. In the columns in diocesan papers they read, behind all of which stands this anguishing need which can be met in the Church only by the priests. They must know the truth. Otherwise in God's Church who else will know it?

We might ask is there some single and simple formula for the priest to identify what is Catholic Truth and what though perhaps though very learned is either untrue or dubiously true or only someone's fervid speculation. Yes, the acid test more than ever today is whether what is written or said conforms to or is in contradiction to the teaching of the Vicar of Christ. Those who agree with him are teaching the truth and they should be listened to. Everyone else, I repeat everyone else is to be ignored

In the years to come the Faith which Christ came into the world to give the world will remain intact, and the Church He founded will be strong, where and to the extent that priests have been aware of their responsibility as spokesmen for Christ in the modern world. All other elements of the Church, and there are many, are useful or even necessary. But in the last analysis, or from another viewpoint, in the first instance the Church stands or falls in any place or among any people on one condition that the truth of Christ's revelation is being proclaimed. And the first divinely appointed proclaimer's of this truth are priests.

The Church's future is in their hands or better is on their lips. And with Saint Paul, they should say “Woe to us if we do not proclaim the Gospel, the Full Gospel of Jesus Christ.” In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Priest and the Sacrament of Penance

Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

The subject of the present conference is the priest and the sacrament of penance.

It is remarkable how much publicity the sacrament of Penance is getting these days. A whole stadium filled with people is assembled, and in an elaborate ceremony are given general absolution. In other cases, several thousand people are brought together in response to massive publicity to be given general absolution before Christmas.

The newspapers give these spectacles large coverage, and the media make heroes of reconciliation of the bishops who sponsor these, quote, "rallies of mercy." All the while, Catholics are confused. They have been taught to believe that auricular confession – that’s by word of mouth to word of ear – that auricular confession to a priest privately and confidentially was necessary. What happened and what's the future going to be?

At the same time, reports from one diocese after another are generally the same the people are just not coming to Confession the way they used to. I remember one Saturday evening during the announced Confession time making my holy hour and saying my office in a large parish church. During the hour and half that a priest sat in the confessional waiting for penitents. I was the only penitent who went to confession. He was lucky I went.

Again, what has happened? What are we to make of all of this? In order to cover as much ground as possible in the short time at our disposal, let me ask a few questions and then try to give an answer.

1. What is the Church's official and defined doctrine about the role of the priest and the role of the faithful in the sacrament of Penance.

2. Why has there been such a lessening of the use of the sacrament among the Catholic people?

3. What does the Church expect of her priests so they might be what they should be administrators of this sacrament?

The Church's Doctrine on the Sacrament of Penance

The Church's doctrine, believe me, I could speak exhortative and, I trust, with a certain amount of feeling about this very important subject. I want to make sure before we turn on the feeling that we know what the faith is.

The list of the Church's solemn definitions at the Council of Trent when all of the sacraments – but with special virulence this one – were attacked by the so-called reformers. When the Church had to take stock of her God- given faith and for all future ages, including ours – tell the faithful, including bishops and priests, what the sacraments are.

The list of the Church's definitions on the sacrament of Penance is long and detailed. There are no less than fifteen such definitions and they would all be useful to be recalled these days. Where there is so much that is odd being said and done in the name of compassion, but sometimes in contradiction to the expressed teaching of the Church's Infallible Magisterium.

Let me read just four of these fifteen definitions that are especially pertinent to our reflection. Each of these is in the form of a canon, which means a solemn declaration closing with a condemnation for heresy of anyone who denies this article of the Catholic faith.

If anyone says that in the Catholic Church penance is not truly and properly a sacrament instituted by Christ our Lord to reconcile faithful with God as often as they fall into sin after baptism, let him be anathema. If anyone says, that these words of the Lord our Savior, “Receive the Holy Spirit whose sins you shall forgive they are forgiven them and whose sins you shall retain they are retained” ought not to be understood as referring to the power of remitting and retaining sins in the sacrament of penance as the Catholic church has always understood them from the beginning and if anyone to disprove the institution of this sacrament twists the meaning of those words and refers them to the church’s authority to preach the gospel, let him be anathema If anyone says that sacramental Confession was not instituted by divine law, that means that the Confession was not instituted by divine law or is not necessary for salvation according to the same law or if anyone says that the method which the Catholic Church has always observed from the very beginning and still observes. On confessing secretly to the priest alone is foreign to the command of Christ and is of human origin, let him be anathema. If anyone says to obtain remission in the sacrament of Penance it is not necessary according to divine law to confess each and every mortal sin when remembered after proper and diligent examination even secret ones. And sins against the last two commandments, the ninth and tenth and both circumstances which changes the species of the sin but says that such confession is only useful for instructing and consoling the penitent and that it was formally observed only for imposing the canonical penance or if anyone says of anyone who make an effort to confess all their sins wish to leave nothing to the forgiveness of the divine mercy or finally that it is not permissible to confess venial sins, let him be anathema.

Thank God for the Church's teaching. But how sadly how many, including those in great influence in the Church, have forgotten this teaching.

Why the Drop in Confessions?

We now ask, why the drop in Confession? In the light of the forgoing, it follows that hearing confessions places a heavy demand on the generosity of a priest. To tell not just one sin, but all of them and, if they are grave, with all their attending circumstances, this takes time. And on the part of the priest it takes a lot of patience.

If he is to give the penitent the opportunity to do what Christ, speaking through the Church commands them to do, they have no option. The priest must be convinced that it is worth the effort. This, in my humble estimation, is the hub of the problem. Is it worth the effort? First in Holland, then in France and then gradually elsewhere, ideas began to spread that were at variance with the Church's which in this case is Christ's explicit teaching and some of these ideas at variance with the Church's teaching were circulated by bishops.

Like what? The early confessions of children were discouraged until by now, a whole library of propaganda exists trying to tell priests why they should not hear children's confessions until long after they have gone to Communion and well into their older years.

One reason why shortly before Christmas, a mother called me up from another state. They had moved to this other state from New York. I had become the regular confessor of her little children whose first confessions I heard. The boy wanted to go to confession, it was quite a trip. All I can tell you I considered it worth it!

Borrowing from the Protestants, who abolished auricular Confession the practice of giving indiscriminate general absolution came into prominence.

We return to our question. Why the drop in confessions? In my judgment, mainly for two reasons. First because of the prevalence of so many strange ideas that have penetrated the priestly mind. And priests can be brainwashed like anybody else about auricular Confession not being of divine origin, but an ecclesiastical invention. As one pastor, a good man, when after asking me about this, I told him and he began to argue. Are you sure? Are you sure that Christ wants individual confessions to be made to an individual priest? That’s the first reason, strange ideas.

Secondly, because these ideas have combined with the natural lethargy of a priest. Priest or no priest, we all have the same seven capital tendencies which, in my line-up, is pride, lust, anger, covetousness, envy, gluttony and, that's right sloth. So these ideas combined with the natural lethargy of a priest to spend, sometimes hours, in the confessional. These ideas became a convenient excuse for not doing what only faith and a deep faith even makes intelligible, let alone inspires the willingness to put into what sometimes must be heroic practice, as only a priest understands. Saint John Vianney, the Cure of Ars, was canonized, one of the reasons for his canonization and later declaration as patron of parish priests, so the Church said, was that he spent so much time sometimes sixteen hours a day in the confessional, hearing the confessions of the thousands of people who came to him.

I am asking the question the third time - why the drop in confessions? Very simple. Because of erroneous ideas and because human nature has in enough priests obscured their faith vision of themselves as ambassadors of Christ's mercy.

What the Church Expects of Her Priests

We finally ask, what does the Church expect of her priests relative to this great sacrament? The Church., as we know, expects much of her priests, but only because the Christ who ordained them expects the same. Pertinent to the sacrament of Penance, the Church has said a great deal, speaking now through centuries of wisdom through general councils, through papal declarations, through the teaching of her saints and through the practice of the great priests of Catholic history. What do we find in this library of instruction about the priests and the sacrament of Reconciliation? We find especially these things if a priest is to preach the dignity and importance of the sacrament of Penance to the faithful he must himself use this sacrament.

This, by the way in giving retreat to priests, is one of my peaks of my retreat. Fathers, everyone, no exceptions, must go to Confession. I am especially happy to make this statement when there is a bishop in their midst. In a word, if a priest's exhortation to the faithful is to be taken seriously, and people are shrewd, if he tells them they should go to Confession, he had better go himself.

In the Society of Jesus, her priests are expected to go to Confession at least once a week. Pope Pius XI went to Confession every day. All I know speaking for one priest is that I can't go too often.

Second if a priest is to appreciate the greatness of this sacrament, he must prayerfully reflect on what it means. He is no mere counselor; he is surely not a therapist. He is a representative of Christ and the more he looks at himself in his own sinfulness, the more he is staggered by the disproportion between his own incapacity and what the people who confess their sins need. He must then see with the eyes of faith that he is only an instrument, though a necessary one, in the hands and through the lips of the Master.

Let me read a few sentences from Pope Pius XI's encyclical to priests that every priest should periodically read and meditate on. The Holy Father is speaking of the priest's power to pardon.

This is that power which, as St. John Chrysostom says: "God gave neither to angels nor archangels" – the power to remit sins. "Whose sins you shall forgive they are forgiven them: and whose sins you shall retain they are retained"; a tremendous power, so peculiar to God that even human pride could not make the mind conceive that it could be given to man. "Who can forgive sins but God alone?" And, when we see it exercised by a mere man there is reason to ask ourselves, not, indeed, with pharisaical scandal, but with reverent surprise at such a dignity: "Who is this that forgiveth sins also?" But it is so: the God-Man who possessed the "power on earth to forgive sins" willed to hand it on to His priests; to relieve, in His divine generosity and mercy, the need of moral purification which is rooted in the human heart. What a comfort to the guilty, when, stung with remorse and repenting of his sins, he hears the word of the priest who says to him in God's name: "I absolve thee from thy sins!" These words fall, it is true, from the lips of one who, in his turn, must needs beg the same absolution from another priest. This does not debase the merciful gift; but makes it, rather, appear greater; since beyond the weak creature is seen more clearly the hand of God through whose power is wrought this wonder (Ad Catholici Sacerdotii, 20-21).

Priests must meditate on what God has entrusted into their hands. Otherwise, as so many have allowed, they will not appreciate what they have, and to the tragic detriment of thousands of souls, will not exercise this power of pardon.

Finally, to become the channel of Christ's mercy to others through this great sacrament, the priest must honestly strive to become more and more like the sinless Christ himself – like the Christ whose office he exercises when 53 he pardons sins. Why? First of all, to repeat an article of faith, the absolution of the priest is valid no matter what his moral condition. This, too, is an article of faith. For that also, thank God.

But having said that, we also know that God uses as the instrument of His grace those most effectively who are most closely united with Him. After all, the priest's role in the confessional is not only to absolve. He has, as we are told by the infallible Church, three roles. One to absolve, another to instruct and a third to heal. His power of absolution is absolute, provided the penitent does his or her part and the priest seriously intends to absolve the sins by the power of the keys committed to the Church, they are removed. But when it comes to instructing, and how we need council and advice, when it comes to healing, and how we need consolation and encouragement, other things being equal, the Church keeps telling her priests: “Be holy yourselves.” Because the holier you are, the more effective will be just a word, even a brief sentence. Ah! But that sentence is a sacramental sentence. And the Christ who speaks through His priests will teach the penitent and will heal the weak and feeble soul as only Jesus can. And He can because He is God but the instrument must be totally resigned and conformed to the divine will.

Needless to say, we should, may I suggest daily, say even a short prayer of thanks to God, asking Him to bless the priests that over the years have exercised in our regard this blessed sacrament of Reconciliation. And that we also pray and ask the dear Savior who came as He told us not to call the just, but sinners to repentance – that His priests might rise to the dignity to which they have been called, use this sacrament in season and out of season, at no matter what cost to themselves. Because it is, I may almost say, especially in this sacrament of peace, that the Prince of Peace continues to inspire peace in the hearts of a troubled, worried and anxious world.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Priests Must Live a Martyr's Life

Transcription of a conference given by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

The Catholic priest in the modern world can he be martyred for his faith in the priesthood?

No words of mine, nothing I could say, if I spoke for fifty years, would be too clear, that we are living in the age of martyrs. Only one mistake we can make is to think this is exaggeration or some kind of pious fancy. I wish to concentrate, for the reasons we already have said, on the priesthood - it is a living martyrdom today - and on the fact that we have lost so many thousands of priests. The Vatican, as I have said before, may not reveal the exact figures. It's close to one hundred thousand priests who have left the priesthood throughout the world in the past half-century. Nothing, nothing like it ever before!

What are some of the forces at work? And now, the two buttons as we call them. The rampant secularism seeing our bodily life as ending with bodily death. Doctor Kervorkian - you know, the doctor of death. Richard Thompson, whom I received into the Church, prosecuted Kervorkian. When Thompson asked Kervorkian what happens when men die, his answer was, "They stink." On these terms there is no need for the priesthood whose function it is to prepare people for a heavenly destiny. If there is no life after death then the priesthood is worse than a sham. Then again the preoccupation with material possessions in what we call developed countries, like the United States which is three trillion dollars in debt. And the whole preoccupation is with material prosperity. Consequently, in a society like ours which becomes secularized and preoccupied, there will be a corresponding lack of interest in the priesthood. In the United States, vocations to the priesthood have dropped ninety percent since Vatican II.

And how well I know, our media is not, not only unfriendly, but is positively hostile to the priesthood. In two dioceses Santa Fe in New Mexico and Dallas in Texas are both bankrupt because of lawsuits against priests. Of course, there have been and there are unfaithful priests, but nothing, nothing like this against the ministry of a, let's say, Presbyterian or Lutheran or Methodist minister.

Our government, beginning with the president, is out to destroy the priesthood, period! I hope I'm being taped. And in the United States, hear it: in 1930 there were some six hundred declarations of nullity. Six hundred in 1930, but in 1997 there were sixty thousand.

For a priest to still talk about a lifetime commitment in marriage, he is well, out of tune with the times. However, in my judgment, the main grounds for claiming that a Catholic priest must expect to live a martyr's life in the modern world, the main reason, is the spread of strange ideas in, not only Catholic circles, as to what exactly is a priest. My Vatican superiors have more than once told me, (I’m sure I’ve said this before) most of your priests in America who have been ordained since Vatican II need to be reeducated!

Articles have been in popular magazines, studies in scholarly journals, lectures and seminars, whole volumes are being published disclaiming that Christ instituted the sacrament of Holy Orders. I'll never forget, and I know Fr. Richard McBrien, then head of the department of theology at Notre Dame University. He has written many books. He spoke for one hour to one hundred priests and Protestant ministers. In his whole one hour lecture he was saying that Jesus never instituted the priesthood. “The Catholic priesthood came into existence about 300 A.D.” (according to McBrien). That's what our priests (shall I still call them priests?) that's what they are being taught in the seminaries. Let me quote at length from a standard book on the subject by a priest.

"Ordination as a rite and ceremony that confers power or office does not exist in the New Testament. Ministry does not need to be empowered by a mandate or delegation or superior possessing power. The forms of ‘ordination’ are subject to the dispositions of the churches in a given period of history. Priesthood, as a specific type of ministry, does not exist in the New Testament. ‘Ministry’, or diakonia, is a nonsacral word. The early church leaned heavily on this secular term to describe its main ministering activity. Ministry in the New Testament is primarily functional. It is concerned with doing, like teaching, preaching, governing. The historical Jesus was not a priest."

Once you deny that Christ himself was a priest, you have to provide for some one person who is to "preside" at the liturgy of the Eucharist. Let's see, where did I speak most recently? O yes were you there? There were no kneelers. No, no kneelers, St. Edmunds in Detroit. And by now, how clever the devil is! All kinds of reasons have been given except the real reason, the denial of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. There are those who deny that Christ ever ordained the Apostles as bishops or priests.

Bishops who are also priests and can ordain other men to the priesthood. Here is his, (McBrien's) following explanation of what happened in the early church. Underlying this explanation you have got to give the idea of the distinction between the laity and the clergy. In other words the claim is that there should not be any real distinction between the laity and the clergy. It is so, as it is claimed again, to be a later invention and not found in the New Testament.

And would you believe it, one whole page is devoted to this?

In the early Church there existed a plurality of church organizations. Some churches were ruled by a committee or council of lay elders, others were ruled by prophets and teachers. Still other, were ruled by a committee or council of lay elders, others were ruled by prophets and teachers. Still others, were ruled by traveling apostles, depending on who was ruling a given church, so we are told. Different persons would be "Eucharistic Presiders." 55

Is that ever going on now!

Once the leader of the early community presides over the community, and also presides over the Eucharist, one would assume that the person presiding over the community has arrived at his leadership position, called by leadership qualities discerned by the community. The said “Eucharistic Presider” would be ordained to pull together the community, also to continue building community and then to celebrate it. This presider would be the public embodiment, the living symbol of the community's goals and values. As such, the presider would be a sacrament of God's presence in the community. “At the same time”, I am quoting, “he or she would be a unifying symbol to reconcile the members of the community to God and to each other.” He or she would bring order and harmony in the community so that all its ministries would build up the Church. In the immediate future this “Eucharistic Presider” will probably be a diocesan or religious priest, already ordained. However, as these priests die the future presiders will have to come from the communities. Leaders, male and female, married or single presiding over the Eucharist, will always remain one among many shared ministries to the community.

And that is widely, widely taught! These books, I repeat, are used in seminaries. I would like to say a little more before we go on to our conclusion.

It would be serious enough if this kind of thinking was only among, say, certain theologians and especially feminist theologians. This thinking is among bishops. Without identifying the bishop, I faxed a list of twenty bishops requested by a bishop friend of mine. "Can you send me the names of twenty bishops in the United States whom you are sure believe in the priesthood?" Do you hear me?

As I celebrate my 51st (now 53rd) year of ordination to the priesthood, please pray and sacrifice for the bishops and priests in one so-called developed country after another.

Now you hear these statements widely circulated by priests. You say to yourself, “Am I dreaming or is it real?” It is real. That is why I have said what I have said so far. We Catholics must be ready to live a martyr's life for our faith in the priesthood. We priests must live a martyr's life for our faith in our own priesthood and the religious and the laity for faith in the priesthood. What is this faith? It is the Faith professed now for twenty centuries except for the apostates. What do we believe when we believe in the priesthood? We believe that Jesus Christ did institute the sacrament of Holy Orders on Holy Thursday night when he ordained the Apostles bishops with full power of the priesthood.

And even the English translation of the consecration, "Do this in memory of Me" (at the raising of the chalice ) "When supper was ended, He took the cup". In English it is “He took the cup” in Latin it is chalice. We don't say take grape juice or water in a chalice. A chalice is sacred, not for profane use. However I especially want to note, the words in the consecration of the chalice "Do this in memory of Me." It is not memory, the word is "commemoration." And that is why, (and I am sure) I have said this at some time. Pope Paul VI published a formal document for the whole Church. For the meaning of the word in the Liturgy, is never that of the vernacular. Never! It is always that of the original Latin. This Sacramentary has been deeply tampered with. We believe as Catholics that bishops are ordained and ordain other bishops. We believe that from the very dawn of Christianity it was only given to the priests.

What was given the priesthood? Only priests could offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

I was giving a lecture to a group of people. After the lecture about five seminarians came to me and asked if I could help one of their seminarians, who had just been dismissed from the seminary just before ordination. So I asked what happened. What happened was that one of the priest professors told about a half dozen seminarians to attend a special Mass he was saying, con-celebrating with a woman. They were told never to tell anyone. He 56 could not keep it to himself, it was too serious. So he told the rector, the rector told the bishop, and the seminarian was evicted from the seminary. So they asked me to help him get back into the seminary. I asked the seminarian to come see me in New York. We talked. He was genuine. So I called up the bishop president of Saint Joseph's Seminary of the New York Archdiocese. He was accepted and ordained. I have never seen anyone so grateful!

And consequently, only priests from the beginning could offer the Sacrifice of the Mass. Only priests could change bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. Only priests could absolve sins in the sacrament of Confession and reconcile people with an offended God. Only priests could administer the sacrament of Anointing,

Once you believe this, you have no choice as a priest, you can not deny your faith. All the learned jargon about the lay ministry is just that, jargon, it's a lie.

However those priests who believe that they have been empowered by Christ to do what no one else can do like change bread and wine into the living Body and Blood of Christ and reconcile sinners with God - such priests will have to pay dearly for their faith convictions.

And, as in the literal transcription of my talk.

I know ! I know!

And I can say this on the fifty-first , now (fifty- third) anniversary of my ordination, I've paid dearly. And I am still paying and the miracle is I’m still alive and I’m sane.

And now the closing two sentences or maybe three - the Church is going through the worst crisis in her Catholic history. She will not only survive she will thrive only on one condition that we priests be not only willing to live but are willing to die for faith in the priesthood given to us by Jesus Christ on the night before He died.

And it is great to live like this. I work with priests, exiled priests, priests removed from their diocese, priests removed from their communities because they believed what the Catholic Church has taught for two thousand years.

(I am speaking to all women religious and Marian Catechists).

Women have a very great influence over men, a very great influence. I think I should spend a little time explaining what I have learned in these (fifty-one) now fifty-three years in the priesthood. Women have very deep influence first of all over men.

In giving retreats I think I have said this before to men. I ask who has the stronger will, and I ask men or women? Some women are not so sure and some men are not so sure, but no husband I have ever talked to has any doubt they find out in six days after marriage. This applies not just, nor does it apply mainly, to say wives. It applies to all women, to all women. I cannot tell you how much priests need to be supported by dedicated believing and shall I say it out-spoken women.

Over the years dealing with so many priests I can't tell you how many saintly women have helped priests to be faithful to their priesthood. Let me tell you, there are women - I think I should say this - whose profession is to seduce priests. They are specialists. And priests like numb sculls, don't realize what this woman is after.

And this is really what is behind the plague of wanting women to be ordained priests. In other words the priesthood as instituted by Christ provides the priest with power and authority and influence, and this is being envied, envied by many women

The breakdown of religious communities of women in the United States (I don't think I have ever said this publicly) - the breakdown of communities of religious women in our country is religious women envying priests. They will not take orders through priests including the Bishop of Rome. I know, how well I know!

Our focus is however, on the priesthood instituted by Jesus Christ.

Do you Sisters have a custom in your community of praying for the priest? Is there any single prayer for the priest?

This is good.

God, we recommend to your fatherly care of the Pope, Cardinals, Bishops and all priests and all religious for all those who have asked for prayers and for whom we should pray.

What I would like to propose before we end this conference is the need for prayers and sacrifice for priests. The need is gigantic.

Never before in the history of the Church has the priesthood been so opposed as it is now. And sadly, from the inside, from apostate bishops and apostate priests. But the need for prayer and sacrifice for priests and bishops, I believe this should be an apostolate.

In one diocese after another in the United States, (it's worse still in Canada) there are parishes without priests. Do you know that? We need priests so that those who are priests remain faithful and I must say they pay a heavy, very heavy price!

And I think I told you, for twenty-five years I have been teaching the Handmaids of the Precious Blood. They are in the diocese of Santa Fe. The diocese in Santa Fe is bankrupt, completely bankrupt. Millions, millions have been given out because of lawsuits involving unfaithful priests and priests who have been calumniated and were innocent. So now you know and they have first of all their own community but they also have associations. The first association is for the priesthood. Some sixteen thousand are praying for priests. The Holy Father is deeply, and I mean deeply, concerned about the future of the priesthood in countries like our own and in South America. There is another problem, as you know.

The United States and South America are controlled by the Freemasons.

In one country after another and as a result, in our country, so many dioceses are, if not priestless, at least parishes with thirty or forty thousand people which can extend two or three thousand miles,

What ever you can do especially with your prayers there must be an apostolate for priests. Fifty Years in the Priesthood

Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

First of all, my sincere gratitude to all of you attending this jubilee Mass. May God bless you with His choicest graces.

On the occasion of celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood, there is literally an ocean of thoughts that come to mind, on which I could speak and you could patiently listen. But I thought I would address myself to just three subjects, expressed in three words, gratitude, concern, and confidence.

Gratitude

I am grateful that our Lord instituted the sacrament of the priesthood. Faith tells us our Lord instituted the Catholic priesthood on Holy Thursday night ? a defined article of the Catholic faith. He first pronounced over the bread, "This is my body," and over the wine, "This is the chalice of my blood," but immediately after, He told the apostles, "Do this in commemoration of me." Those words: "Do this in commemoration of me," the Church believes were the words by which Jesus Christ instituted the sacrament of the priesthood.

When we say that Christ instituted the priesthood on Holy Thursday night, we mean that Jesus instituted the priesthood for two main reasons. First, to ensure that the Holy Eucharist -- which he also instituted at the Last Supper -- that the Holy Eucharist might remain on earth until the end of time: The Holy Eucharist as Sacrifice- sacrament, as Communion-sacrament and as Presence-sacrament. Except for Christ's instituting the priesthood, there would be no Holy Eucharist, dare I say it, there would be no Christianity, because the principal channel of grace by which Jesus communicates the light we need for our minds and the strength we need for our wills to do his divine will would not be available.

Christ therefore instituted the priesthood first to ensure that we would have the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, as the Sacrifice-sacrament of the Mass, the Communion-sacrament of Holy Communion, and with resounding emphasis, as the Presence sacrament. Jesus Christ is on earth, the whole Christ, as the Church defines totus Christus, the whole Christ is present on earth only because the same Jesus instituted the priesthood.

However, having instituted the sacrament of the priesthood on Holy Thursday night, on Easter Sunday night, the same Jesus, speaking to the same apostles, gave them the awesome power of doing what He as the God-man had done during his visible ministry on earth. He told them, "Receive the Holy Spirit, whose sins you forgive they are forgiven them, whose sins you do not forgive, they are not forgiven." Jesus Christ instituted the priesthood for two main reasons:

• To provide the world, through the priesthood, with the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, and

• To provide the world with the sacrament (I like the Holy Father's preferred title) the sacrament of confession.

Can you imagine, just imagine, being still laden with all the sins of your past life? No wonder on Easter Sunday night, Jesus told his apostles, "Peace be with you," and repeated. "Peace be with you," to ensure the world of that peace of heart, which only those enjoy who have been assured that their sins have been forgiven.

Our first reflection therefore is gratitude. Gratitude for Christ's instituting the sacrament of the priesthood which ensures us of His continued Presence on earth among us in the Holy Eucharist, of His continually feeding us with His own, real, human body and blood in the sacrament of Holy Communion, and with His continuing sacrifice to communicate the graces that He won for us on Calvary.

How happy I am to tell you, so many of my fellow Jesuit priests were killed at the altar in the 16th century by the so-called reformers; there was no Protestant reformation; there was only a Protestant revolution. They were murdered at the altar because, as we believe, Jesus continues to offer the same sacrifice He offered on Calvary. He died only once on the cross, but in every sacrifice of the Mass, made possible only through the priesthood, Jesus communicates the graces that He won for us by His death on Good Friday afternoon.

First then, gratitude, gratitude for the priesthood, through which we have the sacraments of the Eucharist and Confession. St. Ignatius tells us, his spiritual sons, whenever possible, divide every homily you preach, every lecture you'll give, into three parts, in honor of the holy Trinity.

Concern

I would not be honest in speaking to you if I did not share with you the deep concern I have and that I share with thousands of believing and faithful Catholics, if I did not express my deep concern about what is going on in many so-called developed countries, like our own United States. Just a few obvious facts:

• In the United States, since the close of the Second Vatican Council in 1965, Catholic seminarians have dropped by 90% in our country.

• Closed seminaries. My own beloved Society of Jesus, we have closed three of our five Jesuit seminaries in America, and not coincidentally, the three largest.

• Concern over some seven thousand priests in our nation that have left the active priesthood, again, since the close of the Second Vatican Council. Having taught my own Jesuits their theology for over twenty- five years, concern is a mild word. The anguish over so many ordained priests in our own nation, dare I use the word, abandoning their priestly vocation.

• Concern over so many priests,, who are in the vanguard of promoting such unchristian practices as adultery, sodomy, contraception.

• Concern that our own American Catholic episcopate, in 1968 when Pope Paul VI issued Humanae Vitae -- our own bishops -- a long, piously worded document, told Catholics to follow their own consciences in the practice of contraception.

• Concern over so many priests promoting what is nothing less than a rebellion against the authority conferred by Jesus on Peter and his successors, rejecting the authority of the Bishop of Rome, the Vicar of Christ. Now my twenty?ninth year in working for the Holy See has taught me many things. One thing I've learned, and I share it with you, which is, why I am expressing the second part of our homily.

• Concern, especially in so-called developed nations like our own, over the widespread breakdown of faith in and vocations to the Catholic priesthood. One thing I've learned in these years of working for the Holy See, there is not just a major crisis in the Catholic Church. This is the gravest and deepest crisis in the history of Christianity in two thousand years, and the heart of that crisis is a crisis in the priesthood.

o In a nation like ours, the material possessions and affluence. Fourteen years teaching in New York City has increased my vocabulary. One word I've memorized - "mazuma." Money, for millions of Americans, is their substitute for grace.

o In our nation, over five million Americans are on college campuses every year. By the time -- I don't say they finish college -- but long before, these over-educated Americans tell themselves, "I'm no longer a child. Why should I still believe? -- believe that I am to genuflect before the tabernacle? Why should I believe that a human being has power to remit my sins?"

o In a nation like ours, where liberty is almost a synonym for America. In our country, freedom has become the title of what an educated American citizen has. Freedom to do what? Freedom to do his own will.

• Concern that faith in the priesthood in our nation has waned and weakened to such a degree that I urge you to do everything you can, everything you can to restore faith in the priesthood where it has been lost. Strengthen faith in the priesthood in your fellow Americans, because the survival of the Catholic Church in your country depends on a strong faith in the priesthood, especially the priesthood which is necessary for Jesus Christ to remain on earth in the Holy Eucharist. Needless to say, I wouldn't be honest, on the fiftieth anniversary of my ordination, which, not coincidentally, is my birthday. I was ordained on my birthday, my mother told me, and about the same time, 8:30 in the morning. I wouldn't be fair if I did not express to you, not just my own, but the Church's deep concern for our nation, concern to strengthen, deepen, and where needed, restore faith in the sacrament of the priesthood, instituted by Jesus Christ, on the night before He died.

Confidence

I could talk -- not for hours, or days, but months -- on what I've learned during my fifty years in the priesthood. Only God knows the price I have paid to try to be faithful to Jesus Christ. But, what an important adversative, but, I share this with you from the depths of my soul. I've also learned to trust in Jesus Christ, to hope in His grace. In a word, to be confident.

I was ordained in, of course, 1947, before the modern revolution hit the Catholic priesthood. I can only thank God for preserving me; not only in bodily life, but, dare I say it, in my faith -- faith in Jesus Cluist, the high priest who ordained me.

I've learned not to worry. I say this with the deepest sincerity. Worry, discouragement, is a temptation of the devil, and the more faithfully we try to follow Jesus, the more the devil will tempt us to -- I don't say just discouragement -- but even to despair.

Our Holy Father never tires telling us not to be afraid. How we need to memorize not just the words, but the revealed truth behind the words of St. Paul. "Where sin has abounded [past tense], there grace will even more abound [future tense]." I know Pope John Paul II too well not to be able to tell you he sincerely believes two things: that the twentieth century has been the most sin-laden century in human history, but he also believes the twenty-first century will be the most grace-laden, the holiest century in the history of mankind.

The future of the Catholic priesthood is most promising. Why? Because Christ assures us He will bless the forthcoming century with such graces as the human race had never received before. However -- and this is the principal message of my ordination golden jubilee -- God's grace is assured, but we are Catholics; we believe God's grace must be cooperated with. We must recognize the grace with our minds, and correspond with the grace with our wills. We shall have only as holy priests as we Catholics ourselves live holy lives.

I never once remember my mother, never, missing Mass or Holy Communion, every day of her life. Holy people are not only an example of sanctity to others; oh no, holy people are channels of grace to others. I am speaking to all of you, and through you to the tens of thousands of professed Roman Catholics. In the name of Jesus Christ, live lives of close union with God.

As the Holy Father makes so plain, ordinary Catholics will not even survive, not to say thrive, in our day. Only heroic Catholics will preserve the Catholic Church. Only holy Catholics will be the seedbed of vocations to the priesthood. Hear it, and I am quoting our Holy Father verbally, this is the age of martyrs. We have confidence that God is providing and will provide such graces as the world had never before received, but we must cooperate with these graces. You mothers and fathers, you are the ones from whom vocations to the priesthood must come.

But, there is more still. In the name of God, I beg you, with all my being, to pray. Pray every day to our Lord. Pray for priests. Pray that priests may be priests not only in name, but in reality. What is a real priest? A real priest is one who loves Jesus crucified. A real priest is one who loves nothing more -- and I mean every syllable -- who loves nothing more than to suffer out of love for Jesus, who ordained him. A real priest is a living martyr. Pray for priests.

For those of us who have remained faithful to the Christ who ordained us, pray for the priests who are struggling -- struggling, hear it, especially with temptations against the faith, and temptations against chastity. Pray that we priests, remain faithful believers, and thus be channels of the grace of faith to those who depend on our priestly ministry. Pray that we may preserve our chastity, even though it might mean martyrdom. From my first Mass, at every consecration, I have asked our Lord for the grace of martyrdom. Pray that we priests, if it is God's grace, die a martyr's death, that we might live, all of us, a martyr's life.

I would like to close with a prayer:

Mary, Mother of God and Mother of priests, we ask you to obtain from Jesus the light and strength for His priests to live a truly priestly life. So that, the priests that Jesus ordained might be priests who are living the lives of martyrs, who are ready to shed their blood for your divine Son.

Mary, Mother of the Church, beg your Son to inspire thousands of young men to embrace the vocation to the priesthood, and thus become the communicators of grace; to a world which is starving, starving for the truth that priests are to teach; to a world that is dying, dying for the love that priests are to bring; a world that is suffering, but a world that shall love the cross, because priests have taught this world that the greatest joy on earth is to love Jesus crucified. Amen.

The Ordination of Women to the Catholic Priesthood

Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

Presented at the Canon Law Convention, Worcester, MA., May 2, 1974

I wish to address myself to the subject of the ordination of women to the Catholic priesthood. My reason for making the subject so specific is to cut through so much of the ambiguity that surrounds the question.

Notice, this is not merely the ordination of women, which is common practice in many Protestant denominations. It is not merely the elevation of women to the ministry, which is quite consistent with Catholic Faith and practice. It is the ordination of women in the Catholic Church to apostolic succession in the presbyterate and (logically) the episcopate, deriving from Christ’s ordination of the twelve apostles on Holy Thursday night, and conferring on them and their successors the threefold Messianic power of administering all the sacraments, notably the Eucharist, of ruling the people of God in His name, and of authoritatively teaching them His message of salvation.

In order to capsulize as much content as possible into a small span of time, let me divide what I plan to say into three parts and give each part a title—together with an explanatory subtitle.

• Sociological Phenomenon, which answers to the question, “Why has the issue arisen in the first place?”

• Theological Speculation, which will briefly review the question, “What are they saying in favor of ordination?”

• Doctrinal Principle, which responds to the question of “How should the proposal to ordain women be evaluated on the premises of Catholic doctrine?”

Sociological Phenomenon

Why has the question of the possible ordination of women to the priesthood become so prominent? The reason is a cluster of reasons, but they are all primarily sociological.

They can be synthesized in two cameo pictures, which compare the women of yesterday (then) and women of today (now). In former days, so the sociologists explain, women lived in a sort of immutable destiny, in the framework of an idealized pattern set by men which remained invariable. She was supposed to be docile, faithful, resigned, hard-working—but all within well-defined limits and sheltered from the drafts and winds of the outside world.

But now a new type has been born—modern woman. She does not passively accept her fate—she takes charge of it. Much of the credit for this welcome change, Cardinal Suenens believes, can be given to Marxism, and specifically to Lenin.

According to Suenens, “Lenin was able to write, ‘The experience of all movements of liberation proves that the success of a revolution depends upon the degree of participation by women.’” Catholics are reminded by Suenens, “This is a phrase not to be forgotten. Christianity is the greatest and most radical revolution in all history.”

We may, therefore, say that the sociological roots at the basis of the current drive for the ordination of women are bifocal. One root is the recognized and unstartling fact that women in all parts of the world are coming more and more into their own, to find their places alongside of men in business, in the professions, in education and the sciences.

Another root is not so much factual as ideological. It argues from a massive discrimination of women by men, and urges women to revolt against the discrimination. Spearheaded by women, so the ideology states, such

63 drastic changes will be introduced into society as only the vision of an egalitarian community of partners— instead of competitors—can produce.

Theological Speculation

Not surprisingly, the sociological undercurrent does not receive much attention. Most of the literature on the subject is called theological. In the more than one hundred hours of reading and research that went into the writing of this paper, practically every book, or monograph, or article consciously studied the question from biblical, patristic, conciliar and canonical—in a word from what might be broadly termed a theological perspective.

Yet, while allowing the adjective “theological,” I would say it is essentially speculation. By this I mean reflection by sincere and well-intentioned writers who analyze a topic—here the ordination of women— subjectively without the date of objective revelation.

What they have to say is often worth reading. It is fascinating literature in the futuribles of the Catholic religion. It seeks to explore what might have been or could possibly be, but without building on the revealed premises of Christianity.

Let me give a sample listing of some of the arguments of theological speculation favoring the ordination of women.

1. In Christ there is neither Greek nor Jew, neither male nor female. All are alike objects of the divine mercy. Consequently women have as much right as men to a full participation of the hierarchy, which includes priesthood and the episcopacy.

2. Catholic Christianity has become wedded to the Aristotelian theory of man’s superiority to woman. Once it is disengaged from these Aristotelian categories, the Church will be ready to ordain women who are not inferior to men.

3. Eastern asceticism has also influenced the Church’s present attitude toward a severe separation of the sexes, except in marriage. But as we change this ideal of an angelic, sexless life, new spiritual relationships between men and women in the priesthood are available. Men priests and women priests will cooperate in a beautiful harmony of great ecclesial potentialities.

4. Having received the message of freedom from the Savior, the Church has progressively abandoned the principle of Christian freedom in its application to the life of women within its own ranks and concerns, and in areas that could conceivably have escaped secular prejudice and social pressure. Instead it adopted the principle of harmony with secular society. Once the Church is emancipated from this dependence on the secular model of state or culture, it will be ready to open the doors to the ordination of women.

5. Deaconesses are clearly referred to in the New Testament. In addition to the more explicit references to Priscilla, Lydia and Phoebe, it is not unlikely that the women who followed Jesus may well have been deaconesses, and that the seventy (or seventy-two) disciples may well have included women. While the precise nature of women’s deaconate is unclear, there is enough data to suggest that after nineteen centuries what had been deacons in apostolic times might well become priests in our day.

6. Mary, too, must be seen as not only a symbol of motherhood but of discipleship. As Mariology develops, it is not unlikely that the role of Mary will come to be seen as not only maternal but priestly, and women will be able to imitate the Mother of Christ as also a priest of Christ.

7. No doubt some of St. Paul’s statements about women in the Church are difficult. But modern Exegesis is showing that Paul did not teach what he is charged with teaching: men’s rights to dominate women and women’s required passivity. Rather Paul stresses the complementary character of the Christian man and woman in Christ. As Pauline studies open still further horizons, the way will be paved for women’s ordination to the priesthood.

8. There is no clear New Testament reference to a professional body of Christian priests, whether Male or female. It is Tradition, not Scripture, which endows bishops and presbyters with a priestly character. The epistle to the Hebrews revolutionizes the priestly concept. No longer-as among the Jews—is priesthood fleshly. Thus any restriction of the Christian priesthood to the fleshly, i.e., to male and not female, is to contradict this basic teaching of the Hebrews. The Catholic Church has mistakenly taken a fleshly approach to the priesthood, and only now shows promise of being liberated from its own preconceptions.

9. The ecumenical movement, vis-à-vis Protestantism, would be immensely enhanced if the Catholic Church followed the pattern set by the Churches of the Reformation in ordaining both men and women to the ministry.

10. The pastoral needs of our day call for an ever deeper and more official involvement of women in the life and work of the Church. These needs will not be adequately met until women receive priestly ordination. They must have jurisdiction which is inherent in sacred Orders and not merely what some ancient abbesses enjoyed as special privileges, or what superiors of women’s religious communities possess today.

So much for theological speculation, which is profoundly erudite, often done with consummate scholarship, and, with rare exception, exempt from emotionalism.

Doctrinal Principles

We now come to the third part of our analysis, the doctrinal principles. There are two ways that these principles can be handled. One is to evaluate on doctrinal grounds the arguments offered for the ordination of women to see how sound they really are. This is possible and needs to be done. May I suggest a few approaches?

1. Any ambiguity on the nature of the priesthood in the Catholic Church is sure to lead into doctrinal error. To so stress the ministerial or service function as to minimize the cultic and ritual is to reduce the priesthood to a functional ministry. I remember serving as consultant to a theological commission of the American Baptist Convention, which was studying the advisability of discontinuing all ordinations in that denomination. My advice to the convention was to retain ordination, even though no sacrament was believed to be conferred and no sacred powers to be received. But that is not the faith of historic Catholicism.

Most proponents of ordination of women in the Catholic Church concentrate on the ministerial or pastoral benefits to be derived. They are remarkably silent about the advantages of a woman (and not only a man) pronouncing the words of consecration or the formula of absolution! 65

2. Any implication that the Catholic priesthood is a later development of the Church by the Church, and not a sacrament of Christ instituted by Christ, is an invitation to doctrinal chaos. If, contrary to the explicit teaching of the magisterium, it was not Christ but the Church which established what we call the priesthood, then the ordination of women is a minor issue and almost of trivial consequence. In that case, the Church could not only ordain women, but could redefine ordination to exclude the power of offering the Eucharistic Sacrifice, of transmuting bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood and, in fact, could, if it wanted to, discontinue ordination altogether.

On a more positive level, however, our doctrinal principles tell us some sobering facts that reduce the ordination of women to what it really is—fervent speculation and zealous, but unfounded, anticipation.

The plain fact of salvation history is the selectivity of Christ and the early Church. It is known did not hesitate to contravene the Law and sociological customs of His times. Yet He selected only men as His apostles, on whom He conferred the priestly powers at the Last Supper.

From the beginning, and all through its history, the Catholic Church has done the same. The unbroken practiced Tradition of the Church has excluded women from the Episcopal and priestly office. Theologians and canonists, building on the teaching of the Fathers, have been unanimous in considering this exclusion absolute and of divine origin.

We therefore conclude that this constant tradition and practice is of divine law, and is of such a nature as to constitute a clear teaching of the infallible ordinary magisterium of the Church. Though not formally defined, it is irreversible Catholic doctrine.

From another perspective, suppose we took the opposite position, advocated by proponents of women’s ordination. If the choice of men by Christ and by the Church has really been only time-conditioned and changeable, then indeed very unpleasant consequences could be drawn.

This attempted solution proceeds from the idea that Jesus, if He had lived in another time and in another land, could have also chosen women. This theory thus grants that there could be another time (or place) in which women could be completely appropriate for the fullness of the hierarchical and sacerdotal office.

But then what follows? It follows that the Catholic Church and its supposedly divine office of mediation of grace stand fixed in a social ethos—that of the first century—which stands diametrically opposed to the ethos of the century in which the Church now lives.

Grant this hypothesis and no single teaching of the Christ or the apostolic Church remains normative for all times. Instead of transcending time, Christianity would become the slave of time. The Beatitudes and the whole Sermon on the Mount, the precept of monogamy and the prohibition of adultery would become –as not a few are now urging—moral archaisms that had meaning and relevance in former days but are no longer meaningful and certainly not mandatory in our day.

If someone objects that the ordination of men by Christ and the early Church was simply a contingent fact; that it could have been otherwise, I grant the observation. But since when are Christians to stand in judgment on why God did what He did, like become man, when the world could have (absolutely speaking) been redeemed without the Incarnation; or why God does what He does, like nourish us with His own Body and Blood when our spiritual life could (absolutely speaking) be sustained by other means if He had so chosen?

One of the great blessings I see coming from the present discussion about the ordination of women is our deeper realization of God’s wisdom in providing for a variety of ways He can be loved, and a bewildering diversity of ministries by which He can be served.

It is for us to stand in awe, and not in judgment, on the ways of God who chose a woman and not a man by whom to enter the world. If this was selectivity, and it was, it was not discrimination. God never does things without good reasons, even when these reasons escape or elude us who—would you believe—sometimes want to instruct God.

(Title Page: The Ordination of Women to the Catholic Priesthood by Rev. John A. Hardon, S. J.

Celibacy and the Catholic Priest

Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

Some people may be surprised at the pressure and propaganda that have arisen in our day against the celibacy of priests in the Catholic Church. But it should not be surprising, as the history of the Church, from the beginning, amply testifies. It was, in fact, the unwillingness of so many priests to remain celibate that tilted the pressure in favor of Protestantism in the sixteenth century. There were many other factors — doctrinal, theological, political — that cost so many millions to Catholic unity. But in my estimation, the center of the issue was priestly celibacy.

The first thing the so-called reformers did on breaking with the Roman Catholic Church was to remove celibacy. It is also the same unwillingness in our day that is mainly responsible for the massive exodus of priests from their priestly ministry. Before and during the Second Vatican Council, there was extreme agitation, some in high quarters, to have celibacy for priests in the Western Church made, as they said, optional. But as has happened more than once in previous centuries, the Council held firm.

If anyone asks me, and I have been asked more than once, what positive good has come from the Second Council of the Vatican, I could give a dozen answers. But somewhere near the top is its unmistakable support for priestly celibacy. As the following statement of the Council makes clear:

Based on the mystery of Christ and its mission, celibacy, which at first was recommended to priests, was afterwards on the Latin Church imposed by law on all who were to be promoted to Holy Orders. This Sacred Council approves and confirms this legislation. (Presbyterorum Ordinis, 16).

When this decree was issued on December 7, 1965, there was much adverse criticism and a storm of protests which has not yet died down. Also, in the meantime, the Holy See has dispensed many priests who are, as we say, laicized, also from their celibacy, but with the absolute prohibition ever again to exercise their priesthood. So they had optional celibacy, but the option was either wife or the priesthood, meaning, always, that once a man is ordained, he is never unordained. In other words, the Church has once again stood strong on what is surely one of the glories of the Catholic priesthood and one of its principal means of drawing down God’s blessings on those ordained to the altar.

Why celibacy? This question has arisen many times, has been asked in a thousand ways. Why? Why should priests not marry, like say Protestant ministers do? Why should they remain celibate? Why make such a hard demand on weak human nature, that we also know is not infrequently unequal to the obligation? If we would begin to find a reason, we must start with the person of Christ.

When the Son of God came into the world, He surrounded His Incarnation with the aura of chastity. His mother, He made sure, would miraculously conceive Him without carnal intercourse. She would be a virgin before birth, in birth and after birth, as the Church solemnly teaches. Christ was in the words of the liturgy, flos matrius virginis (the flower of a virgin mother). Indeed, He made sure he was brought up in the virginal family of Mary and Joseph. Christ, further, all through His stay on earth, stayed a virgin. He never married.

During His public life, He showed special love for pure souls, such as the two Johns, the Baptist and the Evangelist. Christ could not have spoken more laudably about anyone than He did about John the Baptist, who, Christian revelation in her Tradition tells us, was a virgin. And the Evangelist, as he modestly admits without identifying himself by name, was the one whom Jesus specially loved.

The great apostle St. Paul, faithful interpreter of the New Law and of the mind of Christ, preached the inestimable value of virginity. In view of the more fervent service of God, and gave the reason when he said, “An unmarried man can devote himself to the Lord’s affairs. All he need worry about is pleasing the Lord” (1 Cor 7:32).

All of this clear revelation of the New Testament had almost inevitable consequences. The priests of the New Covenant felt the heavenly affection of this virtue. They sought to be of the number of those to whom in Christ’s prediction, it is given to take this Word (cf. Matt 19:12). They felt if anyone has the grace as Christ said some would have the grace to remain celibate, surely it ought to be the priests. And from the very beginning, the first century, they spontaneously bound themselves to celibate observance.

This, I think, bears more emphasis than we normally give it. There is so much talk these days about imposition, about constraint, about placing heavy, inhuman obligations. The facts of the case are just the opposite. Priestly celibacy in the Catholic Church began as a voluntary, spontaneous desire on the part of the Church’s priests to follow in the footsteps of Christ. So it came about that the practice in the Latin Church. We see the sanction of ecclesiastical law. I repeat, law followed spontaneous choice, not the other way around. There first were celibate priests, and then wisely and understandably, the Church made laws building on what then had already become part of the Church’s Tradition.

Already in 305 A.D. (that’s very early), before the Church’s liberation under Constantine, the Council of Elvira in Spain passed the following decree: “That bishops, priests and deacons, and in general all the clergy, who are specially employed in the service of the altar, abstain from conjugal intercourse. Let those who persist be degraded from the ranks of the clergy” (Can. 33). And by the end of the fourth century, the Second Council of Carthage in Africa declared, “What the apostles taught in the early Church preserved, let us too observe.” Celibacy, I insist, is not a post factum afterthought of the Church. It is an anti factum, reality, practiced by the Church and wanted by those who wanted to be Christ’s priests.

So the tradition went on. And in the Middle Ages, when the Church in Europe was rocked to her foundations over this law of celibacy, one pontiff after another stood his ground until this law was restore to its original integrity. Behind the Church’s legislation is therefore first of all the revealed fact that the Son of God was a virgin. If a priest is another Christ, it is to be like Christ. It is to portray and preach Christ to the people. Is it not proper that, like his Master, he too should not marry? There is no arguing this point with a person who lacks the faith. I’ve tried; it’s useless. They don’t know what you’re talking about. As there is also no need to press the

68 argument with one who believes. Why, of course! If Christ is God, and Christ chose virginity, and I want to be like Him, well, I want to be like Him!

The imitation of Christ is the first and fundamental reason for priestly celibacy. A reason, however, that is not based on natural reason, or lest still, reasons. You don’t argue yourself into celibacy. It is based on the deeper wisdom of faith. Experience and history, besides the fact of revelation, show that celibacy gives the priest extraordinary freedom, as St. Paul says, freedom of the worries and cares that necessarily go along with marriage and rearing a family.

There is first of all, freedom of time to give to the people under his sacerdotal care. I just can’t imagine living in wedlock and living also as I do, a 17-18 hour working day. There is freedom of mobility, to go wherever there is hope of God’s greater glory and the good of souls. In my many travels, I engage in many conversations with men, salesmen, executives, businessmen, with whom I talk about themselves and embarrassingly, their families. All I know is that their families suffer. It is impossible to move around as much as a priest who is really zealous for souls should move about and at the same time do justice to his wife and children. As one medical executive told me, I’ll never forget, on the flight from Ottawa to Chicago, he told me about his many enterprises, where he goes, all over Canada and the United States. “By the way, doctor,” I said, “how about your family?” “Oh,” he said, “I’ve got it figured out. I calculate they have a right,” I quote, “to twenty minutes of my time per day.” A priest, therefore, has freedom of mobility.

He has freedom of interest to devote himself exclusively to his priestly ministry and not be bound, as he would be in marriage, to preoccupations with so many things that would, therefore, divide his interests between the priesthood and his duties as husband and father of a natural family.

My work over the years has brought me into frequent contact and intimate relationships with Protestant ministers. I cannot tell you, and I quote literally, how many have told me, “John, I envy your celibate life. I love my wife and my children, but I often find it literally impossible to be what my people want me to be and my family, to give them the time and attention they deserve.”

But we are not finished yet. It would be strange if it were possible that God would not correspondingly bless the celibacy of His priests by showering them with an abundance of His graces for the sacrifices that, as every priest knows, celibacy costs. What Pope Pius XII wrote to priests on this aspect of their celibate life deserves to be remembered whenever anyone tries to talk down the sublimity of this Christ-like institution. “By His law of celibacy,” says the Pope, “the priest so far from losing the gift and duties of fatherhood, rather increases them immeasurably. For although he does not beget progeny for this passing life on earth, he begets children for that life which is heavenly and eternal.” Unquote the Sovereign Pontiff.

Every man, I speak as one, wants to be a father. The option he has is what kind of fatherhood he will experience. This is the capstone, as only priests who are faithful to their celibacy know, their celibacy is a true fatherhood as that of a woman dedicated to a life in a religious community is a genuine motherhood. And let no one steal that mystery from our faith. The priest is emphatically not a pious bachelor. He is wedded to the Savior’s work in this world. And celibacy is the obvious, and if only people would believe it, congenial, happy, enjoyable expression of the priest’s relationship to God and man.

All of this, however, requires deep faith in the priests. It requires discipline of his senses, especially his eyes and his sense of touch. He must be a disciplined man. No one else can remain celibate. It requires much prayer and an easy communion with God. Above all, it requires a great love of Jesus Christ. And of course, a great deal of grace from the Savior who called him and ordained him to the priesthood.

It is especially on this level on the amount of grace that priests need to remain celibate that I wish to close this conference. That is why the Catholic faithful who want to see their priests, oh, how they want to see their priests faithful to their celibacy, how it saddens them beyond description to see a priest unfaithful to his commitment. But as frightening as the statement may sound, I think it’s true. People get the kind of priests they deserve. Priests are not alone. They are parts of the mystical body of Christ. They need the other members of this body to help them be what Christ wants them to be. And the help they especially need from the people whom they are meant to serve is these people’s sacrificial prayer. Prayer joined to sacrifice.

Without grace, celibacy is unthinkable. And as one who has spent most of his priestly life dealing with priests, without grace, celibacy is unlivable. And the prayers of the priest for himself are not enough. Do you hear it? They are not enough. Either he gets the support of the faithful or he will not be able to remain faithful. But given their assistance, he will obtain, as God wants him to obtain, the graces that he needs to be what the priest professes to be — a mediator of the Savior to a sinful, sex-ridden world, an ambassador of Christ, the virginal Son of the Virgin Mary.

No Eucharist Without the Priesthood

Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

Among the maxims of Pope John XXIII was the exclamation of St. Augustine, “O wonderful the dignity of priests; in whose hands the Son of God is made flesh as in the womb of the Virgin.”

It is this truth of our faith that over the centuries has sustained the Catholic Church in her loyalty to Christ and His teaching. It is also this mystery of faith which lies somewhere near the bottom of the crisis through which the Church is now passing, especially in the academically sophisticated western world.

What is the Eucharist?

In the solemn language of the Council of Trent, the Eucharist is Jesus Christ. Once the words of consecration are pronounced by the priest, what had been bread and wine cease to be bread and wine. Their substance becomes the whole Christ (totus Christus).

Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity who became incarnate in Mary’s womb at Nazareth, was born in a stable at Bethlehem, died on the cross in Jerusalem, rose from the dead, ascended into heaven - this same identical Jesus Christ, with all that makes Christ, Christ - is now “contained” under the appearances of bread and wine. The substance of bread and wine are changed into the whole Jesus Christ, God and man, with all the substance and properties that belong to a human body and soul.

What is the priesthood?

The priesthood is the sacrament which Christ instituted at the Last Supper.

Everything in the priesthood depends on these facts of our faith:

• That at the Last Supper, Christ literally and therefore physically changed what had been bread and wine into His Incarnate Self.

• That at the Last Supper, Christ offered His human life to His Heavenly Father in a sacrifice that would be completed on Calvary.

• That at the Last Supper, Christ conferred on the Apostles the twofold power of Transubstantiation and of continuing the Sacrifice of Calvary, the Mass, until the end of time.

We say correctly that on Holy Thursday night Christ instituted the Sacrament of the Eucharist. That is true, but it is true only because, at the Last Supper, Christ instituted the priesthood without which there would be no Eucharist:

• Eucharist as Real Presence

• or as Holy Communion

• or as the Sacrifice of the Mass.

Prevalent errors

Over the centuries, the single most devastating error to plague the Church – primarily as Catholic Christianity – has been the denial of subtle doubt about the basic dignity of the priesthood. What is this basic dignity? It is the awesome power that Jesus gave the Apostles and, through them, to bishops and priests:

• to bring the Incarnate Son of God to earth, in the Eucharist, and

• to offer Jesus to His heavenly Father in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

By the end of the sixteenth century there were some 200 interpretations of Christ’s words, “This is my Body…this is my Blood.” Those interpretations have multiplied beyond number in our day. They are also an index of catholicity. They show how close to or distant from the Church founded by the Savior is any church or denomination

Introduction to the Priesthood Book

Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

There is nothing in Catholic Christianity that is either more distinctive or more important than the priesthood. When Christ ordained the Apostles on Holy Thursday night, He promised them that they would continue in

71 their priestly work until the end of time. While the word “priest” is widely used, in the Catholic Church the priest is the one who carries on the work that God became man to establish.

There is nothing, therefore, that more clearly distinguishes the Catholic Church from other religious bodies for twenty centuries than the priesthood. On Catholic terms, the priesthood was instituted by Christ at the Last Supper, when He ordained the Apostles as the first priests of Christianity. We can honestly say that the priesthood distinguishes the Catholic faith from all other religious bodies in the world. A priest is one whom Christ Himself has chosen to carry on His work until the end of time. The Catholic priest has the unique power of changing bread and wine into the living Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. The Catholic priest has the unique power of absolving sinners and reconciling them with an offended God.

The priesthood, therefore, is uniquely an institution that Christ Himself established when He ordained the Apostles on Holy Thursday night. Every priest in the Catholic Church traces his origin to that first ordination by Jesus at the Last Supper.

What powers did Jesus give to the priests He ordained? He gave them three unique powers that have not changed in twenty centuries. A Catholic priest has the unique power of reconciling sinners with a God from whom they have become estranged by sin. A Catholic priest has the awesome power of taking bread and wine into the Living Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ. A Catholic priest, as ordained bishop, has authority to guide and govern the people of God by the unique authority which they receive in ordination.

That is why the Catholic Church depends so absolutely on her priests. The Church exists only where there are priests validly ordained to exercise the power that Christ has given them in their priesthood. Every break in Catholic unity for two thousand years has been a departure from what Christ instituted at the Last Supper. There is only one true Church in the world, that is the church which has priests who trace their origin to the Apostles whom Christ ordained on Holy Thursday night.

In the pages (articles) that follow, we shall describe the role of priests from a variety of angles. But the fundamental issue is that the Catholic Church exists only where there are priests whose priesthood goes back to Christ’s words to His Apostles, “Do this in commemoration of me.”

A True Priest Must Love Christ Crucified

Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

I would like to share with you the single most important lesson I have learned in my half-century in the priesthood. What is that lesson? In one sentence, I have learned with St. Paul that there is nothing in life worth living for except to know Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

It is Christ crucified who is at once our deepest mystery of faith, our one hope for existence, and our highest motive for love.

Jesus Christ crucified is our deepest mystery of faith. After everything else we believe in is identified, after all the truths are analyzed, what is the one unfathomable mystery on which everything else we believe finally depends? It is Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

We believe that the infinite God became man. Why? In order to suffer and die for us on the Cross.

We believe there must be a deep meaning to the cross. Why? Because God the Creator became one of His own creatures in order to be crucified.

Jesus Christ is our one hope for the future. By now we all know ourselves well enough to know how helpless we are of ourselves to reach our eternal destiny.

Who is our hope?

In whom can we finally trust? It is Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

Jesus Christ crucified is our highest motive for love.

It is not, only, that Jesus Christ was scourged, crowned with thorns, nailed to the cross and died on the cross because He loved us.

Jesus Christ is the love of God who became man and died on the Cross out of love for us. That is why God puts difficult people into our lives – unkind people, thoughtless people, selfish people, people who do not love us.

Why? So that by loving them, we might show our love for God. The more unlovable people are, the more we are privileged to love them out of love for God.

Lord Jesus Christ, you died on the cross out of love for us. Give me the grace to die on my cross out of love for thee. Amen.

Blessed Virgin in the Life of a Priest

Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

Jesus Christ instituted the priesthood at the Last Supper when He told the Apostles, “Do this in commemoration of me.” He was, of course, referring to what He Himself had just done by changing bread and wine into His own living body and blood.

God became man in order to die for us on the Cross. But He also became man to live among us in the Holy Eucharist as Sacrifice, Communion and Real Presence.

But there would not be a Eucharist without the Blessed Virgin Mary. God, as God, had been present in the world from the moment He created the world. He had to be, otherwise the world would not exist.

What happened at the moment that Mary told the angel of the Annunciation, “Be it done to me according to your word”? At that moment God became present in the world as the God-man. Except for Mary, there would have been no Incarnation. Except for Mary there would be no Holy Eucharist.

Once this is realized, our priesthood takes on its real meaning. Except for us priests, tracing our ordination back to the Last Supper, there would be no sacrament of the Eucharist.

Dare we, therefore, draw the following conclusion: We priests are indispensable for the presence on earth of Jesus Christ, the Son of God who became the Son of Mary. Without priests, the sacrifice of Calvary would not be renewed in the sacrifice of the Mass; without priests the faithful would not receive Jesus in Holy Communion; without priests the living Christ would not be now on earth for us to worship and beg for the ocean of graces that we need.

All of this leads to one momentous conclusion: without Mary there would be no Catholic priesthood in the world. Why not? Because without Mary there would be no Eucharist.

What should be our response? Our response should be threefold: a deeper devotion to our Lady as the mother of our priesthood; a deeper faith in our priestly powers; and a deeper love of Jesus Christ, the Son of Mary, who is in our midst in the Holy Eucharist.

How do we grow in our devotion to Mary? By engaging her in conversation as often as we can. How do we grow in faith in our priestly powers? By promoting faith in the Holy Eucharist among the people whom we serve. There is nothing which the Catholic Church more needs in our day than a stronger, clearer and more lively understanding of the Holy Eucharist. How do we grow in a deeper love of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament? By taking every opportunity of being in His Eucharistic presence during the day and, shall I add, into the night.

Prayer

“Mary, mother of the Holy Eucharist and mother of the priesthood, obtain for us something of your deep faith in your divine Son. Obtain for us something of your zeal to make Jesus, living in the Eucharist, better known and more deeply loved throughout the world. Amen.”

The Holy Eucharist and Holiness in Priests

Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

No one familiar with the present age has any doubt that the Church has been going through a grave crisis for over a century. Some consider it the gravest in the Church’s history and certainly its impact on the Church and her institutions has been drastic in the extreme. Under the general name of secularism, it is the philosophy which claims that there is no other life than “this life” and no other world than “this world.” If there is an afterlife, and the secularist is ready to grant the possibility, it is so uncertain and improbable that the hypothesis has no practical value in determining a person’s behavior. By now there are a variety of secularisms in the world. But they all have this in common: they hold the meaning of the world to lie within itself.

It would be unrealistic to expect the Church to remain unaffected by present day secularism. Catholics are too much a part of the culture in which they live and too exposed to the ideas of their day not to be influenced by 74 what they experience. Add to this secularism the rise of the communications media in the twentieth century and we get some idea of how inevitably the Church has suffered by contact with the unbelieving world in which she lives.

Among the Church’s institutions, the priesthood has been especially vulnerable. This may be partly explained by the fact that priests are the Church’s divinely established leaders of faith and morals, but mainly by the strategy of the evil spirit, who could be expected to intrude himself into the ranks of Christ’s chosen ones. For even as the Church’s greatest pride is in the sanctity of her ordained bishops and priests who lead the people of God in the paths of holiness, so they have been the Church’s greatest sorrow when they abandoned their high calling and turned their backs on the Savior who ordained them.

The modern popes have been eloquent in stressing the grave need of a strong priesthood to resist the pressure against the faith in our times. Leo XIII and Pius X, Benedict XV and Pius XI, Pius XII and John XXIII have pleaded time and again with bishops and priests to resist the seductions of a godless world and remain firm in their loyalty to Christ and His Church. No one could be clearer than Paul VI when, on the occasion of ordaining ten priests to the episcopate, he urged them to remain constant in their faith. “It is the gift of Christ to His Church,” he said. “It is the virtue that the Church needs today, assailed as she is by so many forces that aim at defeating her, indeed weakening and destroying her firmness in faith.” It is faith, he told the newly ordained prelates, “that must protect us from our inner weakness and against the growing confusion of ideas of our world.” [1]

In the first year of his pontificate, Pope John Paul II wrote to the priests of the Catholic world, urging them to resist the temptation to compromise with the world. “What the people expect of their ordained leaders,” he said, “is above all a priestly personality that witnesses to a world beyond this one and to values that belong to eternity. Priests should not be deceived. Sometimes the people may want priests ‘to be in every way like them’; at times it even seems that they demand this of us.” A priest must be on his guard. “It is very easy to let oneself be guided by appearances and fall victim to a fundamental illusion in what is essential. Those who call for the secularization of priestly life and applaud its various manifestations will surely abandon us if we give in to the temptation. We shall then cease to be necessary and popular.” The Pope went on to explain how careful priests must be to avoid being manipulated and exploited by a world that wants to shape everyone, especially the Church’s leaders, to its own image and likeness. [2]

What then is the greatest single need in the priesthood today? It is holiness. What the Church and the world mainly need is holy priests. The next question is the hard one: How are priests to become holy? They are to become holy through the Eucharist. In other words, there is no holiness without the Eucharist.

We are now ready to answer a series of questions: What is holiness? How does the grace of holiness come from the Eucharist? What do we believe when we believe in the Real Presence? Why do we believe? How do we believe?

What the Church most needs in modern times is priests who have not been seduced by the ways of the world but have remained firm in their faith as ambassadors of Christ, chosen by Him to dispense the mysteries of salvation until the end of time. Only holy priests will not be seduced by the devil, who is the prince of this world. Jesus Christ in the Eucharist is the only one who can make priests truly holy.

Holy priests will sanctify the faithful. One of the glories of the Second Vatican Council was its outspoken insistence not only that holiness is a realistic goal, but that this is our special vocation as Christians. “All of Christ’s faithful,” we are told, “no matter what their rank or station, have a vocation to the fullness of the Christian life and the perfection of charity.” In a word, we have all been called to become saints. But the

75 sanctification of the world depends on the sanctity of Catholic bishops and priests. In God’s providence, we are to be the principal channels of holiness to the world in which we live.

What is Holiness?

In one sense, everyone who is baptized and in the state of grace is holy. But properly speaking, holiness is not only being in God’s friendship, it is being Christ-like.

What do we mean when we say that we are as holy as we are like Christ? We mean that Jesus Christ is the pattern for us to follow. The more we become like Him, the more holy we are. This stands to reason since Christ is God, and of course, a person is only as holy as he is like unto God.

What we are saying is not as obvious as may seem. No doubt expressions like “the imitation of Christ,” or “the following of Christ,” or “walking in the footsteps of Christ,” are familiar enough. But what do they say? They affirm the astounding fact that when God became man in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, that man was literally God walking on our earth, eating our food, breathing our air, and living in every way, except sin, the human life that we live. He did so not only to redeem us from Satan and hell, but to show us how we can, with His grace, become like Him in virtue.

When we are born into the world, we already have the same human nature that Christ had, and this through no effort of our own. But we do not have the same holiness that He had, nor shall we ever achieve it. Nevertheless, we can and should become ever more like Him, who is God, since this is the main reason He became like us, who are creatures and not God.

Time and again, He bade us become like Him, “Learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart … If I, the Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you should wash each other’s feet. I have given you an example, so that you may copy what I have done to you … I give you a new commandment: Love one another just as I have loved you.”

So the litany of Christ’s formula for sanctity goes on. Study the conduct of Christ, and strive to do the same. If you do, insofar as you do, you will become holy.

Grace for Holiness from the Eucharist

All that we read in the Gospels about following Christ in order to become like Him would be, from one viewpoint, so much inspiring invitation, and from another viewpoint, so much hopeless depression. Where, dear Lord, where can we obtain the light and strength we need to follow in your footsteps, and thus become holy? His answer is, “From me!”

The same Jesus whom we are called upon to imitate and become like Him in sanctity is the Jesus who is on earth in the Holy Eucharist.

It is now more than thirty years that I have been working for the Holy See. Most of my assignments will never be publicized. But there is one order I have received that must be shared with you. I have been told to do

76 everything in my power to restore the faith of American Catholics in the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist.

Thank God there are, I trust, not a few professed Catholics who still believe in Christ’s real, physical presence in the Blessed Sacrament. Yet all the evidence indicates that many may still say they believe and might even be offended if we questioned their faith. But in their minds, they do not accept the following definition of the Council of Trent, “In the sacrament of the most Holy Eucharist, there are truly, really, and substantially contained the Body and Blood together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore the whole Christ.”

Our subject for this chapter is The Holy Eucharist and Holiness of Priests. Another way of saying this is, “No Priestly Holiness Without Jesus Christ.” Let’s be sure we know what we are saying. Jesus Christ lived on earth in visible form in order to teach us what it means to become holy. We become holy by accepting His teaching and following His example.

But the big question still remains. How, how can we humbly accept what Jesus taught us and faithfully live up to the example which He gave us? The answer is through the Eucharist.

There are at this point three questions we should ask ourselves about the Holy Eucharist and holiness. On the answer to these questions depends whether we shall only know about holiness but also attain it, whether holiness will remain only an idea, or whether we shall actually become holy. What a difference! The questions are these:

• What do we believe when we believe in the Real Presence?

• Why should we believe it? And,

• How should we priests put our belief into practice to become holy?

What Do We Believe?

The simplest way to express what Christ asks us to believe about the Real Presence is that the Eucharist is really He. The Real Presence is the real Jesus. We are to believe that the Eucharist began in the womb of the Virgin Mary; that the flesh which the Son of God received from His Mother at the Incarnation is the same flesh into which He changed bread at the Last Supper; that the blood He received from His Mother is the same blood into which He changed wine at the Last Supper. Had she not given Him His flesh and blood, there could not be a Eucharist.

We are to believe that the Eucharist is Jesus Christ – simply, without qualification. It is God become man in the fullness of His divine nature, in the fullness of His human nature, in the fullness of His body and soul, in the fullness of everything that makes Jesus Jesus. He is in the Eucharist with His human mind and will, united with the Divinity, with His hands and feet, His face and features, with His eyes and lips and ears and nostrils, with His affections and emotions and, with emphasis, with His living, pulsating, physical Sacred Heart. That is what our Catholic faith demands of us that we believe. If we believe this, we are Catholic. If we do not, we are not, no matter what people may think we are.

Our faith is belief because we do not see what we believe. We accept on Christ’s words, that all of this is there, or rather, here in the Holy Eucharist. Faith must supply what, as the Tantum Ergo sings, “the senses do not perceive.” And faith must reveal what the mind by itself cannot see. Let us never forget this phrase, first in Latin, lumen fidei, the light of faith. Faith reveals, faith discloses, faith enlightens, faith empowers the mind to see what the mind without faith cannot see.

Strange as it may sound, when we believe in the Real Presence, we believe in things twice unseen. We see only what looks like bread and wine, and yet we are to believe that behind these physical appearances is a man. Faith number one. And we are further to believe that behind the unseen man is God. Faith number two.

Is it any wonder the Church calls the Eucharist Mysterium Fidei, the Mystery of Faith? Those who accept the Real Presence accept by implication all the cardinal mysteries of Christianity. They believe in the Trinity, in the Father who sent the Holy Spirit. They believe in the Incarnation, that the Son of God became man like one of us. They believe in Christ’s divinity since no one but God could change bread and wine into His own body and blood. They believe in the Holy Catholic Church which Christ founded and in which through successive generations is communicated to bishops and priests the incredible power of making Christ continually present among us in the Blessed Sacrament. They believe, against all the betrayals by the Judases of history and all the skepticism of Christ’s first disciples, in an unbroken chain of faith ever since Peter replied to Christ’s question whether he and his companions also wanted to leave the Master. What a chance Christ took. “Lord,” Peter looked around, “whom shall we go to?” (And he spoke for all of us.) “You have the message of eternal life, and we believe, we know that you are the holy one of God.”

There is a prayer in the Coptic Liturgy that I think perfectly answers the first question we are asking, “What do I believe when I believe in the Real Presence?” The prayer goes as follows, a little long, but worth it:

“I believe and I will confess to my last breath that this is the living bread which Your only-begotten Son, our Lord and God and Savior, Jesus Christ, took from our Lady and the Queen of Mankind, the holy, sinless Virgin Mary, Mother of God. He made it one with His Godhead without confusion or change. He witnessed before Pontius Pilate and was of His own free will condemned in our place to the holy tree. Truly I believe that His Godhead was not separated from His manhood for a moment, not even for the twinkle of an eye. We have His body for the remission of our sins and for eternal life to those who partake of this body. I believe, I believe, I believe that this is in very truth that body. Amen.”

That is your faith and mine.

Why Do We Believe?

Why do we believe that the selfsame body that Christ had in His visible stay on earth is the body, now glorified, that we worship and receive invisibly on earth today? You see, Christ is on earth! The final reason is, of course, because this is what He told us. What He said must be true because Christ who is God cannot lie.

But why do we believe in terms of the promises He made? What blessings and benefits did He assure those who believe in this Eucharistic Mystery? All the blessings that Christ promised to those who believe in the Holy Eucharist are summed up in His own masterful promise of life. Those who believe will receive life, and the life that He promised was zoe – the kind of life that belongs to God, the kind of life that Father, Son and Holy Spirit shared and interchanged from all eternity. Those who believe will receive this life. Those who do not believe

78 will die. What kind of life was Christ talking about? It must have been the supernatural life of grace in our souls, of participation in His own divine life.

Suppose we go on asking a series of questions where the answer can be yes or no:

• Is it possible for a person to be physically alive, but spiritually dead? Yes or no? YES.

• Is it possible for a person to be just barely alive? Yes or no? YES.

• Is it possible for a person to be more alive than just scarcely breathing supernaturally? Yes or no? YES.

• Is it finally possible for a person to be very alive with divine grace, vitally alive, brimming, tingling, vibrant, bursting with God’s life in his soul? Yes or no? An emphatic YES!

This, in homely language, is what the Savior promised those who believe in His Real Presence. He assured them and, therefore, assures us, that we shall be not only alive, but filled with His life, full to brimming and flowing over with strength and power and wisdom and peace and all manner of holiness. This is what sanctity is all about. It is the muchness of the good things of God. It is the more and more and still more of the life of God in our souls. More still, He promises that, provided that we believe in Him in the Eucharist, He will sustain this life in our souls into eternity. In other words, being alive now we shall never die. And most marvelous, He will even make this life pour from our souls into our bodies raised from the grave on the last day and glorified by the vision of God. No wonder the Eucharist is called panis vitae, the Bread of Life. It is that, and let us remind ourselves, and here is the condition, one condition, that before we eat this bread with our lips, we take it by faith into our hearts. Indeed, unless we first have faith, we shall, as Paul tells us, “eat it to our malediction.” Only believers can benefit from this Bread of Life, only believers can profit from the Blessed Sacrament, and only believers can grow in spirit by partaking of the Eucharist depending always on the measure of their faith. Those who believe deeply in the Real Presence will benefit greatly from the Real Presence; those who believe weakly will also benefit accordingly. The Eucharist is capable of working miracles in our lives. So it can – after all, the Eucharist is Jesus. He worked – changed the tense – He works miracles, but as it depended then (remember, Christ could not work miracles in certain places for lack of faith), the same now. It depends on the depth and degree of our faith.

How to Believe

This must seem like an odd question: how are we to believe in the Real Presence? By believing, we might answer. How else do you believe? True enough. But more concretely, how are we to express our belief? We are to express our belief by doing on our part what Christ does on His part. He comes to us. So we must come to Him, and this is not locomotion through space. He comes down to us. We must come up to Him. He is present in the Eucharist in order to be near to us. We must be present – change the accent – we must be present to the Eucharist in order to be near to Him. He went to the superhuman length of becoming man, then changing bread and wine into Himself, then giving His Apostles the power to do the same, then giving the power to pass on to others, that is to us priests, to do the same. And in virtue of that power, He is now here with us. He wants us, in turn, also now, here, to be with Him. Here nobody cheats. It is impossible in human terms to exaggerate the importance of being in a church or chapel before the Blessed Sacrament as often and for as long as our daily duties as priests allow. I very seldom repeat what I say. Let me repeat this sentence. It is impossible in human language to exaggerate the importance of being in a chapel or church before the Blessed Sacrament as often and for as long as our priestly duties allow. That sentence is the talisman of the highest sanctity.

What I am expressing is not a pious practice or a luxury of the spiritual life. I am talking about its essence. Those who believe what I am saying and act on their belief are in possession of the greatest treasure available to man in this valley of tears. As by now thousands of saintly men and women have testified from experience, this is somewhere near the key to holiness. For this reason, I strongly recommend that each of us make a resolution – no matter how much the decision may cost us – to make a holy hour before the Blessed Sacrament exposed or reserved, if possible every day. Think of the empty hours that priests spend weekly before the television screen. God help America.

Someone may object, “But you are talking about mystics or saints, and I am neither. I am just an ordinary Catholic priest trying to save my soul.” My reply: there can be no ordinary Catholic priests today, not with the revolution through which society is passing and the convulsion in the Church on every level. The Church today needs strong Catholic priests, wise Catholic priests, priests who are not swayed by public opinion or afraid to stand up for the truth. She needs priests who are willing to suffer for their convictions and, if need be, shed their blood for the faith.

Where, we ask, can they obtain this strength and wisdom, this patience and conviction and this loyal love of God that is faithful unto death? They can obtain it from the one who said, “Have courage, I have overcome the world.” He is not two thousand years away, or absent from the earth in a distant heaven that cannot be spanned. No, He is right here in the Eucharist. And He wants nothing more than that we also be with Him as much as we can. If we are, and the more we are – as the great Eucharistic saints tell us – He will not only make us holy, but He will use us priests as He used the Apostles, who, when He first made the promise of the Eucharist, did not walk away. He will use us as channels of His grace even to the ends of the earth and until the end of time.

PRAYER

“Lord Jesus, You are on earth in the Blessed Sacrament of the altar. We promise to offer the Sacrifice of the Mass and receive Holy Communion every day. We promise to spend some time in your Real Presence every day. We believe you are now on earth in the Holy Eucharist, just as truly as you were two thousand years ago in Palestine. You are here ready to perform the miracles you worked in Judea and Galilee. You are here, the divine Exorcist, ready to deliver so many people possessed by the evil spirit in our society.

There is only one condition: that we believe. We do believe, we do believe. Help our unbelief. Amen.”

[1] Homily in the Vatican Basilica, June 29, 1978

[2] Letter to all priests, Holy Thursday, 1979

The Holy Eucharist and a Holy Priesthood

Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

It must sound pious to associate the Holy Eucharist and the Holy Priesthood. But this is not piety. It is necessity. Without the priest there would not be a Eucharist and without the Eucharist, the priesthood would not be holy.

Our present focus, however, is on the necessity of the Eucharist to produce and provide for living out the supernatural, and therefore humanly impossible demands that Christ places on those who enter the priesthood in His name.

My plan is to cover the following areas of this fundamental issue:

• The sacrifice of selfless love required by a priest is impossible without superhuman strength from God.

• The principal source of this superhuman strength is the Holy Eucharist.

• Catholic priests are a living witness to Christ’s power to work miracles in the world today.

• The single most important need for the priesthood is a renewed faith in the Holy Eucharist.

Need for Superhuman Strength

It does not take great intelligence to see that a faithful and spiritually fruitful priesthood requires superhuman strength. Change the word “superhuman” to “supernatural” and we begin to see what we are talking about. Catholic Christianity is unique among the religions of the world, whether ancient as among the Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks and Romans before Christ, among the living religions of the human race.

Catholic Christianity is unique in making demands on the morality of its believers that are beyond human nature by itself to live up to. The two hardest demands are the practice of Christian chastity and Christian charity. Combine these virtues as celibacy and self-sacrifice, and we begin to see why the priesthood requires, indeed demands superhuman power from God to remain faithful for a lifetime.

This is what Christianity is all about: living a superhuman life by means of superhuman grace provided by Christ to those who believe that He is God Who became man to enable us to witness to his Name.

The Eucharist Provides Superhuman Strength

Receiving priestly ordination is one thing. Living as a holy priest for a lifetime is something else. That is why Christ instituted the Sacrament of the Eucharist. The moment we say, “Sacrament of the Eucharist,” we mean a triple sacrament:

• The Sacrifice-Sacrament of the Mass

• The Communion-Sacrament of the Mass

• The Presence-Sacrament of the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament

Jesus Christ instituted the Holy Eucharist to give those who believe in Him the power they need to remain alive in his grace.

For priests, this means the light and strength they must constantly receive if they are to live out the sublime directives of the Holy Spirit for Christian believers who received the sacrament of the priesthood.

They have no choice. The world in which they live is a world in which the self has been deified and lust has become the new norm of society.

Not to be deceived by this world, whose prince, Christ tells us, is the devil, Catholic priests need the light that only Christ can give. He is available with this grace through the Holy Eucharist.

Not to be seduced by the world, masterminded by Satan, Catholic priests need the courage that only Christ can give. He tells us not to be afraid. Why not? Because, as He says, “Have confidence, I have overcome the world.”

What is He telling priests? He is assuring them that He is still on earth in the Blessed Sacrament; that He is still offering Himself daily on our altars in the Sacrifice of the Mass; that He is still giving Himself to them in Holy Communion. Why? In order to enable them to do what is humanly beyond their natural intelligence to comprehend, beyond their natural will power to perform.

Mainstay of Priestly Life

Priests have no choice. The psychological pressure from the world, the flesh and the devil is too strong to cope with by themselves. The Holy Eucharist must remain, if it already is, or become, if it is not, the mainstay of their priestly lives. This is no option. It is a law of spiritual survival in every age, and with thunderous emphasis, for Catholic priests in our day.

No doubt the Eucharistic faith and devotion of priests are crucially important in the priestly apostolate. “Like priest, like people” is a truism of the Church’s history. But “like Eucharist, like priest” is also a sobering fact of the Church’s biography.

Priests are as selfless and chaste, as sacrificing and humble, as their lives are centered on the Eucharist. The daily and devout offering of Mass, the daily Holy Hour and frequent Benediction, the frequent visits to the Blessed Sacrament – these are not superficial priestly devotions. They are expressions of a profound love for Jesus Christ, now living and offering Himself for our sanctification on earth on our way to eternity.

Power to Work Miracles

If there is one thing that stands out in Christ’s visible life in Palestine it was his power to work miracles. In one chapter after another of the Gospels, Christ performed signs and wonders that testified to his claims to being one with the Father and that, without Him, we can do nothing to reach our eternal destiny.

• Christ changed water into wine at Cana in Galilee

• Christ restored sight to the blind, and speech to the mute

• Christ cured paralytics so they could use their limbs

• Christ calmed the storm at sea by a single word

• Christ even raised Lazarus from the grave. When He told the dead man to “Come forth,” what had been a decaying corpse came out of the tomb as a living human being.

But Christ’s greatest miracles were not his power over the physical laws of nature. They were His power to change unbelieving minds to become believers in his word, and unbelieving hearts to become men of heroic virtue.

The pagans of the first three centuries A.D. were converted to Christ when they saw Christians practicing chastity and charity. It was especially the generous and chaste love of Christ’s priests that changed pagans into believing Christians and in the process, changed the history of the human race.

Where did the early Christians receive the incredible strength they needed to follow Christ when even to become Christian meant to expect martyrdom? Where did they receive the superhuman power to live such superhuman lives? Where? From the Holy Eucharist, to which the priests themselves were so earnestly devoted and which they so earnestly promoted among the people.

It is not commonly known but should become known that in the early Church Christians heard Mass and received Holy Communion every day. The Holy Eucharist was brought to them in person as they were awaiting martyrdom by fire or the sword, or by being devoured by wild beasts.

The Eternal Presence

We turn to our own day. What Christ did during his visible stay on earth in first century Asia Minor, He has continued doing down the ages by the exercise of His almighty power available in his invisible presence in the Holy Eucharist. It is the same:

• Physically same,

• Historically same,

• Geographically same,

• Really same Jesus Christ who worked miracles at the dawn of Christianity,

Who is now present in the Blessed Sacrament, offering Himself in the Mass, and received by us in the Holy Eucharist.

What do we conclude from this? Obviously, that Catholic priests and bishops be witnesses in our day to Christ’s power in their lives, as were the Christians who were mangled by lions in the Roman Colosseum, or, like St. John Fisher, were beheaded by order of a lecherous king who discarded his wife in sixteenth century England.

The Greatest Need for Priests

This brings us to our final reflection. I make bold to say that the single most important need for Catholic priests is a renewed faith in the Holy Eucharist.

There is an outstanding statement in the Gospels about Christ performing miracles. The evangelists tell us that Jesus could not work miracles among some people because of their lack of faith.

Notice what we are saying. We are saying that the Almighty Master of heaven and earth, the Creator of the sun, moon and stars, when he became Man was unable to exercise His omnipotence because of some people’s lack of faith. Of course, this means that He could not because He would not work miracles where the people refused to submit their minds in humble belief to His Divinity.

Now we turn to our own time and place. Would anyone doubt that in our nation in the last decade of the twentieth century, we need an avalanche of moral miracles to protect the priesthood and the priestly apostolate from the demonic forces let loose in our country today?

Only God can work a miracle, and we need to change the figure - an ocean of miracles in America, and in Canada, as in England, France, Germany, and Scandinavia, to mention just a few materially wealthy countries that are in desperate need of divine grace where so many are walking in darkness and the shadow of eternal death.

Jesus Christ is the infinite God Who became man. He became man not only to die for us on Calvary. He became man to live with us in the Holy Eucharist.

His divine power is accessible in the Holy Eucharist to those, beginning with priests, who have the humility to believe.

Respect for the Priesthood

Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

Christ instituted the sacrament of the priesthood for three reasons, three fundamental reasons. The first reason is so that the Holy Eucharist would be possible. We need the Priesthood in order to have the Holy Eucharist: the Sacrifice sacrament of the Mass; the Communion sacrament of Holy Communion; and the Presence sacrament of Christ’s Real Presence. No priesthood, no Eucharist.

The second reason, which I would like to focus on particularly, lies within the sacraments of forgiveness. Principal, of course, is the sacrament of Confession, where we tell our sins to a priest. This is called auricular confession. As a priest must hear what the penitent is confessing, the sacrament of Confession requires the priesthood. Only in heaven will we know what a precious gift the sacrament of Confession really is. That is why the Church recommends frequent confessions. The Church’s definition of frequent confession is at least every two weeks. St. Ignatius, who wrote the Jesuit constitution, told us Jesuits to go to confession at least once a week. So the second great blessing of the priesthood is remission of sins.

But, it is not only the sacrament of Confession but also the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick which removes sins. Through the sacrament of anointing the priesthood can also enable the forgiveness of sins, including grave sins, and thus the removal of the eternal punishment, which we believe is the consequence of mortal sin.

Over the years I have many times helped priests in hospitals, particularly at night. Depending on the hospital, especially in the downtown part of the city, a priest could be in for a very busy evening. I would tell the doctors and nurses, get me up if a person is brought in for a fatal accident or a murder. The busiest night I had was nine D.O.A. in one night. What is a D.O.A.? Dead On Arrival. That night I didn’t sleep. A person can be anointed as long as a soul is still in the body. Just because a person has stopped breathing, does that mean the person is dead? No. Just because a pulse is no longer moving, does that mean the person is dead? No. Up to eight hours after apparent death a person may still be alive. It happened in Chicago, which can be very cold in the winter. A woman was driving late at night. Her car stalled in below zero weather. She stepped out to look at the car, fell over, and never got back into the car. The police found her eight hours after she collapsed because her watch stopped when she broke it falling on the ground. The police had enough sense to take the woman, a virtual cake of ice, to the hospital. No breathing, no pulse moving, no blood circulation. Then in the hospital they slowly thawed her out. Slowly she began to breath again. For an unconscious person who is near death, the Sacrament of Anointing of the sick can, anytime after the person has lost God’s friendship and provided the person at least has the fear of God, remove both the guilt and the punishment due to sin, especially grave sin and eternal punishment. How I would drill this into the priests I was teaching! So, there are two sacraments of forgiveness instituted by Christ besides Baptism, and they are the Sacraments of Confession (or Penance) and Anointing of the Sick.

There is a third level to what we are saying. There are three great gifts Christ gave to His Church through the priesthood – the Holy Eucharist, forgiveness of sins, and authority. Christ founded the Church on the Apostles. We have authority, of course, in that the bishop of the diocese is to be obedient to the bishop of Rome. In his diocese, the bishop has authority to teach the people to tell them what to do and what not to do. He has a right to command. And always the bishop of Rome has supreme authority. However, even a priest, for example in Confession, has authority to direct the people he absolves. After the penitents have confessed their sins, the priest can tell them how they are to live, what they are to do or stop doing. In other words, the authority which Christ bestowed on His Church is vested in the Sacrament of Holy Orders. Having said that, I cannot tell you how important it is to draw from it some practical implications for our lives.

As we have said, without the priesthood we would not have the Holy Eucharist, we would not have forgiveness of sins, and we would have no authority in the Catholic Church. What are some of the implications? We should pray for priests. I cannot begin to tell you, how and I use the word advisedly, how desperately priests need our prayers. And we should sacrifice for priests. In other words, ask our Lord, by prayer and sacrifice to give priests the grace to be faithful to their priesthood. However, that is not all. Priests need encouragement. And the more faithful a priest wants to be to his vowed commitment, and especially if he is not living as a member of a community, the more encouragement he will need. Ask our Lord to enlighten you on how you, in your own way, can help priests to be of service to others. And never for a moment forget that a priest, no matter how he may talk or behave as a priest, still needs respect for his priesthood from the faithful. In fact, there is nothing he needs more.

How are we to assist priests in this area? By using their services. I cannot begin to tell you how important it is for a priest, what shall I say, to be needed. And a priest’s priesthood must be recognized especially by him because his services are needed. When I say that, I am implying as you can estimate, you should not hesitate to make demands on priests. In other words, give them an opportunity to exercise their priesthood. And this is especially to exercise their priesthood in giving counsel.

There is one more large area that I want to share with you regarding the priesthood. There is now as you know in the Church, and this is a safe term, a crisis. And the crisis, especially, is a crisis in the priesthood. I know. As I have said before in all my years in working for the Holy See, especially for the Congregation for the Clergy, I have come to believe that we might say and we should say, that the priest is one who’s to give us the guidance and direction we need. And pray that priests will give you that kind of guidance and direction. And I know what I am talking about. We must know our own faith, especially the Church’s moral teaching so well that, when necessary, we can help priests so that they will give us the right direction. I have seen much more than you can imagine.

Finally, the more we can use the Sacrament of Confession, the more God will bless the priest through you. What priests need, I have taught so many priests, I know them, what priests need is to hear confessions of people who have only venial sins to confess, because, as a priest I can assure you, a priest’s ministry depends on the people to whom he ministers, only in heaven will you know how you have helped priests to live a holy, obedient, humble and chaste life, by your own lives of humility, obedience, and chastity. I trust you will understand the reason why I am saying what I am saying. Women religious who are faithful to their vowed lives are, I hesitate using the word, indispensable for the sanctification of priests. I repeat you have a great deal, much more than you will ever know until you reach heaven, how much the Church needs sisters who are living a faithful, obedient, patient and chaste life. How many priests you have helped over the years, including this priest who is speaking to you.

Missionaries of Charity transcription

The Catholic Priest in the Modern World: A Living Martyr for His Faith in the Priesthood

Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

You may rightly wonder at the title of this chapter. When I asked what I should speak on, I was told, “The Priesthood.” So I took the liberty of choosing the full title that I just gave you: “The Catholic Priest in the Modern World: A Living Martyr for His Faith in the Priesthood.”

What exactly are we saying? We are saying that for a Catholic priest who wants to be loyal to his priesthood in today’s world, he must resign himself to the life of a martyr. Not a few Catholic priests in the twentieth century have died a martyr’s death including, I am happy to report some 2000 of my fellow Jesuit priests in Communist Spain.

But that is not the focus of our reflection. Be assured that there are two kinds of martyrdoms, the red martyrdom of blood, and the white martyrdom of professing one’s faith with heroic courage in the face of virulent opposition from hostile forces in a society that militates against the Catholic priesthood. We could name a whole catalogue of obvious forces:

• Like the rampant secularism that sees man’s purpose in life as ending with bodily death. On these terms, there is no need of a priesthood whose professed function is to prepare people for eternal life in a heavenly destiny.

• Like the preoccupation with material possessions that typifies what we call developed countries like the United States. There is no material prosperity that comes from the priesthood.

Consequently, as a society becomes more secularized and materially preoccupied, there will be a corresponding lack of interest in the priesthood. Once flourishing Catholic cultures that have become materially wealthy, become proportionally de-Catholicized and, to coin a term, desacerdotalized. Vocations to the priesthood decrease, as departures from the active priesthood increase. As we might add, naturally.

The modern media in societies like our own are, with rare exception, not friendly to the Catholic priesthood. Or, more accurately, the media are friendly in so far as Catholic bishops and priests do not challenge the secular values of a society—like contraception, sodomy or adultery. But once these values are challenged, the opposition is a plain fact of contemporary history.

However, this is not, in my judgment, the main grounds for claiming that a Catholic priest must expect to live a martyr’s life in the modern world. I believe the main reason is the spread of alien ideas in nominally Catholic circles about what exactly is a priest.

Articles in popular magazines, studies in scholarly journals, lectures and seminars and even whole volumes are being published disclaiming that Christ never really instituted the sacrament of Holy Orders.

The key word now is “ministry.” Every baptized Christian, it is said, can be called to the ministry. The call comes from God, but through the people of God. They decide whom they want to serve their spiritual needs. The idea of being specially ordained for the priesthood is becoming a remnant of an outmoded theology.

Let me quote, at length, from a standard book on the subject, by a contemporary writer who is himself a priest.

Ordination as a rite and ceremony that confers power or office does not exist in the New Testament. Ministry does not need to be empowered by mandate or delegation of a superior possessing power. The forms of “ordination” are subject to the dispositions of the churches in any given period of history. Priesthood, as a specific type of ministry, does not exist in the New Testament.

“Ministry,” or diakonia, is a nonsacral word. The early church leaned heavily on this secular term to describe its main ministering activity. Ministry in the New Testament is primarily functional. It is concerned with doing, like teaching, preaching, or governing. The historical Jesus was not a priest.

Once you deny that Christ Himself was a priest, and that He ever instituted the sacrament of the priesthood, you have to provide for some person who is to celebrate at the liturgy of the Eucharist.

Those who deny that Christ ever ordained the apostles as bishops or priests, commonly give the following explanation of what happened in the early Church. But underlying this explanation is that we give up the idea of any real distinction between the laity and the clergy. It must be assumed that this distinction is a later invention and is not found in the New Testament. Here is how the explanation goes:

In the early Church there existed a plurality of church organizations. Some churches were ruled by a committee or council of lay elders. Others were ruled by prophets and teachers. Still others were ruled by traveling apostles. Depending on who was ruling a given church, so the argument runs, different persons would be “eucharistic presiders.” The theology of the early church would demand that whoever presides over the community also preside over the Eucharist. One would assume that the person presiding over the community has arrived at this leadership position because of the leadership qualities discerned by the community. The presider would be the one whom the people have discerned to have the functional competence to be a good liturgist, an effective preacher of the Word and excel in enabling all the pastoral ministries of the community. Such a eucharistic presider would be ordained to call together a community, to continue building community, and then to celebrate it. This presider would be the public embodiment, the living symbol, of the community’s goals and values. As such, the presider would be a sacrament of God’s presence in the community. At the same time, he/she would be a unifying symbol who reconciled the members of the community to God and to each other. He/she would bring order and harmony into the community so that all its ministries would build up the church. This presider, in the prophetic tradition, would also extend the community’s vision to include the whole human community. Finally, he/she would represent the larger institutional church. Despite its human frailty, the institutional church is the visible sacrament of God’s saving grace for all humankind. Neither the Eucharist nor its presider ever become the property of one community. In the immediate future, this eucharistic presider will probably continue to be the diocesan or religious priest who is already ordained. As these priests die, the future presider will have to come from the community’s actual leaders, male or female, married or single. Presiding over the Eucharist will always remain one among many shared ministries to the community.

As you hear these statements, in print, widely circulated, and written by priests, you ask yourself, “Am I dreaming, or is this real?”

My answer is “It is real!”

We begin our reflections with saying that a Catholic in the modern world must be ready to live a martyr’s life for his faith in the priesthood.

What is this faith? It is the faith professed now for twenty centuries.

• That Jesus Christ did institute the sacrament of Holy Orders on Holy Thursday night when He ordained the apostles bishops with the full power of the priesthood.

• That the apostles ordained men bishops and bishops ordained other bishops and priests.

• That from the very dawn of Christianity, it was given to only ordained priests.

• Only priests could offer the Sacrifice of the Mass.

• Only priests could change bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ.

• Only priests could absolve sins in the sacrament of confession and thus reconcile sinners with an offended God.

• Only priests could administer the sacrament of the sick.

Once you believe this, you have no choice. As a priest you cannot deny your faith. All the learned jargon about the lay ministry is just that: jargon.

But those priests who believe they are divinely empowered by Christ to do what no one else can effect.

• Like change bread and wine into the living Christ.

• Like reconcile sinners with their God—such priests will have to pay dearly for their faith convictions. I know! I know!

The Church is going through the worst crisis of her Catholic history. But she will not only survive, she will thrive. On one condition: that we priests be willing not only to live, but to die a martyr’s death for our faith in the priesthood given to us by Jesus Christ on the night before He died. Amen.

What is a Catholic Priest?

Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

What is a Catholic priest? He is a man ordained by Christ to continue the Savior’s work of Redemption until the end of time. He is therefore a person specially chosen to proclaim the Gospel of salvation and lead the faithful to their final destiny. But he is mainly a person who receives unique powers at ordination to consecrate and sacrifice, and to reconcile a sinful people with their God.

As one who proclaims the Good News, a priest is given the grace not only to teach the truths of revelation but inspire his hearers to follow what he teaches. As a leader of believers, he is to be the primary former and sustainer of a Christian community.

What makes a Catholic priest most distinctive, however, and by divine will sets him apart from other men is the power that Christ gives him over the Holy Eucharist and over the sins of mankind.

No one but a priest can change bread and wine into the living Christ. At his words of consecration, what had been bread and wine cease to be bread and wine, so that only the appearances remain. What becomes present is Jesus, the Son of God who became the Son of Mary, now on earth in all the fullness of His divinity and humanity, and with all the qualities that make Jesus Christ who He is.

No one but a priest can offer the Sacrifice of the Mass, in which the same Jesus who surrendered Himself on Calvary now offers Himself in the Mass, through the hands of His priest.

No one but a priest can absolve sinners and restore them to friendship with the Creator whom they have offended.

No wonder the Church is so concerned that priests remain faithful to their high calling. In God’s ordinary Providence, their perseverance is a condition for the perseverance of the faithful. “Like priest like people” is not a clever phrase, but the verdict of almost 2000 years of the Church’s history.

But perseverance in the priesthood is impossible without the grace of God, made available through prayer. Only priests who pray can persevere. The people must also pray, in our day as never before, for the priests of the world. On their fidelity to Christ depends the salvation of more souls than we shall ever know, until eternity.

What is the Catholic Priesthood?

Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

The subject of our present conference is what is the Catholic Priesthood.

Not too many years ago it would have been less important to ask the question what is the Catholic Priesthood. It would have been less important because anyone familiar with the Catholic Church not even though not personally a Catholic would have had a fair idea of what a priest, is. The description might have been crude but at least there was no great doubt in anyone's mind as to who or what a priest was supposed to be.

But things have changed on all sides including some learned Catholic circles we hear opinions that to say the least are not familiar. We are told that a priest is a social worker or a political reformer or an activist or a community organizer or preacher or a proclaimer of the Gospel. And even when these descriptions are not verbalized the conduct of so many priest, some in high political office tells the world at least in America that what ever priest used to be, men specially concerned with the Mass the sacraments and holy faith. They have entered into a new age. Call it the age of sacerdotal liberation. I know, I've taught priests for many years. We therefore return to our question what is the Catholic Priesthood? As the fundamental question that needs to be answered if we are to say anything else significant about those persons whose office the Church still believes is not of human invention but of divine origin. The priesthood is simultaneously four things, it is a sacrament of the new law instituted by Christ, it is a state of life to which some men are called by a special vocation from

God, it is an institution without which there would be no Christianity on earth today. And it is a ministry of the Catholic Church by which Christ continues His own priestly work of saving and sanctifying the souls for whom He shed His blood on Calvary.

The priesthood is a sacrament of the new law until the sixteenth century where there had been errors periodically infecting the Catholic Church some grave errors yet the priesthood was left substantially intact. Then in the time of the Protestant reformation a massive attack was waged against the priesthood in the Catholic Church. And it's affects were so virulent that it has deeply affected Christianity ever since.

To meet this challenge and to defend the Sacred Priesthood the Council of Trent issued a series of solemn definitions each one couched in the formed of anathema. Condemning anyone who held any certain contrary positions. I thought at some length whether I should do it this way. And I thought that I should. I will therefore quote in sequence six formal definitions of the Church each one spelling out and solemnizing defining an article of the undivided Catholic Faith.

Anyone who calls himself a Catholic, must subscribe to these definitions, not to do so is to sever oneself from visible union with the Church of Rome. In these days of wide spread confusion about what is a priest these six definitions should be etched in bronze. I quote them.

First, if anyone says that there is not a visible and external priesthood in the New Testament, or that there is no power of consecrating and offering the Body and Blood of the Lord and of remitting and retaining sins, but says that there is only the office and simple ministry of preaching the Gospel or says that those who do not preach are not priests at all let him be anathema. Second, if anyone denies that in the Catholic Church besides the priesthood there are other orders through which one must pass as to certain steps towards the priesthood let him be anathema. Third, if anyone says that orders or holy ordination is not truly and properly a sacrament instituted by Christ Our Lord or that it is a kind of human invention thought up by men in experienced in ecclesiastical matters or that it is only a kind of rite of choosing ministers of the Word of God and the Sacraments let him be anathema. Fourth, if anyone says by Holy Ordination the Holy Spirit is not given and thus it is useless for the bishop to say receive the Holy Spirit, or if anyone says that no character imprinted by ordination or that he who was once a priest can become a layman again let him be anathema. Fifth, If anyone says that the Sacred Anointing which the Church uses at Holy Ordination is not only is not required but is despicable and harmful just like the other ceremonies let him be anathema. Sixth, If anyone says that in the Catholic Church there is not divinely instituted hierarchy consisting of bishops, priests and ministers let him be anathema.

So much for the definitions. What is the Catholic Priesthood? It is first of all a divinely instituted sacrament that Christ Himself instituted as the same Council of Trent explains at the Last Supper. The Catholic priesthood is a state of life, it follows logically on what the Church teaches that the priesthood is a sacrament that imprints an indelible character. Given that fact it must also be to say the least a permanent state of life. That requires a special divine vocation. Why stress this fact? Because of the large exodus of priests in countries like ours from as they say the active priesthood. In the first ten years since the close of the second Vatican council the exodus in the United States was ten thousand priests. The most devastating, I don't say in the history of our country, there has never been such a massive desacralization of the priesthood, in such a short time in the history of Christendom.

I can do no better in this context but to quote from the opening paragraph the book which you may have read, "A Shepherd without Sheep," published in the fifties by Boyd Barret (?) the Jesuit priest who wandered from 91 the Church and then repented and returned to the practice of his faith. “I have no chapel”, he says, “no altar on which to offer the Holiest sacrifice, no pulpit from which to preach. There is not confessional where penitents await council and absolution from my lips, no baptismal font whereby the sacrament of regeneration I may give to the eternal Father another child. But I am a priest, Christ's shepherd, but I have no sheep”, unquote Barret.(?) Boyd Barret the repentant sinner had no doubt that he was nevertheless a priest.

The priesthood, as priests used to be told and the faithful should know this too. The priesthood is not an occupation; it is not a job; it is not an employment. It is not even a profession. It is the most sublime vocation to which God can call man. And those who respond and are ordained remain priests forever no matter what may happen to their mind or body or even their souls.

We repeat our question. What is the Catholic Priesthood? The Catholic priesthood is that institution which is absolutely necessary for Christianity. That's a large statement that the Catholic priesthood is absolutely necessary for the Church. So that without the priesthood there would be no Christianity left on earth. Remove the priesthood and you remove the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist in the world. Remove the priesthood and you remove the sacrifice of the Mass from the world. Remove the priesthood and you remove Holy Communion from the world. Remove the priesthood and you remove the sacrament of reconciliation from a very sinful world. Remove the priesthood and you remove the sacrament of anointing from the world. Remove the priesthood and you remove the divinely assured teaching of God's revealed truth from the world. In a word without the priesthood Christianity would be a memory but no longer a reality. It would cease to exist on earth in this admittedly, difficult valley of tears.

Once more we ask what is the catholic priesthood? Our final answer is that it is the ministry of Christ continued on earth. No class of persons in the Church have been more often or been more earnestly exhorted by the Popes to recognize their role and to live up to it than priests. No single class of persons had more words addressed directly to them by the Second Vatican Council than the Church's bishops and priests. And no wonder the foundation for this dignity which as we saw is an absolute necessity is those who are priests are in the profoundest sense of the word, continuing the work of Christ on earth. They are engaged in the work that He began and that time and again He told the apostles and to those who they would ordain what He began they were to carry on.

When Pope Pius XI wrote a lengthy and deeply moving encyclical on the priesthood, he wrote to the priests of the world and told them the priest is the minister of Christ – an instrument in the hands of the Redeemer. He continues the work of redemption in all of its world embracing universality and a divine efficacy the work that rote so marvelous a transformation in the world. Thus the priest is with good reason another Christ.

For in some way he is the continuation of Christ. The Mystics use stronger language but expressing the same truth. In one of her dialogues St Catherine of Sienna was told by Christ what He thinks of priests. "They are My anointed ones”, the Savior said, “and I call them My Christs because I have given them the office of administering Me to you. The angel himself, has no such dignity, for I have given it to those men whom I have appointed as earthly angels in this life."

I have a short epilogue. We need to hear this kind of language these days. To remind all of us priests, religious and the laity what the Almighty God has entrusted to weak vessels of clay. Nothing less than the dispensation of Himself and of His mercy to a sinful wandering and weary world. If that's the mystery of the priesthood and it is, there is also the scandal of the priesthood. That God should have endowed, what adjective could I use, weak human beings with so much power and so much poverty. But it is precisely because of this – what I call the scandal of Christ's giving so much to such little people that those of us who are not priests should beg daily the Living God to strengthen this weakness in His priests so that they might be – I don’t say worthy of their office – no one is worthy of his priesthood but that they might not impede the work of the Master who wants to save the 92 world – that is why He died on the cross – but through them. We priests need to hear such language so that we might not be seduced by the world around us and not crushed by the evil spirit whose machinations – so the modern folks are saying – whose demonic machinations are mainly aimed at the Catholic Priesthood, because if as we have seen without the priesthood there cannot be Christianity left on earth. If human beings forget this, the devil does not. He knows as the priesthood goes so goes the Church. Pray that the Christ who ordained might keep us that we might not impede the work of salvation He has put into our most unworthy but priestly hands.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Necessity of the Catholic Priesthood

Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

Our present conference is on the necessity of the Catholic priesthood. Implicit in everything that Father Gerald Fitzgerald thought, wrote and did was his deep conviction that the Catholic priesthood is absolutely and I mean absolutely necessary.

Necessary to carry on the work of Christ's redemption, necessary not just for the well-being but for the continued existence of the Catholic Church, necessary for the corresponding existence of and well-being of Christianity. And in what we may miss, most surprising, necessary for the moral survival of the human race. These convictions of Father Gerald were not his own personal or private ideas, they are part of divine revelation. Predicted by the prophets of the Old Law and made explicit by the Son of God, they are of the essence of Christianity. By way of prelude we might point out that there are vocal and influential voices being heard today being heard and being read that questions or openly challenge, the necessity of the Catholic priesthood as established by Jesus Christ. There are those who would reduce the Catholic priesthood as a merely useful institution.

Those who claim the Catholic priesthood was not established by Jesus Christ but by as rather a later second or even third century innovation of the Church.

Those who see no real distinction between the universal priesthood of the faithful of which St. Peter speaks, and which everyone receives at baptism and the ministerial priesthood received only by bishops and priests when they are ordained to the sacrament of holy orders. There are strident voices now pushing for the ordination of women on this score that the Church has been discriminating against women and that of course includes Christ. He discriminated by not ordaining them. I use the adjective strident consciously. And sadly these voices in not a few circles – not excluding some clerical circles – are being heard.

So much by way of introduction, why go into this most fundamental subject of why the Catholic priesthood – as ordained by Christ – is necessary with all the kinds of necessity we identified at the beginning?

If the importance of speaking of the necessity of the Catholic priesthood has always been worth talking about and reminding the faithful that it's part of our Catholic Faith the importance now is imperative. I have taught to too many priests, I know too many, I council too many not to know that obscurity here, confusion here is bed rock to the crisis in the Catholic Church today. That's a large statement. Let me repeat it. I believe the bedrock to the massive and I don't hesitate calling it the demonic confusion in the Catholic

Church today is doubt or even denial about the necessity of the Catholic Priesthood as instituted by Jesus Christ.

Why, therefore, must we say that there can be no substitute for what Christ did at the Last Supper? In other words, why must there be a Catholic priesthood for the survival of the Catholic Church? Listen. In the times of convolution over the past centuries notably in the sixteenth century the Catholic Church disappeared where the necessity of the Catholic Priesthood was denied. There is no Catholic Church without the priesthood instituted by Christ.

To understand this necessity is to have laid the foundations for a correct appreciation of the Church’s ordained priesthood. We may think well of – we may respect – what is useful but we prize we hold onto with all the force of our being with what we think is necessary. We hold onto with our life's blood what is necessary and the priesthood is necessary for the life's blood of the Church. There is no Catholic Church – underline, encircle, emblazon the word, “NO” – there is no Catholic Church without the priesthood. It is the faith realization of the absolute necessity of the Priesthood that justifies the place, the dignity of the priest in Roman Catholicism. And why the people both torn between their faith and their experience they will respect, honor a priest no matter how humanly speaking, how dishonorable he may become.

It is this necessity that justifies the deep concern of the Church at large and of the faithful for having holy priests because then their sanctity is the visible expression of their necessity. It justifies what justifies the conviction of the necessity of the priesthood. Justifies the crusade of prayers and sacrifices by religious and the faithful for priests, for the conversion of priests who have strayed away, and for their continued and ever growing sanctification.

All of this is in one sense a prelude and in another sense the reason why I thought this conference on the necessity of the priesthood was necessary.

Necessity of the Priesthood

We now address ourselves to the heart of the issue. If the priesthood is necessary what is necessary about it? What is necessary about the priesthood is in the whole world by divine will exercised by the Son of God when He became man there are certain powers that no other human being, no matter how otherwise qualified, and let me tell you there are a lot of people that in so many ways are obviously better qualified humanly speaking than priests.

There are people who are more intelligent than priests – I know I have taught too many priests and lay people too. There are people who are holier than priests, there are people who are better qualified as leaders, leaders in society than priests. But that is not the issue, the issue is whether in their being or as one occasion in having a long conversation with the Lutheran Chaplain while teaching at the state university – we knew each other well. He had his doctorate in theology like I had mine. We talked over a period of months on what is or is there any difference between an ordained minister like himself and a Catholic priest. He did not want to admit that there was any real difference. Or better he couldn't see the difference, so finally I had to ask him. Do you know what the word ontological means? He said sure, ontological has to do with (ontos) the Greek word for being. When you were ordained as you say to the Lutheran ministry were you ontologically different than you were before? He said no! Well, I did!

There is a change in being, a change in ontos, and in its own way as different a change in being as a child before being baptized and then is baptized. It is just not the same person. Now what is it that the sacrament orders confers on the priest that gives the priest the power to do and changes him not only in time but as faith tells us into eternity?

A priest receives the power of offering the sacrifice of the Mass. A priest receives the power to forgive sins. The priest receives the power of exercising authority in Christ's name. Eucharist, Sin, Authority. E. S. A.

Power of the Priest to Offer the Sacrifice of the Mass

First then in virtue of his ordination to the priesthood, the priest receives the power to offer the sacrifice of the Mass. It is really a composite of two powers, the power of transubstantiation and the power of oblation. The power of transubstantiation means that the substance, in Latin substancia, of bread and wine is changed hence trans. That substance is changed into the substance into the living, historical, geographical Jesus Christ. No one else on earth has that power. And the power of oblation the individual consecration separately would not constitute the sacrifice of the Mass. There must be by divine mandate there must be first transubstantiation of the bread and then the transubstantiation of the wine. And Christ's intention which is to become the priest’s intention of thus separately consecration Christ's body and blood constitutes the essence of the Mass. And the oblation that Christ offered on the cross is literally reenacted on the altar. Why? For two good reasons because on the altar is the real body and blood of Christ. And on the altar is Christ with a human will and at the heart of sacrifice is not what is offered – the heart of sacrifice is why it is offered. And Christ's human will no less offered himself in the sacrifice of the Mass just as truly as he did on the cross on Calvary. The power therefore of transubstantiation and oblation in the holy sacrifice of the mass is not – is not – a later innovation. We must believe it's our faith. That what Jesus Christ did at the Last Supper changing as St. Augustine says the bread and wine into Himself in such a way the moment He pronounced the words of consecration Jesus was holding Himself in His own hands. Where did that power come from? It came directly historically from what we call apostolic succession when Christ told His apostles "do this in rememberance of Me" the Church has declared infallibly by that act on the part of the Savior He was transmitting to the apostles who surrounded Him a share in the power He had just exercised. But let’s be clear. I repeat, there are volumes of print and a babble of voices claiming something else. Be not deceived, be not misled. We believe, we'd better believe, that the power which Christ possessed because He was the living God in human form He then had the power to communicate to others. First the apostles – they in turn then communicated the same power to their successors those on whom they laid their hands. So that by the end of the first century of the Christian era, secular unbelieving historians tell us that there were over one hundred dioceses surrounding the Mediterranean world. And by the time of the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD there were hundreds of priests in dioceses and thousands by the beginning of the fourth century and hundreds of bishops who met in solemn conclave at Nicaea.

Power of the Priest to Forgive Sins

What is the second power that we believe that priests and only priests have received from Christ? No less, no less than at the Last Supper only the apostles not even who? Not even the mother of God, she was not ordained by her Son to carry on the power that He had and gave His apostles at the Last Supper. But secondly, No less than Christ conferred only on the apostles and only on their successors the bishops and

95 priests of the Catholic Church did Christ confer the power of forgiving sins in His name and no one else. Faith tells and the Catholic Church has confirmed that the last thing which Christ did before He died He instituted the priesthood in order to make possible the sacrifice of the Mass the transubstantiation of bread and wine into the living Christ. So the first thing that Christ did after His resurrection. Why did He come into the world? Why was He crucified? Why? In order to merit the graces that a sinful world needs to be cleansed from its sins. Very well, the risen Savior with His wounds still fresh we might say in His risen body. Listen, the Church teaches that Christ is now in Heaven in his risen body indeed but with all the wounds He sustained during His passion and crucifixion. Isn't that great? An eternal reminder why God became man. And it was that risen Savior on the night after His resurrection having given His apostles the power to change bread and wine into His living body and blood and reenact the sacrifice of Calvary, He now gave them the second astounding power of forgiving sins in His name. Once again clarity, sharp crystal clear clarity. There are books, how well I know, learned monographs, how well I know. Oh they can talk about the sacrament of penance but they carefully avoid the word confession. When I read a statement of our Holy Father that he gave, He said I prefer the word sacrament of confession to the sacrament of penance. I almost screamed for joy and I have been using it shamelessly ever since.

Let’s be clear and if there is one aspect of the priesthood along with the power of consecration and offering Mass that Father Gerald had no illusions about, it was the power of the priesthood to forgive sins. I repeat, let’s be clear this is no mere declaration of Christ's mercy for the sinner. You don’t have to be a priest, all you have to do is be able to read or speak to tell a person steeped in sin, have confidence God is merciful. So the sinner can say sincerely, thanks I need the reminder. That is not the power which the Church calls the power of the keys.

I may have already said this before there are stories that have happened in my life which bear repeating. Having been on the faculty of six Protestant seminaries. The Lutheran school of theology for seven years. This was at a Baptist seminary. I like to tell this I have in my notes stacks of nine courses in Protestantism that I have taught. You name it I have course in Protestant justification Protestant Christology. Never once was I asked by a Protestant seminary to teach them about Protestantism – isn't that neat? All my courses on Protestantism were taught on request by Catholic seminaries or Catholic Universities. So I was teaching this semester the sacraments to this group of Protestant seminarians and I should add they were getting credit for the course. This class was on the sacrament of penance – change – sacrament of confession. The president of the seminary was there, Dr. Robinson. I was explaining how the faithful are told to tell their sins or grave sins, identify the sin, and be specific about what kind of sin is it. Confess also the frequency – how often did I do it. And you may hold nothing back and the priest gives you a penance and absolution and then the penitent leaves the confessional. Then Mr. Robinson said, “May I say something to the men?” At the time they only had men studying for the ministry. Fellows he said what Dr. Hardon has just told you I know that it is hard for you to understand but Catholic's really believe, they really believe that, when the priest gives them absolution. I could hardly believe my ears when said Dr Robinson, Baptists, when the priest says that I absolve you from your sins in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit Catholic's really believe and he said even intelligent educated Catholic's believe that they are absolved from their sins as though Jesus Himself said, as it is in the gospels "Go in peace your sins are forgiven you."

There are things you hear you never forget. I never forgot that. That's the power of the priesthood. I, I a sinner myself but gifted, though unworthily, with the power that only Christ as God could have. When a priest says I absolve you from your sins, Christ absolves.

Before I finish reflecting on this second power of the priesthood which makes it so profoundly necessary, let's make sure we also are clear about the responsibility of the penitent. Go back to Christ's appearing to the Apostles on Easter Sunday night and He began – couldn't have been a more appropriate salutation, “Peace

96 be with you”. He told them whose sins you forgive they are forgiven them. Whose sins you do not forgive they are not forgiven. Let me repeat, the sins you do not forgive – implying what? That the priest must somehow get some manifestation of the person’s sinfulness. No manifestation, no absolution. Memorize what I am going to say. Even though as the Church over the centuries has always recognized in cases of extreme emergency, plague, on the way to battle, a sinking ship, or for me more than once a real crashing plane. We were not more than one hundred feet above the runway over O’Hare airport in a small plane. When a sudden gust of the strong Chicago wind turned the plane ninety degrees. Everything happened in the plane and everything and if the plane before landing had not tilted back before landing, someone else would be giving this conference but not I. The first thing I do and I have done it more than once I give general absolution to everyone in that plane. I just wish that there was another priest on board to give me absolution.

But barring emergency situation there must be manifestation of sins otherwise zero – no absolution. And even with general absolution it is valid only if the person who in case of emergency receives a general absolution carefully controlled by the Church’s law that person must intend in the next reception of sacramental confession. Must intend and I am speaking of grave sins to the priest in confession. Otherwise the general absolution is invalid. However this power to forgive sin uniquely possessed by the Catholic priesthood is not only in the sacrament of penance it is also in the sacrament of anointing. Go back to the letter of James – anyone sick among you, let him call in the elder. Pardon me. The Church at the Council of Trent has defined that the elders means ordained priests, nobody else. Let them pray over him and if he be in sin they will be remitted him. And the beauty of priestly anointing, if a person is in sin, is that the sins are remitted. On the same minimal condition as in the sacrament of penance all that a person has to have is faith in God and fear of God, that is it. Unlike outside of these two sacraments a baptized person can be forgiven only as we believe by making a perfect act of sorrow animated by the love of God for Himself. I might add not an easy sorrow for a person steeped in sin to obtain.

Power of the Priest to Exercise Authority in Christ's Name

The third power of the priesthood which makes it absolutely necessary. The power of exercising authority in Christ's name. Remove the priesthood from the world and you have removed the divinely instituted authority on Earth to teach divine truth, to rule and to govern the people of God and to sanctify mankind. There are two kinds of authority in the Catholic Church. The distinction is seldom made. There is authority called ordinary authority and there is what is called delegated authority. Ordinary authority is not the common authority or everyday authority. Ordinary authority is the authority that comes from ordination. Vested first in the Apostles always under Peter and the successors of the apostles under the successors of Peter. Everyone else in the Church has delegated authority.

Let me go further, does this authority vested in what we call the magisterium which is adherent in the successors of the Apostles ordained as the apostles were always under the bishop of Rome. Is that authority only, only over those who are I don’t just say Catholics but baptized Christians? NO! Does this priestly Episcopal hierarchical authority obtain for the whole human race? Yes, in everything which pertains to salvation. Let me repeat, the ultimate authority on Earth now over five billion human beings in everything pertaining to salvation, on what God wants men to do to be saved. How they are to obey God, what laws are just and what human laws are unjust and therefore because they are not just they are not binding on the consciences of not just Catholic's but on any human being on Earth. Is there any authority on Earth to make

97 that judgment? Yes! Yes! Yes! And that authority is vested in the priesthood that Christ instituted exercised by the successors of the apostles under the Roman Pontiff.

We've said much more during this understandably lengthy conference. There is so much to say. Are there certain very practical implications. Yes, I have seven in all [that] are part of the extraordinary charism of a man called Father Gerald Fitzgerald.

First implication given not just the importance of the Catholic Priesthood but its divinely ordained imperative necessity. We should understand the Catholic Priesthood and the first ones that should understand their priesthood are bishops and priests themselves. There should be no identity crisis in the Catholic priesthood.

Second implication promote vocations to the priesthood the Church’s strength depends on the strength in mind and strength in will of her priests. As Father Gerald often said like priests like people. Good priests make good people. Promote vocations to the priesthood.

Third implication respect the priesthood because priests can be, how well I know, pathetically human. To see behind the rags morally speaking of a priest who has gone wrong to see behind him and within him a man who Christ Himself ordained and conferred on him the powers we have described.

Fourth implication. Pray, Pray for Catholic Priests that they may live up to their high calling that unlike Judas, they may not betray their Master. Prayer for priests should be the daily and I mean not only once a day more than once a day. First priests should be praying for priests, Religious and members of the millions of the Catholic faithful. How we desperately need, we priests, your prayers.

Fifth. Sacrifice for priests. A priest is one who is to sacrifice. The hard part of the priesthood is not the offering of the sacrifice of the Mass. It is the self-sacrifice that a priest is called upon to make and the more priestly a priest is the more the people of God will use him, will wear him out. Our own Saint John Regis, died hearing confessions, great. We priests are to die standing up and never say enough. But for us to have the grace of so sacrificing ourselves we need the merits of your sacrifices.

Sixth implication assist Catholic priests. This covers an ocean of implications. By definition even though vowed to poverty is to live a poor life. Help, assist, provide services for a priest is not to be a businessman. For me over the years how grateful I am for people in various walks of life. He won't mind me even mentioning his name, Dr. Dolehide, Thanksgiving day I was robbed in the Bronx lost everything I had including all of my medication some of which I need regularly. When I got to Chicago I called up Dr Dolehide and told him what happened. He traveled at least 20 miles from southern Chicago came to where I was staying at eleven fifteen at night with medications. Needless to say he both provided the prescription and he paid for it. Sixth implication assist priests.

Seventh implication encourage priests. We are not only just as human as everyone else, but the evil spirit – how shrewd the devil is – he knows if he can weaken the commitment of a single Catholic priest he has in effect weakened and maybe destroyed the faith of thousands. Given our very human nature we deserve, we deserve to be criticized but please God the main criticism will come from the Christ who ordained us. Having vowed ourselves to a life of celibacy we do not have the natural encouragement that a husband or Father has in the family.

Please God what we've said at such length of the necessity for the Catholic Priesthood would not have been said in vain.

Prayer

Lord Jesus, Great high priest, you have instituted the sacrament of the priesthood in order to continue Your saving work until the end of time. Help us priests to remain faithful to you dear Jesus. Even to our Calvary, as You were to Yours.

Inspire your faithful to realize on faith how necessary we are for their salvation and sanctification so that the faithful we have served and we might enjoy your eternal heavenly priesthood. Amen.

Deacon

Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

Deacon, from the Greek διάκονος; diakonos (servant), is a member of a lower branch of the Christian ministry, below the priest (or presbyter) and bishop. The institution of the diaconate is traced to the laying on of hands described in the Acts of the Apostles (6:1-6). Answering to complaints about partiality in the care of the poor, the Apostles ordained seven men, including Stephen, the first martyr, to serve under the presbyter-bishops. In St. Paul's pastoral letters, deacons are a separate class of officers who were mainly charged with the material cares of the apostolate.

From Pope St. Clement in the first century through the patristic age, the diaconate assumed a broadening variety of ministries, always under obedience to the bishop. During the celebration of the Eucharist, they read or chanted the Epistle and Gospel, received the gift-offerings of the laity, inscribed in the diptychs the names of donors to be prayed for at Mass, helped the priest in distributing Holy Communion or brought the Eucharist to the homes of the sick, led the faithful in congregational prayer, gave….the penitents and catechumens (those still receiving…to leave the church before the Canon of the Mass, and…. the bishop's permission baptized, instructed prospective converts, performed exorcisms, and reconciled those who had "lapsed" during times of persecution.

The number of deacons was at first limited to seven for each diocese, and in Rome the tradition still survives in the seven Cardinal Deacons. Their office of collecting and distributing the alms made them influential in the Christian community. Archdeacons or chief deacons of a locality began in the East, but in the West assumed greater importance as principal administrative officers of the bishops. When abuses crept in, successive councils either restricted the exercise of deacons' powers (Nicaea in 325) or clarified their hierarchical inferiority to the priesthood (Toledo in 633). By the Middle Ages the diaconate was practically reduced to a temporary status, preparatory to the priesthood, although it included such persons as St. Francis of Assisi (C.1181-1226).

Present legislation in the Roman Catholic Church defines the role of deacons as assistants to the priest when he celebrates the solemn Eucharistic liturgy, as substitutes in certain functions, and as preachers and ministers of baptism.

Among Anglicans and Episcopalians a cleric begins his ministry by becoming a deacon; while a deacon, he is forbidden to celebrate the Eucharist or give private or General Absolution or the Blessing. Without special dispensation, he may not enter the diaconate before the age of 23, and generally he remains in the order for one year. In England, archdeacons are administrative officers with a general disciplinary supervision of the clergy and with special authority over the ecclesiastical property of their archdeaconry. They must be in priest's orders for at least six years before assuming office.

In the Protestant churches of America and Europe, the role of the deacon differs widely, but almost universally implies special ordination and a permanent clerical status. Lutheran ministers, though in full orders, are called deacons when they hold a subordinate rank, as second or third preachers or pastors. Calvin recognized two classes of deacons, those who administered alms and those who cared for the poor and sick, and the distinction remains in the Presbyterian churches. In the Baptist communion and churches in the Congregational tradition, deacons may have definite spiritual functions equal to those of a fully ordained minister. The Methodist Church also gives deacons the right to preach, conduct divine worship, perform the marriage ceremony, confer baptism, and administer the Lord's Supper; but the exercise of these powers is limited.

Collier’s Encyclopedia Vol. 7, p. 750

The Eucharist and the Priesthood

Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

The priesthood in the Catholic Church is identified with many things. The priest can be pastor, teacher, counselor, writer, administrator, or social worker; but the main reason he has been ordained is because of the Eucharist.

So true is this that if we would specify the heart of the priesthood we would have to say it is the Eucharist: the Eucharist as Presence and the Eucharist as Sacrifice. Each of these levels of the Holy Eucharist is totally dependent on the priesthood. Without the priesthood there is no Real Presence, nor Eucharistic Sacrifice. But what may be less obvious is that if the Real Presence and the Mass depend on the priest, the priest also depends on them. And I am not sure which dependence is more absolute.

Profession of faith in the Real Presence is the touchstone of Catholic orthodoxy. Those who believe in the Real Presence are Catholics; those who do not, are not Catholics. This Profession is also where a priest’s constant test of faith is to be found.

A priest makes the Real Presence possible and no one, no king, no genius, not even the will of a thousand people, or the combined efforts of a whole nation, can substitute for the power of a priest’s consecrated words: “This is My Body...This is the chalice of My Blood.”

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As the Fathers of the Church do not hesitate to say, there is no less a miraculous change taking place on the altar than took place in the womb of Mary at the moment of the Incarnation. Before she pronounced her words there was no Christ on earth. The moment she did, He took dwelling in her body. The moment before the words of the priest are pronounced over the elements of bread and wine there is just bread and wine. He pronounces the words, and then divine power changes the substance of bread and wine into the very living Body and Blood of the living God.

But the priest’s power to make the Real Presence real is not the same as keeping alive his own faith in what, except for him, would not even exist on earth. The priest must sustain this faith in this same Real Presence. He has no choice. He must spend some time every day before the Blessed Sacrament. If he earnestly does, the more surely will his faith be strengthened and his effectiveness in carrying on Christ's work among souls be increased. Depending on how constantly his faith is nourished at the feet of Christ Whom he brought down on the altar, the more his faith will give faith to those who do not believe, and strengthen the faith of the others whose faith may be weak.

No less than the Real Presence, so the Mass is impossible without the priest. In fact, it is only at the Mass that the Consecration takes place, changing bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. Yet, we know that the Mass is not merely the Eucharistic Consecration. The Mass is not only a means to give us Christ's Presence, it is also Christ's Sacrifice.

The Mass is simply and unequivocally the sacrifice of Calvary repeated, reenacted, re-presented. The Mass reenacts Christ's sacrifice on the Cross. Jesus Christ, really present in His human nature and, therefore, with His human will, is capable of offering Himself no less really now than He did nineteen centuries ago, because the heart of sacrifice is in the will.

Christ's willingness to die, His readiness to shed His Blood, is no less real now than it was when He actually died. As the Church tells us, the only reason He does not die is because being immortal and glorified He cannot die. But the fact that He now has an immortal Body has not deprived Him of a human free will. It is with that will that He re-offers Himself to His Father, not now to merit the grace which had been gained for us on Calvary, but to dispense the grace; to channel what had been gained; to distribute what had been won; to confer that for which He had died.

On Christ's side, the Mass which the priest offers is, as the Church further tells us, unbloody. It is the same sacrifice because it is the same priest, Jesus, and the same victim, Jesus. But no less than as the lips of the human priest make possible the Real Presence, so his words of offering Christ to His heavenly Father and separately consecrating bread and wine make the real sacrifice possible. But the one who is really making the sacrifice is Christ, through the instrumentality, as the Church’s doctrine tells us, of His human priest.

As the Real Presence is to nourish the faith of the priest, so the real Sacrifice of the Mass is to enable the priest to be a priest; one who sacrifices and who is willing to sacrifice himself. A priest must live up to what his name signifies: one who surrenders himself completely as no one else on earth is expected to surrender.

The life of a priest should be a life of continual sacrifice. This means the sacrifice of his time for the people committed to his care. It is really not his time, it is theirs. It means, too, the sacrifice of his talents, the sacrifice of his preferences, conveniences, place of living and form of ministry. It means that a priest is to totally spend himself for the souls that Christ entrusted to his care.

The Church desperately needs priestly vocations, and She will get them on one condition: provided priests are what they are supposed to be, men who do not shrink from hard work, do not hesitate to undergo inconvenience and even pain; men whose one preoccupation is to save souls, to bring back sinners or to elevate the weak and 101 the timid to sanctity; men who in the words of Saint Ignatius fight and ignore the wounds; who labor and ask for nothing except God's love in return. In a word, priests who are not afraid of sacrifice; whose Mass is not only their liturgy but their life. For such priests we should pray, and beg the great High Priest to send such laborers into His harvest.

Monsignor Sawher, A Great Soul

Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

The sudden death of Monsignor Sawher was a great grace to the Archdiocese of Detroit. Monsignor Sawher was a close friend whom I came to know very personally since I came to live in Detroit about nine years ago. My simplest description of Monsignor Sawher is to say that he was a great priest. He was a holy priest, a dedicated priest, a priest whose death is a great loss to the archdiocese.

While offering Mass as concelebrant at Assumption Grotto, I often met with the Monsignor and came to know him well. He was exceptionally reverent in offering the Holy Sacrifice. From this I learned how dedicated he was to the Holy Eucharist as the Sacrifice of the Mass. From the sermons he preached, I learned how fervent he was in practicing devotion to Our Lord present in the Blessed Sacrament and how zealous he was in encouraging the reception of Holy Communion.

When I suggested that he should have his biography written and published, he hesitated on the grounds of not being an accomplished writer. After I persisted he consented to begin the book written by an accomplished writer. Not long before his death he came to tell me that the biography was finished. It is to be published in the near future. It will be a treasure to his deep faith and tender zeal for souls and his unswerving loyalty to the Church founded by Jesus Christ.

I distinctly remember the first time I met Monsignor Sawher. Immediately, he struck me as being the kind of priest that understood what it means to be a priest. In the years that I have known him, I have not seen him dressed except in the priestly garb. He spoke as a priest, dressed as priest and behaved as a priest. His deportment was always priestly.

When he offered the Holy Sacrifice he was careful to pronounce all the words distinctly and reverently. He chanted the melodies with extreme care. His sermons were models of priestly decorum.

In my own half century in the priesthood, I have come to know many priests. I can honestly say that Monsignor Sawher was a model and I can recommend to others that the Catholic Church today needs priests like Monsignor Sawher. His priesthood was an inspiration to the young and educated men to follow.

If a Catholic in any age is going to reach sanctity, he must have priestly models to imitate. He must see men who behave like priests. He must see men who act like priests. My hope for the Archdiocese of Detroit and for the United States is that we will have, what we so desperately need, men like Monsignor Sawher who are priestly priests. This means they must see men who are living their priesthood, which means living lives of sacrifice, as the example of Jesus Christ the Eternal Priest.

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My prayer is that Monsignor Sawher will be an inspiration to countless men throughout the nation. St. John Chrysostom is warrant for the statement that, “the priesthood requires a great soul.” Monsignor Sawher was a great soul. May he rest in peace.

Observations on the Reflections on American Catholicism and Priesthood Today

Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

The following observations are made after a careful reading of Reflections on American Catholicism and Priesthood Today. The author of these reflections has been president of the National Federation of Priests' Council, founded in 1968. The purpose of the federation is, "to give priests' councils a representative voice in matters of presbyteral, pastoral and ministerial concern to the United States and the universal Church."

During these reflections, he begins with a brief analysis of the Catholic Church in America before the Second Vatican Council.

He analyzes the marvelous Catholic institutions in our country, before Vatican II, as largely the result of immigration from Europe. He tells us, "Shunted aside from the mainstream, these immigrants developed their own social structures to carry on the mission of the church (always lower-cased) and to see to their own well- being. From hospital to cemeteries to schools and social clubs, Catholic society paralleled and too often imitated the broader society. The children and grandchildren of those immigrant generations filled the seminaries and convents with men and women who later ran the institutions of this vast social network."

But then, he continues, "Even as these institutions succeeded, they planted the seeds of their own decline."

What were these seeds of decline? They were the seeds of isolation. Inevitably, these immigrant Catholics became Americanized. The author sees this Americanization as progress. There is no hint that by Americanizing, so many believers became de-Catholicized.

Restructuring American Catholicism

Having set the groundwork, the author is ready to propose his master plan. It covers two areas, a shorter one for those present-day Catholic immigrants who are isolated by their segregation and poverty; and the larger area concerning Catholics who have adopted changes from the Second Vatican Council and wish to restructure the Church to conform to the American model.

One Church: Many Ecclesiologies

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As might be expected, the author admits that not all Catholics in America agree with his plans for restructuring the Church in our country. In fact, he believes there is such a diversity of opinion, even on fundamentals of the faith, that nothing less than a rethinking of Catholic doctrine is called for. This rethinking must begin with the priesthood.

There is no way of identifying what exactly the author means by rethinking the priesthood. One thing, however, is clear. He is unhappy because so many Catholic priests in the United States are unhappy, and he is honest enough to identify the five main sources of this unhappiness:

• "The way authority is exercised in the church."

• "Unrealistic demands and expectations of lay people."

• "Too much work."

• "Loneliness of priestly life."

• "Being expected to represent church teachings I have difficulty with."

In the light of the foregoing, it is no secret why the author wants a drastic change in what he still calls the "priesthood."

Only the Lord knows what the author means by "the terrain of American Catholicism." But one thing seems certain. This Catholicism is not that of the Church founded by Jesus Christ.

The Priesthood

Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

Today is the fifty-second year since my ordination to the priesthood. No words of mine can begin to express the gratitude I owe to God for the privilege of exercising the priesthood for more than fifty years. It has been a half century of extraordinary graces that the good Lord has given to this wretched sinner. These graces were never merited by myself, nor could they have been expected when the Lord first called me to follow Him in living out His priestly ministry. They have been years of extraordinary grace that only God can describe, as only He understands what it means to share in His divine ministry.

I thought and prayed about this, and decided to share with you some of the sentiments which fill my mind as I look back at more than half a century of living a priestly life.

The Most Sublime Ministry

Over the centuries volumes have been written about the dignity of the priesthood. Saints and scholars have published literally hundreds of volumes on the subject. But this much I can say. There is no human dignity more

104 exalted. There is no heavenly vocation more sublime than to be called to share in the priesthood of Jesus Christ. What makes this state of life so exalted is its share, literally in the life and death of the Son of God.

When God became man, it was His divinity which literally assumed His humanity. A man, with flesh and blood, exercised powers that no one else but God possesses.

To begin to appreciate the dignity of the priesthood, we must realize that a priest shares, and I mean shares, in the very dignity of God Himself. When Jesus was conceived and born of the Virgin Mary, it was no one less than God Himself who assumed a human nature. He walked and talked like a human being; He looked to all human appearances like another man. But this man was the living God. It was He who existed from all eternity. It was He who existed aeons before the world was made. It was He alone who has to be. He alone who cannot not exist. It was He by whom everything, and the word is everything else in existence came to be. He alone cannot not be.

When God became Man, He chose to become like us in size, and appearance. He looked like a man, spoke like a man, was conceived and born and died like a man. But this Man was the living God. Better this Man is the living God, except for whom no one and nothing else would exist.

Why Did God Become Man?

For two thousand years, those who believe in the Incarnation have asked themselves, “Why did God become man?”

God became man out of love for us. The infinite Creator of heaven and earth became one of us in order to live a human life and die a human death out of love for us. Over the centuries volumes have been written, asking why did God do this? He did not have to become man, even to redeem a sinful world. He became man out of sheer love for the human race.

God chose not only to bring us out of nothing into human existence. He chose not only to live like us as a human being. He chose to become one of us, in order to live and die as a human being to teach us the most sublime lesson that the human race has ever been taught. Love was to become like us in all things but sin, in order to suffer and die like us and thus teach us what love really means.

By now libraries have been written on the Incarnation. Human genius has exhausted itself in penetrating in the mystery of God becoming man. But no words can begin to begin to explain why the infinite Creator of heaven and earth should choose to become a limited creature like us. There is only one possible reason, and that is love.

When the Apostle tells us that God so loved the world that He became a man out of love, we are being told much more than we can begin to comprehend.

God wanted to show us how dearly and deeply He loves us. God wanted to show us what Love really means. Love wants to love, which means Love wants to give itself totally and entirely and completely to the one whom it loves.

That is what God did when He became man. He chose to become like us in all things but sin.

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We use these words and we understand a small fraction of what they mean. But we cannot comprehend their full meaning. We teach in theology that God’s love for us is beyond, not only human but created comprehension.

Love Wants to Suffer

The moment we say this we are touching on a deep mystery. God created the human race which He foresaw would sin and therefore deserve punishment.

On faith we believe that when the angels sinned, they were condemned to everlasting punishment which we call hell.

We are here dealing with mystery, deep mystery, mystery beyond human comprehension.

In allowing the human race to sin, God foresaw that mankind would have to suffer in expiating its sin. Yet mysteriously, and I mean mysteriously, God allowed mankind to sin, sin deeply. It is not as though God needed a sinful human race to teach us the meaning of sin. What God wanted was to enlighten us on how deeply He loves us in allowing us to expiate our sins by loving God more than, shall I say could have loved Him, had we not sinned. We are dealing here with profound mystery. It is the mystery of why God allows human beings to offend their Creator and thus lose the most precious title that we have to our existence, the title to seeing God face to face for eternity.

The importance of this question cannot be exaggerated. We touch on the deepest recesses of our existence when we ask why God allows us to sin.

God allows us to sin in order, dare I say, He can be justified in enabling us to suffer. We can say on faith that, had there been no sin there would be no suffering. But once sin entered the world, then suffering shall I say becomes justified. Sin and pain are correlatives. Had there been no sin, there would have been no pain. Had there been no pain there could have been no experience of pain, which is suffering.

Over the centuries whole libraries have been written about suffering and pain. But beyond these libraries is the deeper, much deeper question, of why, why does God dare I ask allow His rational creatures to suffer? We do not comprehend what we are saying but say it we must. God allows His creatures to sin in order to enable them to show why there is suffering in the world. There is suffering in the world because there is sin. And the deeper the sin, the greater the suffering. Or to reverse the statement, the deeper the suffering, the greater must have been the sin which brought on the suffering.

I could go on for pages. In fact I could at this point begin a book on the mystery of suffering. But one thing we better make clear. Had there been no sin, there would be no suffering in the world. The deeper the suffering, the greater must have been the sin. Except for sin there would be no hell, no lost souls, no demons. Except for sin there would be no pain, no suffering, no agony, no death.

We are here dealing with what is unquestionably the deepest mystery of Christianity. The secret is to believe this. There is no question that we can comprehend it.

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We are here explaining, or better, trying to explain the relationship between love and suffering. We are saying that love wants to suffer. But in saying this, we presume there is sin in the world, deep sin, massive sin, sin that has deeply penetrated the human race.

What do we mean when we say that love wants to suffer? We mean that every loving heart wants to expiate the massive sinfulness that has penetrated the world. But how does suffering relieve this massive sinfulness? It does so by willingly and generously undergoing pain in order to expiate the massive sinfulness that has so deeply penetrated the world in which we live.

In saying this we are expressing a profound, and I mean profound mystery of our faith. Had there been no sin, there would have been no suffering. But given the massive penetration of sin into the whole human race, there must be a corresponding experience of suffering.

What are we saying? We are saying that suffering is inevitable, dare I say suffering is inescapable once we recognize how deeply and widely sin has entered our world.

Needless to say not everyone, what a mild statement, not everyone believes this. We might even say that the only ones who really believe that suffering expiates sin are those who have the true faith. I will go even further. Only in the measure that a person is a believing Christian can he believe that suffering and sin are related as cause and effect. Sin is the cause of all the suffering in the human race, from the dawn not only of human but angelic history to the present day. Sin and suffering are related as cause and effect. Sin is the cause, suffering is the effect. Had there been no sin there would have been no suffering. But given the massive suffering over the ages of human history, there must have been a corresponding cause, which is sin.

We are saying that love wants to suffer. Love wants to suffer in three ways. Love wants to expiate the sins that have so deeply penetrated mankind. Love wants to make up for the lack of love among those who sin. Love wants to relieve the debt of suffering that sinners owe to God. Love wants to give God what sinners are depriving Him of by their sins.

Here we touch on one of the deepest truths of our faith. Given the massive indulgence in sin throughout the world. Given the widespread indulgence in sin throughout the human race. Given the all but universal acceptance of sin by human beings, someone, someone, somewhere must want to undo this massive injustice to God.

That is where we believing Christians, dare I say come into this picture of the human race.

We believe that God became man, so He might be able to suffer, and be crucified, and die the agonizing death on the cross to expiate our sins.

We say we love God. So we do. But God became man in order to be able to suffer out of love for a sin-laden mankind. Should I say it? We love God only in the measure that we are willing, and I mean willing, to suffer. No one else is a faithful Christian. What a statement! Once we believe that sin has penetrated the world, we are also to believe that suffering is part of our human existence.

We believe that God became man in order to be able to suffer. Are we willing, and I mean willing, to suffer with the Son of God, like the Son of God, for the Son of God to join with Him in the redemption of a sinful world? Redemption is meaningless unless it includes suffering. This is our faith. This is our privilege as Christians. This is the great gift we have received from God to join Him who became man to be able to suffer out of love for us.

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This is the priesthood of Jesus Christ. We are privileged to unite ourselves with Him by joining Him in carrying our cross out of love for Him as He carried His Cross out of love for us.

Vatican II Priestly Spirituality

Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

As we approach this immense subject, we should remind ourselves that Pope John Paul II has been the principle spokesman for priestly spirituality in the Catholic Church since the Second Vatican Council. He has spoken or written literally thousands of words, on what priests should be and how they are to exercise their sublime ministry.

In order to do justice to this library of knowledge given to us by the present Vicar of Christ, it will be wise to divide our subject into at least two principal areas. We must first see the priesthood as instituted by Jesus Christ on the night before He died. But then we must look at the trials which face the faithful priest in our day.

The sacrament of orders is so closely associated with the sacraments of the Eucharist and penance that everything pertaining to these unique gifts of Christ to his Church also pertains to the unique powers that only those specially ordained to the priestly office possess.

Yet in our day, as in other significant eras of Catholic Christianity, certain aspects of the priesthood have come under special scrutiny or face extraordinary challenges. In the process of undergoing the reflection and self- understanding that these occasion, the Church has become more aware of what the priesthood really means, and its teaching has taken on a clarity that promises to make this mystery of the faith particularity vital in the years to come.

The ultimate basis for the sacrament of orders is Christ’s own priestly ministry on earth, coupled with the historical fact that He went out of his way to associate others with Him to learn His teachings, acquire His spirit, receive His powers, and thus continue His saving work for the human race.

If we look for precedents to this communicated ministry of Jesus, we find it in the ancient prophets who passed on their prophetic powers to those who would follow them as teachers in Israel. We find it in the priestly castes of the family of Aaron, which by divine legislation passes on its sacerdotal privileges from father to son. We find it in the royal family of David and his descendants, of whom the Messiah was to be born.

Christ made sure that this concept of succession from the past to his time, and from him into the future, was clear in everything he did. His choice of the twelve apostles, who would judge the twelve tribes of Israel, and the very name of “apostles,” as men whom he was sending became the keystone of the messianic community after his Ascension and the descent of the Holy Spirit. Time and again he told the apostles that he was sending them into the world to teach and preach, to baptize and sanctify, to go into the whole world and make disciples of all nations. What he did at the Last Supper, when he told the twelve to continue what He had just performed, and on Easter Sunday night, when he told them to forgive sins in His name, were only the culmination of His entire public life and the logical outcome of what he had been promising to confer since he first called them, one by one, to follow him and he would make them fishers of men.

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DOCTRINAL PRINCIPLES

While there had been questions raised at various times about the nature and function of the priesthood before the sixteenth century, there were not so sweeping or incisive as occurred during the Reformation. It is not surprising, then, that the Council of Trent should have faced the issues raised and left the Church an extensive presentation of Catholic doctrine on the sacrament of orders. What is more surprising perhaps is that the Second Vatican Council, for centuries later, went over the same ground covered by Trent and consciously restates the same doctrine, while adding nuances and highlighting certain features that will call for special emphasis today.

Holy Orders is “truly and properly invention thought up by Christ our Lord.” It is not a mere “human invention thought up by men, a kind of rite of choosing ministers of the word of God and the sacraments.” Ordination is not simply an installation of Church leaders or administrators of the sacraments.

When the bishop pronounces the words “receive the Holy Spirit,” there is a special conferral of divine gifts, in such a way that the sacramental “character is imprinted by ordination.” As a consequence, it is impossible that a man “who was once a priest can become a layman again.” The process of laicization, as it is called, whereby a priest is dispensed from certain priestly duties and, if he had been a celibate, may even be allowed to marry, does not mean that he is literally reduced to the lay state. This cannot happen because the Catholic Church believes that the priestly character is indelible and therefore unchangeable. One of two things may occur, however, depending on circumstances. More commonly the still remaining priest is given a dispensation from priestly obligations if he agrees to not exercise his priestly ministry, and may thus publicly not be recognized for what he really is. Or more rarely his ordination ritual may be declared null and void, for extraordinary reasons – not easily provable – such as the absence of genuine intention to become a priest.

The basis of sacramental orders is its origin, not only that somehow God inspired the Church to create the sacrament, but that the priesthood is truly a revelation of the New Testament. The Catholic faith, therefore, excludes any such explanation as the following:

That there is not a visible and external priesthood in the New Testament, or that there is no power of consecrating and offering the body and blood of the Lord, and of remitting and of retaining sins, but says that there is only the office and simply ministry of preaching the Gospel, or says that those who do not preach are not priests at all.

In the Catholic understanding of the priesthood, the “cultic” or liturgical elements are so fundamental that they constitute the essential difference between those who are and those who are not possessed of sacerdotal powers.

One more feature of holy orders, which at least partially accounts for the name “orders,” is the different levels or grades of ordination recognized in the Church. At this point, the Second Vatican Council introduced a number of clarifications and also innovations that typify a doctrinal development of the faith.

Priestly Spirituality, The Spirit of Martyrdom

What exactly are we saying? We are saying that for a Catholic priest who wants to be loyal to his priesthood in today’s world, must resign himself to the life of a martyr. Not a few Catholic priests in the twentieth century have died a martyr’s death including, I am happy to report, some 2000 of my fellow Jesuit priests in Communist Spain.

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But that is not the focus of our reflections here. We know that there are two kinds of martyrdom, the red martyrdom of blood, and the white martyrdom of professing one’s faith with heroic courage in the face of virulent opposition from hostile forces in a society that militate against the Catholic Priesthood. We could name a whole catalogue of obvious forces:

• Like the preoccupation with material possessions that typifies what we call developed countries like the United States. There is no material prosperity that comes from the priesthood.

Consequently, as a society becomes more secularized and materially preoccupied, there will be a corresponding lack of interest in the priesthood. Once-flourishing Catholic cultures that have become materially wealthy, become proportionally de-Catholicized and, to coin a term, desacerdortalized. Vocations to the priesthood decrease, departures from the active priesthood increase. As we might add, naturally.

The modern media in societies like our own are, with rare exception, not friendly to the Catholic Priesthood. Or, more accurately, the media are friendly in so far as Catholic bishops and priests do not challenge the secular values of a society—like contraception or sodomy or adultery. But once these values are challenged, the opposition is a plain fact of contemporary history.

However, this is not, in my judgment, the main grounds for claiming that a Catholic priest must expect to live a martyr’s life in the modern world. I believe that the main reason is the spread of strange ideas in nominally Catholic circles about what exactly is a priest.

The key word now is “ministry.” Every baptized Christian, it is said, can be called to the ministry. The call comes from God, but through the People of God. They decide on whom they want to serve their spiritual needs. The idea of being specially ordained for the priesthood is the remnant of an outmoded theology.

Let me quote, at length, from a standard book on the subject, by a contemporary writer who is himself a priest.

• Ordination as a rite and ceremony that confers power or office does not exist in the New Testament. Ministry does not need to be empowered by mandate or delegation of a superior possessing power. The forms of “ordination” are subject to the dispositions of the churches in any given period of history. Priesthood, as a specific type of ministry, does not exist in the New Testament.

• “Ministry,” or diakonia, is a consacral word. The early church leaned heavily on this secular term to describe its main ministering activity.

• Ministry in the New Testament is primarily functional. It is concerned with doing, like teaching, preaching, governing.

• The historical Jesus was not a priest.

Once you deny that Christ himself was a priest, and that He ever instituted the sacrament of the priesthood, you have to provide for some one person who is to “provide” at the liturgy of the Eucharist. 110

Those who deny that Christ ever ordained the Apostles as bishops or priests, commonly give the following explanation of what happened in the early Church. But underlying this explanation is that we give up the idea of any real distinction between the laity and the clergy. It must be assumed that this distinction is a later invention and is not found in the New Testament.

Here is how the explanation goes:

In the early Church there existed a plurality of church organizations. Some churches were ruled by a committee or council of lay elders. Others were ruled by prophets and teachers. Still others were ruled by traveling apostles. Depending on who was ruling a given church, so the argument runs, different persons would be “eucharistic presiders.” The theology of the early church would demand that whoever presides over the community also presides over the Eucharist. One would assume that the person presiding over the community has arrived at this leadership position because of the leadership qualities discerned by the community. The presider would be the one whom the people have discerned to have the functional competence to be a good liturgist, an effective preacher of the Word and excel in enabling all the pastoral ministries of the community. Such a eucharistic presider would be ordained to call together a community, to continue building community, and then to celebrate it. This presider would be the public embodiment, the living symbol, of the community’s goals and values. As such, the presider would be a sacrament of God’s presence in the community. At the same time, he/she would be a unifying symbol who reconciled the members of the community to God and to each other. He/she would bring order and harmony into the community so that all its ministries would build up the church. This presider, in the prophetic tradition, would also extend the community’s vision to include the whole human community. Finally, he/she would represent the larger institutional church. Despite its human frailty, the institutional church is the visible sacrament of God’s saving grace for all humankind. Neither the Eucharist nor its presider ever become the property of one community. In the immediate future, so it is claimed, this eucharistic presider will probably continue to be the diocesan or religious priest who is already ordained. As these priests die, the future presiders will have to come from the community’s actual leaders, male or female, married or single. Presiding over the Eucharist will always remain one among many shared ministries to the community.

As you hear these statements, in print, widely circulated, and written by priests, you ask yourself, “Am I dreaming, or is this real?”

My answer is “It is real!”

We begin our reflections with saying that a Catholic in the modern world must be ready to live a martyr’s life for his faith in the priesthood.

What is this faith? It is the faith professed now for twenty centuries,

• The Jesus Christ did institute the sacrament of Holy Orders on Holy Thursday night, when He ordained the apostles bishops with the full power of the priesthood.

• That the apostles ordained men bishops and bishops ordained other bishops and priests.

• That from the very dawn of Christianity, it was given to only ordained priests.

• Only priests could offer the Sacrifice of the Mass. 111

• Only priests could change bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ.

• Only priests could absolve sins in the sacrament of confession and thus reconcile them with an offended God.

• That only priests could administer the sacrament of the sick.

Once you believe this you have no choice. As a priest you cannot deny your faith. All the learned jargon about the lay ministry is just that: jargon.

But those priests who believe they are divinely empowered by Christ to do what no one else can effect

• like change bread and wine into the living Christ

• like reconcile sinners with their God-such priests will have to pay dearly for their faith convictions. I know! I know!

Conclusion

Priesthood in Christian Unity

Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

One of the most heartening features of the ecumenical movement among Christians separated from Rome is their re-examination of the status of the priesthood in the full concept of the Church, and their sincere desire to restore something of that priestly heritage which they lost at the time of the Reformation.

Needless to say this has considerable bearing on the reaction that the current movement towards Christian unity should evoke from the Catholic clergy. One of the reasons for the Reformation in the sixteenth century was the conduct of the clergy who professed to be Christian but denied that profession by their lives. To reverse history, the opposite has to take place, and no amount of learned discussion or ecumenical symposia can substitute for this indispensable need. The priest must show forth to the world which is not, and that he would like to have, united with the See of Peter--the evidence of holiness and the proof of apostolic zeal which speak more eloquently than words that Christ's mission of sanctification was entrusted through the apostles to the priesthood in the Catholic Church.

It should be a source of inspiration to grow in the likeness of Christ to know that more than ever in the past four hundred years the eyes of the non-Catholic Christian world are looking with close scrutiny at the conduct of priests, either to confirm their suspicions or change their convictions. Protestants have a long memory, and their 112 classic authors are being studied as never before. In the latest (1960) critical edition of Calvin's Institutes is a graphic description of the condition of the clergy that, in his own words, cried to heaven for reform. It is the only cogent argument Calvin gives to disprove the divine origins of the Catholic priesthood.

What if we proceed to their morals? Where will that “light of the world” be that Christ requires? Where will that “salt of the earth”? Where that holiness which is, so to speak, an abiding standard of life? Today there is no order of men more notorious in excess, effeminacy, voluptuousness, in short, in all sorts of lusts; in no order are there masters more adept or skillful in every deceit, fraud, treason and treachery; nowhere is there as great cunning or boldness to do harm. There is scarcely a bishop, and not one in a hundred parish priests, who, if his conduct were to be judged according to the ancient canons, would not be subject to excommunication or at least deposition from office. I seem to be saying something unbelievable--so far has that former discipline fallen into disuse which enjoined a more exacting censure of clergy; but this is entirely so. Let those who serve under their banners and protection of the Roman See go now and boast among themselves of the priestly order. The order that they have, it is clear, is neither from Christ, nor from the Apostles, nor from the Fathers, nor from the ancient Church. [1]

If this was the stock in trade of the Reformers, who argued from moral decadence in the clergy to a revolution in the dogmas under clerical control, the modern situation seems to be inverting the process. Among the areas of return to pre-reformation status currently urged among leading Protestants in Europe and America is some form of sacred ministry that rises above the role of a mere functionary and offers the people an approximation of the priesthood. The old bias against sacerdotalism has by no means disappeared, and the degree of “compromise” with Catholic doctrine differs widely, but the trend is unmistakable as one aspect of the ecumenical movement that deserves much more attention that it has received. Indeed, unless this tendency is recognized by Catholics and encouraged by their word and example, a cardinal issue that divides Catholic and Protestant Christianity will not be resolved.

Concept Of Sacrifice

One of the liveliest questions discussed by the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches is the sense in which Eucharistic worship may rightly be considered sacrificial. Theologians in the evangelical and reformed traditions are perfectly conscious that Luther and Calvin rejected this idea on the ground that the sacrifice of Calvary had been offered once for all and was not to be repeated. But Protestant studies of both the New Testament and the patristic evidence have led to a reopening of the question, and it is asked whether sacrificial language does not appear in a new light when the idea of re-presentation replaces that of repetition, and when communion and offering are seen as two sides of the same thing.

With rare exception among the Anglicans, post-Reformation orders of worship contain almost no trace of this conception of sacrifice. Now it is being asked whether this should be remedied, and the sacrificial character of Holy Communion receive its due emphasis.

Doubt is cast upon the interpretation of the Epistle to the Hebrews traditional in Calvinist Churches, according to which the sacrifice at the heavenly altar is held to imply the abolition of sacrificial practice on earth. The Epistle is interpreted as justifying the idea, traditional in orthodox liturgical worship, that in the Eucharist the crucified, risen and ascended Lord unites His worshippers with Himself in His eternal self-offering to the Father. [2]

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Strong objections are raised against interpretation along these lines, notably among the Reformed Churches and among evangelical elements in the Church of England. They maintain that the only sense in which the word sacrifice can be rightly used of Eucharistic worship is to describe an offering of praise and thanksgiving in gratitude for the blessings received from the one sacrifice of Christ on Calvary. In no sense whatever, according to the conservatives, should we think of Christ offering Himself to the Father, and nothing in the words or actions of liturgical practice should even suggest the idea.

Although the objectors are numerous and their arguments have weight to support the traditional view, they are being answered from within their own ranks by dedicated Calvinists who call for a radical change. The protest of the Reformation, they explain, was directed against the abuses of the Church of that time above all against the concept of merit, “which was actually even promised for the sacrifice of the Mass,” against traffic in religious commodities and the low moral conduct of the clergy. “So it came to the abolition of the office of priest, however long the expression itself remained current. The offertory was cut out of the order of the Mass and altars were broken down,” but with the result that “the idea of the Altar proved to be ineradicable.” Priesthood and altar, then, were set aside. “But has attention really been given to what the Scripture has to say about both? The sacrifice of our Lord once for all on Calvary was emphasized. As at one time against the Gnostics, the historicity of this sacrifice has rightly been underlined. Yet a solitary historical fact can be so tied to its place in history that it sinks into the past with just that place and hour.” This was a mistake.

When the Church of old conceived the idea of the Mass as representing the sacrifice of Calvary she intended to express something true. She knew the meaning of the anamnesis (Christ's words of Institution). Zwingli, too, spoke of the representation of Christ's work of salvation fidei contemplatione, and therefore of the realization of the sacrifice of Christ. Unfortunately, since his time this experience has not been made fruitful. The Church does not simply remember the death of the Lord; she “represents” the sacrifice itself, letting herself into the suffering and death of Christ, into His obedience. In that way she proclaims His death “until He come.” The same is true of the priesthood. What is the biblical priest? Neither preacher nor teacher, but he who offers the sacrifice, i.e., of God's love. He is there for the others, their servant for Christ's sake. He is intercessor, too, and God's instrument in the work of forgiveness and of redeeming love. [3]

If the language of this new approach to sacrifice and the priesthood is still Protestant, the attitude behind it is clearly pre-reformational. Nor is it limited to theological exposition, but has found expression also in a revised Calvinist ritual. The new liturgies of Lausanne and Geneva have given a liturgical form to the collection of gifts for the Church. For the first time an offertory is introduced and concluded by appropriate words pronounced by the officiating minister, and the Lausanne ritual specified that the alms should be placed on the Holy Table with a sacrificial prayer.

More significantly, one of the new Genevan formularies for the Lord's Supper brings back the pre-Reformation scheme of the Eucharistic canon, and supplements the words of consecration with a statement that was unknown in Calvinist liturgy until modern times.

We remember, then, O our God, the sufferings and the death of Thy Son. His Resurrection and His Ascension, and while awaiting His return, we praise Thee for having regarded the sacrifice which He offered on the Cross once for all, and accepted His perpetual intercession on our behalf in the heavens. Receive also the homage of our hearts which offer themselves to Thee and consecrate themselves to Thy service in a living and holy sacrifice. [4]

Reformed liturgists point out this is the first time in their history that “the great theological idea so familiar to Catholics finds entry, though as yet in embryonic form,” namely, the idea of a mystical relation between the

114 liturgical act of the Lord's Supper and the eternal oblation which Christ the High Priest continually makes of His death to the heavenly Father.

Function Of The Sacraments

Comparable to the changing climate as regards the Eucharistic sacrifice is a new esteem for the sacramental system that Protestants on every dogmatic level are discovering.

Paul Tillich could hardly be accused of softness toward Catholicism or of compromising on what he considers the essence of Protestantism, namely the claim to stand in judgment on every human agency and institution in the name of God. Yet in his treatment of “nature and Sacrament” Tillich is sharply critical of his coreligionists for going too far in the laudable effort to strip the Catholic sacraments of their ex opere operato attributes. He regrets that “most of the sacramental features of the Catholic tradition have been radically questioned by Protestantism; indeed, they have been abandoned on Protestant soil.” The consequences have been disastrous.

The process of reduction has not stopped with this. In the course of its history Protestantism has become so indifferent to sacramental thinking that even the two remaining sacraments (Baptism and the Lord's Supper) have lost their significance, with the result that only the word has retained a genuinely sacramental character. In the revival of Reformation theology in our day, the word plays an immense role, whereas the sacraments play no role whatsoever. It is fairly evident that the Protestant sacraments are disappearing. To be sure, they can still have a long life simply because of the conservative character of all sacral forms. And then, too, renaissances of one sort or another are by no means beyond the range of possibility. But the one thing needful is that the whole Protestant attitude toward the sacraments be changed. [5]

To his mind, “the phenomenal growth of secularism in Protestant countries can be explained partly as a result of the weakening of the sacramental power within Protestantism.” And while he does not suggest a return to the “magical sacramentalism” of Rome, he urges the solution of a problem on which, he says, “the very destiny of Protestantism depends.” No living religion can survive, once it loses faith in the power of natural elements to symbolise and in some mysterious way communicate the divine energy.

Another American theologian, Robert McAfee Brown, confesses that the Reformers had a relatively negative attitude toward the sacraments, which needs to be balanced by one that is more positive. He sees in such positivism one of the hidden resources for a renewal of the true spirit of Protestantism.

A proper Protestant concern for the sacraments offers a further resource for a positive approach to culture. It can be argued that a high doctrine of culture will go hand in hand with a high doctrine of the sacraments, and that where the sacraments are belittled, the Christian appreciation of culture will likewise suffer. The Roman Catholic stress on the sacraments may well be one of the reasons why Roman Catholicism has usually had richer cultural concerns than Protestantism. Without going the full length of accepting all that Catholics teach about sacramental activity, acknowledgement of deficiency on this crucial point “can prod us to examine ways in which a Protestant understanding of the sacraments can contribute to a Protestant appreciation of culture.” [6]

If this concession from a Presbyterian source seems mild, other denominations are more explicit in their newly found reverence for the sacraments and a new desire to implement their use among the faithful. Lutherans are going back to their Symbolical Books, sifting out of them every favorable reference to the sacraments, dropping

115 or re-interpreting statements critical of sacramental efficacy and, in general, leaving the impression of searching for a substance that belongs to the Christian faith.

In 1952 a composite study was made of “What the Symbolical Books of the Lutheran Church Have to Say about Worship and the Sacraments.” It is a revealing document. Arguing that the number of sacraments varied with different theologians down to the end of the Middle Ages, Lutherans find that the Symbolical Books-- Luther's Catechisms, Augsburg Confession, Formula of Concord, and the Smalcald Articles--commit themselves to no specific number. Two new sets of terms are introduced, “major-- minor,” and “essential-- secondary,” to describe the difference between the traditional Catholic number of seven and the ordinary Protestant idea of only two sacraments.

As a result, all seven sacraments are somehow replaced within the ambit of Lutheran theology. Two sacraments are essential, Holy Baptism and the Sacrament of the Altar, to which is added “the sacrament of Repentance” as a third “major” sacrament. Moreover the Symbolical Books are said to “expressly concede the designation of sacrament to Holy Ordination.” But then a curious admission that “the minister of the Sacrament of Order may, but need not be, except for the sake of love and peace in the Church, in bishop's orders. Episcopacy is not a universal, apostolic tradition.” [7]

The stand on Holy Orders reflects a growing tension in the Lutheran Churches between the Romanizing and Evangelical elements. The former argue to the need for a full-blown episcopacy, with power to ordain coming directly from the institution by Christ; the latter would have ministers remain what Protestant tradition has made them, delegates of the people who have no intrinsic sacerdotal power beyond the common possession of all baptized Christians.

Matrimony is likewise admitted, “with qualifications,” to belong among the sacraments. “Wherefore, if anyone wants to call it a sacrament, he ought still to differentiate it from the preceding ones.” While Confirmation and Holy Unction require a special apology, nevertheless they also “could be called sacraments…in an improper sense of the term,” as “rites received from the Fathers, which even the Church does not require as necessary for salvation.” [8]

True to Reformation principles, the sacraments are said not to confer grace ex opere operato, but in explaining what this means Lutherans defend the baptism of children before the age when they can furnish the ex opere operantis, on the score that “if God did not accept the Baptism of infants. He would not give the Holy Ghost nor any of His gifts to any of them.” [9] Since He does, therefore Baptism must take effect even without a positive contribution on the part of the child baptized.

Illustrative of the increased sacramental awareness in Protestantism and its parallel desire for more than a functional ministry is the mounting literature on the subject of “sacramental healing,” as a counterpart to the sacrament of extreme unction. The Pentecostal groups on the basis of a very literal acceptance of Scripture have made healing an integral part of their church life. Many ministers in the Episcopalian Church have adopted anointing and prayer for the sick, and in the 1928 revision of the American Book of Common Prayer was introduced the optional ritual for “Unction of the Sick.” The rubric reads, “When any sick person shall in humble faith desire the ministry of healing through Anointing or Laying on of Hands, the Minister may use such portion of the foregoing office (for the sick) as he shall think fit, and the following.”

O Blessed Redeemer, relieve, we beseech Thee, by Thy indwelling power, the distress of this Thy servant. Release him from sin, and drive away all pain of soul and body, that being restored to soundness of health, he may offer Thee praise and thanksgiving, who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.

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I anoint thee with oil (or I lay my hand upon thee). In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; beseeching the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all thy pain and sickness of body being put to flight, the blessing of health may be restored unto thee. [10]

However, not only Episcopalians but others, like the Presbyterians, advocate and occasionally practice “anointing of the sick.” The reasons for considering this a sacrament are drawn from the Bible.

A sacrament is an ordinance enjoined by our Lord Himself, in which a visible element is used as the sign and seal of the reception of a spiritual blessing. In the New Testament we find Jesus sending forth His disciples to anoint in Mark 6:13, as He sent them to baptize in Matthew 28:19, and we find the elders of the Church anointing with oil and praying for the sick in James 5:13-16. The visible element is the oil, which in Scripture is a sign of the Holy Spirit. This oil is communicated by the hands of the pastor, and the laying on of hands is a scriptural symbol of the communication of the power of the Holy Spirit. In answer to a possible objection, “Healing is most assuredly a spiritual blessing for two reasons: first, it comes through the Holy Spirit; and second, it is ordinarily accompanied by a sense of forgiveness. In these two aspects, sacramental healing is similar to sacramental Baptism and the sacramental Lord's Supper.” [11]

Clergy And The Laity

Ingrained in Protestantism is the notion of a universal priesthood of all believers. The magna charta of this theory is Martin Luther's Appeal to the German Nobility, made in 1520, when he declared, “there has been a fiction by which the Pope, bishops, priests and monks are called the 'spiritual estate'; princes, lords, artisans, and peasants are the 'temporal estate.' This is an artful lie and hypocritical invention, but let no one be made afraid by it, and that for this reason: that all Christians are truly of the spiritual estate, and there is no difference among them, save of office.” [12]

But much has happened since that declaration. By returning to the Bible the Reformers found there that Christ is the only Head of the Church, ruling the whole Church by His Spirit. They thus eliminated all gradation of powers, rights, and authority, and were determined to have done with the system of a hierarchy and the identification of the Church with the priestly-sacramental clergy. The Church for them was a body of believers and forgiven sinners.

In reorganizing the Church, however, their main attention was to avoid and remove what they considered flagrant abuses and corruptions of the dominant system. So that many Protestants feel “the Reformer's thinking on the Church did not become fully Biblical, because quite understandably in the stress and heat of battle it was strongly determined by protest and polemics. Moreover, Luther's defiant words, that every baptized Christian had the power which the Pope, bishops and priests had, hid some pitfalls.” [13]

Along with its opposition to the radical distinction between the clergy and laity, the Reformation also laid heavy stress on correct “pure” teaching as the sustaining nourishment of the Church, which required a specially qualified group of bearers of this office. At the same time, at least two of the sacraments were retained, and their administration in practice, if not in theory, was reserved for ministers. There consequently arose within Protestantism “an inner ambiguity in the whole conception of the 'ministry,' because on the one hand it tended toward a re-establishment of a kind of clergy, whereas on the other hand the abolition of the distinction between 'clergy' and 'laity' was, at least in principle, maintained.” [14]

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Ministers continued to be ordained as before, and the dividing line between the people and the clergy remained substantially unchanged. No doubt laymen acquired status in the Protestant Churches, which they never enjoyed under Rome, and the degree of lay control of church policy and doctrine became more or less, depending of how consistently the basic theory of a universal priesthood was applied. But the essential difference stayed, and no amount of theorizing to the contrary had altered the fact.

Two vastly different trends are now seen among Protestant theologians in reacting to the status quo. Some are indignant that after four hundred years the Churches still show the practical recognition of a secondary status of the “laity” in comparison with the ministry, the breeding of passivity in the laity as a whole, and stressing the importance of “office” and “ordination” among the clergy. This reaction is most prominent in the Free Church and Congregational traditions, where creedalism is least important and the local churches have ultimate authority.

Another and more dominant reaction has been to recognize the facts of history, admit that persistence of a clerical order answers to an inner religious need, and seek to restore the meaning of the ministry to something of its status before the Reformation. This trend is visible in practice by the amazing proportion of transfers from non-episcopal Churches (Baptists, Disciples of Christ, Congregationalists) to Protestant Churches, which maintain a historic episcopate (Methodists and Episcopalians). Fully one-half the clergy of the Protestant Episcopal Church has come to it from other denominations, whereas one seldom hears of the reverse. Observers see in this a clear sign of restlessness throughout the Protestant world for some adjustment to traditional, i.e., pre-Reformation, positions on a historic episcopate.

This is further reflected in the unprecedented rise among the non-episcopal traditions of what some have called “pseudo-bishops.” There has been extensive development in Presbyterianism of the extra-constitutional office of General Presbyter or Presbytery Executive. Field secretaries, synodical presidents, ministeriurn chairmen, and similar officials have gradually developed in Churches that until recently kept aloof from anything resembling a hierarchy. The current movement to unite with the Episcopalians elicited a widespread response among Presbyterians favoring merger, on the grounds that in this way the Churches of John Calvin would regain a hierarchical structure. “Contemporary and historical experience,” it is said, “would seem to indicate that some form of episcopal order is 'natural' to the Church,” and “in any visibly catholic Church, such is inevitable.” Assuming that Presbyterians want visible unity, “surely the most expressive and feasible way of setting forth the visible catholicity of the local congregation is for it to be closely related to a fairly local bishop.” The character of this desired hierarchy is further delineated.

Such an episcopacy would of necessity have to be historically related. It would have to be an elected office, though thoroughly stable, and one vested with considerable authority in congregations, and also between congregations. It should be an episcopacy free to draw upon the riches of episcopal practice or not, as in the United Church of South India. And such an episcopacy could form a national synod, together with houses of laity and parochial clergy, to supervise--again with some authority--any program or executive emphasis. But above all else, this would be episcopacy that would become the focus of the catholicity, the visible catholicity, which in the signs of the times seems to be an imperative for the Church in our own day and time. [15]

In the light of these and similar re-appraisals of the centuries-old theology of the Reformation on the universal priesthood of the laity, we are less surprised to find periodic signs of respect or of what Reinhold Niebuhr called “envy” of the Catholic strength in unity under a corporate hierarchy terminating in the papacy. A little- publicized commission of the Church of England made a lengthy report to the Archbishop of Canterbury (Geoffrey Fisher), in which it stated that

The easy way in which the Reformers simply wrote off the Papacy even as a possibility, illustrates the extent to which they ignored from the outset both the New Testament doctrine of the Universal Church as an inherent 118 part of the Gospel, and the inheritance of the Divine-human society in the here-and-now of history. If such an institution as the Universal Church is to exist, as more than a sentiment and an ideal, then some such central institution would seem to be more than just a convenience. It is at least a pragmatic necessity. [16]

Equally challenging sentiments are heard among the Evangelicals in Europe and lately in America. “Evangelical Christendom,” the leaders of the German Sammlung state in their declaration of principles, “must learn that the Bishop, having at their head the possessor of the Petrine office, make decisions with the authority of the Holy Ghost, which are binding in conscience for the individual Christian.” [17]

For the first time since the Reformation a large and influential segment of Protestantism is examining one of its major premises, that by divine foundation the Church of Christ is not composed of two distinct categories, the clergy and laity, nor subject, under God, to a visible authority vested in the bishop under the successor of St. Peter. The examination going on is not sporadic but has been growing in significance since the turn of the century, when the present World Council of Churches was first conceived. Its implications for Christian unity are momentous, and one of the functions of the Second Vatican Council is to give this generous self-appraisal the encouragement and direction it deserves.

An Interview / Easylin

Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

Catholic Twin Circle (CTC): How do media portrayals of priests color the publics perception of them — considering both the news media and fictional portrayals on television and in the films?

Fr. John Hardon, S.J.: Media portrayals of priests are consciously biased against the Catholic priesthood. With rare exception, the secular media portray the Catholic priest as: unhappy in his priesthood, dissatisfied with the Church’s law requiring celibacy, and critical of the Pope and the Vatican. Those who leave the active priesthood are given wide coverage and almost unlimited opportunity to ventilate their criticism of the Catholic Church’s antiquated authoritarianism. Catholic priests who are in the active priesthood but hostile to the Church’s teaching are canonized by the secular media. They are especially given free rein to tear down the Church’s unchangeable teaching on abortion, contraception, and homosexuality.

CTC: Please comment on the general mood of the U.S. priests today. Is it, on balance, one of enthusiasm or disappointment?

Fr. Hardon: On balance, the general mood of U.S. priests is positive. Basically it depends on the priest’s own faith in his priesthood. Priests whose faith is strong are suffering from the widespread secularization of American society. But they are not unhappy. Those with deep faith in their priesthood are under no illusion about the price that a loyal priest has to pay to remain firm in his priestly commitment.

CTC: Are American priests in a transition period?

Fr. Hardon: I would not speak of a transition period, but rather of a purifying period. The Catholic priest in today’s America realizes that he cannot be attached to the things of this world, especially popularity and acceptance by the world. He must be purified of those secular ambitions if he wants to remain faithful to the Christ who ordained him:

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• for the Holy Eucharist, to change bread and wine into the living body and blood of Christ,

• for the Sacrament of Confession, to absolve sinners from their sins and reconcile them with an offended God.

CTC: How do American priests compare in this regard with those of other countries?

Fr. Hardon: In general American priests compare favorably with those in other countries. “Materially superdeveloped” countries offer the same challenge to Catholic priests as does our own country.

CTC: What are particular strengths of the priesthood today in America? What attracts men to the priesthood?

Fr. Hardon: There are several particular strengths of the priesthood today. Again I am speaking of priests who recognize the dignity of their priesthood. Among those strengths, I would identify especially two: a deep faith and a deepening spiritual life. What attracts men to the priesthood today is especially the challenge it gives men to Christianize a secularized American culture. Young men drawn to the priesthood today are not naïve. They know what it means to be a good priest and they are willing to “go the whole way,” as Christ asked the rich young man in the Gospel, if he wanted to follow the Savior.

CTC: What unique difficulties do priests in America encounter? How do they differ from the difficulties confronting previous generations?

Fr. Hardon: The unique difficulties of the priesthood in secularized cultures like America are the non- acceptance of Catholic doctrines, which the priest is expected to teach the people. These difficulties are different from previous generations because previous generations were religious and more Christian.

CTC: Are there particular generational differences between priests trained before and those trained after the Second Vatican Council?

Fr. Hardon: There are differences between priests trained before and those after the Second Vatican Council, but I would not call them generational. I would call them doctrinal and theological differences. Many of the priests trained after Vatican II were taught ideas that are post-conciliar, indeed, but not always consistent with the trans-conciliar, that is, irreversible teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.

CTC: What demographic trends exist among American priests today? For instance: How many new priests are coming along compared with the numbers that are retiring? What is the median age of the U.S. priests?

Fr. Hardon: There has been a drastic drop in the number of men entering the priesthood today, compared with the number that are retiring. But those figures are deceptive.

There are many vocations to the priesthood, perhaps more, today than before. The problem is not in the vocations. The problem is that vocations to the priesthood are either not recognized by some vocation directors, or the vocations are not acceptable by some seminaries because they are allegedly pre-Vatican II, or that genuine vocations are turned off by the militant feminism which is so critical of the male priesthood in the Catholic Church.

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CTC: One of the objectives of the Vatican Council was to increase lay involvement in the Church. Has that occurred? Are the relations between priests and Catholics proceeding generally smoothly? What difficulties and what strengths have been encountered?

Fr. Hardon: Yes, lay involvement in the Church is greater and deeper since the Second Vatican Council. Relations are generally smooth. However, one difficulty is the rising tide of what I would call anti-clericalism in some Catholic circles. This is especially the case with radical feminism.

CTC: How can lay Catholics help priests in the work of the Church?

Fr. Hardon: Lay Catholics can help priests in the work of the Church in several ways: 1) Praying and sacrificing for priests, 2) Cooperating with priests, 3) Respecting the dignity of priests, 4) Offering their services, gratis, to priests, 5) Encouraging priests by word and example, 6) Cultivating respect for priests so that young men will be attracted to the priesthood, and 7) Providing financial assistance to young men who are eligible to enter qualified seminaries.

Retreat on the Priesthood The Priesthood

Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

Whatever happened to that sublimity when they see thousands of priests leaving the active priesthood, as they say to be laicized? In many countries, especially in North and South America, vocations to the priesthood are at an all time low. Large archdioceses have had as few as one ordination in four years. Some have had at least a few vocations; none have had many; but many have had almost none. Permanent deacons are being ordained in quantity, partly to supplement the dwindling ranks of the priesthood. But a deacon is not a priest. All of these and some other phenomena make the question we are asking ourselves crucially important. If the future of the Catholic Church in countries like the United States is to be assured, we need to understand better who a priest is, what his dignity is, and above all appreciate his absolute indispensability for the people of God.

First then, let us look at the priesthood in the Old Testament revelation. As we read the pages of the Old Law, going back to the early history of Israel, we see that priests were an essential part of the chosen people. Their function was to act as mediators between the people and God. A priest was, therefore, first of all a mediator. This concept has been refined, deepened, and expanded but not substantially changed from the Old Law to the New Law. He stood between the people whom he represented and the God whom he addressed.

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Yet as we know in the Old Testament there were two kinds of mediators between God and the people. There were mediators from God to communicate His mind and His will to the people. These mediators were called prophets. They were from God to the people. We might call this downward mediation: from heaven to earth. There were also mediators from the people to God to offer Him the people’s adoration, invoke His aid, and beg His mercy for the people’s sins. These were in Old Testament parlance called priests. This was the upward mediation: from earth to heaven. Moreover, the priests of the Old Testament were not only to mediate from the people to God, they were to do so in a distinctive, indeed, unique way. They were to offer sacrifices (the plural is of the essence of the Old Law) of goats and sheep, of oxen and cattle, of bread and wine, of wheat, barley, and oats, and fruits of trees.

If the first function, therefore, of a priest was to be mediator from the people to God, his second function was to offer sacrifice. A priest, then, was a mediator who offered sacrifice. However, not everyone was allowed to exercise the priestly office. Only those specially chosen by Yahweh were permitted to offer sacrifice. When on one dramatic occasion, King Saul, as we recall, dared to arrogate to himself the offering of sacrifice, he was severely punished. It was in this context that the phrase was first spoken, “Obedience is better than sacrifice.” Saul was disobedient and God was displeased with his sacrifice because, though King, he was not a priest. He was not chosen for that office.

Thirdly, then, beyond being a mediator and beyond offering sacrifice, a priest was one specially chosen by God to do the mediation and to offer the oblation to God. In a word, a priest must be divinely chosen. No one presumed to be a priest on his own. So much for a thumbnail review of some two thousand years of Jewish prophetic and priestly history.

Christ’s priesthood, therefore, began in Mary’s womb. He lived His priesthood during the nine hidden months within His mother, then through the many years at Nazareth, and while preaching and doing good throughout Palestine. But especially on the cross did He live this priesthood, where He united all the acts of a mortal human being capable of suffering and of death into one supreme sacrifice, by which He became the Mediator par excellence between the human race and God, our priest and pontiff for a sinful mankind. Such was Christ’s priesthood in His mortal flesh on earth. But we are not finished. In fact, Christ’s priesthood in a profound sense only began during His mortal sojourn which ended on Calvary. Jesus continues His priesthood even now. He had better; otherwise, He could not have a Mass.

As our eternal High Priest He worships, praises, and thanks the diving majesty in His own name and in the name of His people. But, though sinless Himself, He is head of a very sinful human family. So He intercedes before the throne of the Father for us. Being heard by the Father, He keeps sending down blessings on us from His heavenly home. This priesthood of Jesus Christ is the only one fundamental priesthood now in the Church. All other priesthoods are participations in this one. The participation takes place in two different ways. First and mainly, by those ordained to the ministerial priesthood and secondly, by all the faithful as belonging to the priesthood of the laity. 122

We have, therefore, because of Christ’s priesthood, first of all the ordained ministerial priesthood which we identify with the sacrament of orders. Who belongs to this priesthood? All those who are of the sacerdotal rank: priests, bishops, and the Pope at their head. When did this participated ministerial priesthood of Jesus begin? It came into existence at the Last Supper when the Savior did two things. He first changed bread and wine into Himself and already offered, the night before He died, the death He would endure. Then He told the disciples to do what He did “in commemoration of me.” It is a defined article of the Catholic Faith that the ordained ministerial priesthood, the sacrament of orders, was instituted personally by Jesus at the Last Supper.

Finally, beyond the ordained ministerial priesthood, which is unique and possessed only by those who receive the sacrament of orders, there is a true although subordinate sense in which all the baptized faithful belong to the priesthood of Christ. We begin to share in the priesthood of the Savior when we are baptized into the priesthood of Christ. This sacramental character which we receive at baptism is deepened by the sacrament of confirmation and the Holy Eucharist. It is because of this sharing in Christ’s priesthood that the faithful are able to receive any of the other sacraments; without this one no other sacrament can be received. It is because of this share in Christ’s priesthood that they are enabled to offer with the priest at the altar the body and blood of the Son of God to His heavenly Father, which is why it is said, “Pray, brethren, that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father.”

Our enablement is conditioned by our sharing in this priesthood of Christ. Because we are baptized, we participate in the role of Christ, the High Priest; we are thus able to be victims with Jesus—victims like Jesus as man, but victims for Jesus who is God. This is the priesthood about which Saint Peter wrote. We should recall the first Pope reminding the faithful that they share in Christ’s royalty because they share in His capacity for sacrifice; our King is a crowned King indeed, but crowned on earth with a crown of thorns. That is the kind of priesthood that we are all privileged to participate in. While the fact of sharing in this priesthood is an article of our faith and made possible by our baptism, the degree of this participation, its intensity, and its fruitfulness for the good of our souls and the souls of others, depends on the willingness with which we are co-offerers and especially co-offered with the Savior.

It is almost too ambitious for words to try to exhaust the meaning of the priesthood. My first recommendation, therefore, is to spend much more time than perhaps what we have been doing in meditating on the priesthood. Where can we find material from which we can gain deep insights on God’s revealed wisdom regarding the priesthood? First of all, read Saint Paul’s letter to the Hebrews. Many people do not meditate much on Saint Paul, and Hebrews is not his easiest letter. In any case, the thirteen chapters of the letter to the Hebrews are the most exhausting revelation we have on the meaning of Christ’s priesthood and of our share in that priesthood.

Secondly, look into the teachings of the Church. Here I would especially single out “Mediator Dei” of Pope Pius XII on the sacred liturgy. There are many beautiful and profound things about the priesthood in general in this document. There is an especially clear distinction between the priesthood of the ministry (those who are ordained) and the priesthood of the laity (those who are not ordained); with a long, elaborate explanation of how the faithful might more effectively live out our own baptized priesthood.

The priesthood is indeed important; without it there is no Church. Needless to say, the priesthood is challenged. The late Pope Paul VI more than once said that never in the history of the Church has the priestly office been more attacked than today. Hence, if ever the priesthood needed support—of the priest, first of all, of their fellow-priests, and of all the faithful through prayer and sacrifice—it is today.

Consequently, not merely knowing about the priesthood, but praying and offering God sacrifices for the priesthood are indispensably important in our day. Undoubtedly God is allowing the shepherds to be struck and thus the sheep to be scattered. May we offer our petitions and pains to God that He might have mercy on His people by restoring His priesthood to that dignity, that importance, that respect, and that multitude of ministers 123 of the Gospel and the sacraments, without which, as we now sadly see, millions are literally wandering about as sheep who are lost because they do not have those who, under God, should help lead them back to Him.

Conference transcription from a retreat that Father Hardon gave in December, 1977 to the Handmaids of the Precious Blood

Retreat on the Priesthood What Is The Catholic Priesthood?

Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

Not too many years ago it would have been less important to ask the question, “What is the Catholic priesthood?” because anyone familiar with the Catholic Church, even though not personally a Catholic, would have had a fair idea of what a priest is. The description might have been crude, but at least there was no great doubt in anyone’s mind as to who or what a priest is supposed to be.

But things have changed. On all sides, including in some learned Catholic circles, we hear opinions that, to say the least, are not familiar to us. We are told that a priest is a social worker, or a political reformer, or an activist, or a community organizer, or a preacher, or a proclaimer of the Gospel. And even when these descriptions are not verbalized, the conduct of so many priests, some in high political office, tells the world that whatever priests used to be—men specially concerned with the Mass and the sacraments and holy things—they are now in a new age. Call it the age of sacerdotal liberation.

We, therefore, return to our question, “What is the Catholic priesthood?” As a fundamental question it needs to be answered if we are to say anything else significant about those persons whose office the Church still believes is not of human invention but of divine origin. The priesthood is simultaneously four things. It is a sacrament of the New Law instituted by Christ. It is a state of life to which some men are called by a special vocation from God. It is an institution without which there would be no Christianity on earth today. And it is a ministry of the Catholic Church by which Christ continues His own priestly work of saving and sanctifying the souls for whom He shed His blood on Calvary.

The priesthood is a sacrament of the New Law. Until the sixteenth century, while previously there had been errors periodically infecting the Catholic Church, yet the priesthood was left substantially intact. Then in the time of the Protestant Reformation a massive attack was ranged against the priesthood in the Catholic Church, an attack so virulent that it has deeply affected Christianity ever since. To meet this challenge and to defend the sacred priesthood, the Council of Trent issued a series of solemn definitions, each one couched in the form of an anathema, condemning anyone who held certain contrary positions.

I will quote in sequence six formal definitions of the Church, each one spelling out and solemnly defining an article of the udivided Catholic faith. Anyone who calls himself a Catholic must subscribe to these definitions. Not to do so, is to sever oneself from visible union with the Church of Rome. In these days of widespread confusion about what is a priest, these six definitions should be etched in bronze.

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First. “If anyone says that there is no visible and external priesthood in the New Testament, or that there is no power of consecrating and offering the body and blood of the Lord or of remitting and retaining sins, but says that there is only the office and simple ministry of preaching the Gospel, or says that those who do not preach are not priests at all, let him be anathema.” Second. “If anyone denies that in the Catholic Church besides the priesthood there are other orders through which one must pass as to certain steps towards the priesthood, let him be anathema.” Third. “If anyone says that orders or holy ordination is not truly and properly a sacrament instituted by Christ our Lord, or that it is a kind of human invention thought up by men inexperienced in ecclesiastical matters, or that it is only a kind of rite of choosing ministers of the Word of God and the sacraments, let him be anathema.” Fourth. “If anyone says that orders or holy ordination the Holy Spirit is not given and thus it is useless for bishops to say “Receive the Holy Spirit”; or if anyone says that no character is imprinted by ordination, or that he who was once a priest can become a layman again, let him be anathema.” Fifth. “If anyone says that the sacred anointing which the Church uses at holy ordination not only is not required but is despicable and harmful; just like the other ceremonies, let him be anathema.” Sixth. “If anyone says that in the Catholic Church there is no divinely instituted hierarchy consisting of bishops, priests, and ministers, let him be anathema.”

What is the Catholic priesthood? It is first of all a divinely instituted sacrament that Christ Himself established, as the same Council of Trent explains, at the Last Supper. The Catholic priesthood is a state of life. It follows logically on what the Church teaches; that the priesthood is a sacrament that imprints an indelible character. Given that fact, it must also be to say the least, a permanent state of life that requires a special divine vocation.

Why stress this fact? Because of the large exodus of priests in countries like ours from the active priesthood. In the first ten years since the close of the Second Vatican Council the exodus in the United States has been 10,000 priests. There has never been such a massive de-sacralization of the priesthood in such a short time in the history of Christendom.

I can do no better in this context than to quote from the opening paragraph of the book which you may have read, A Shepherd Without Sheep, published in the fifties by Boyd Barret, a Jesuit priest who wandered from the Church, then repented, and returned to the practice of his faith. “I have no chapel,” he said, “no altar at which to offer the holiest sacrifice; no pulpit from which to preach; there is no confessional where penitents await counsel and absolution from my lips; no baptismal font where by the sacrament of regeneration I may give to the Eternal Father another child.” But I am a priest, Christ’s shepherd, but I have no sheep.” Boyd Barret, the repentant sinner, had no doubt that he was nevertheless a priest.

As priests need to be told, and the faithful too should know, the priesthood is not an occupation; nor a job, nor an employment; it is not even a profession. It is the sublimest vocation to which God can call man. Those who respond and are ordained, remain priests forever, no matter what might happen to their minds or bodies or even to their souls.

What is the Catholic priesthood? The Catholic priesthood is that institution which is absolutely necessary for Christianity. The Catholic priesthood is absolutely necessary for the Church. Without it there would be no Christianity left on earth. Remove the priesthood and you remove the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist from the world. Without the priesthood you remove the sacrifice of the Mass, Holy Communion, the sacrament of anointing of the Sick, and the sacrament of reconciliation so needed by a sinful world. Remove the priesthood and you take away the divinely assured teaching of God’s revealed Truth from the universe. In a word, without the priesthood, Christianity would be a memory but no longer a reality. It would cease to exist on earth, in this admittedly difficult valley of tears. 125

Again, what is the Catholic priesthood? It is the ministry of Christ continued on earth. No class of persons in the Church have more frequently and earnestly been exhorted by the Popes to recognize their role and live up to it, than priests. No single group have had more words directly addressed to them, by the Second Vatican Council than the Church’s bishops and priest. And no wonder. The foundation of this dignity, which as we have seen is an absolute necessity, is that those who are priests are, in the profoundest sense of the word, continuing the work of Christ. They are engaged in the work that Christ began and that repeatedly He told the apostles, and through them those whom they would ordain, that what He began they were to continue.

When Pope Pius XI wrote his deeply moving encyclical on the Catholic priesthood, he addressed the priests of the world telling them that they were the ministers of Christ, instruments in the hands of the Redeemer, continuing the work of Redemption in all its world-embracing universality and divine efficacy; the work that brought so marvelous a transformation in the world. Thus the priest is with good reason another Christ, or in a way a continuation of Christ. The mystics used stronger language but expressed the same truth. In one of her dialogues, Saint Catherine of Siena was told by Christ what He thinks of priests. “They are My anointed ones,” the Savior said, “and I call them My Christs', because I have given them the office of administering me to you. The angels have no such dignity. I have given it to those men whom I have appointed as earthly angels in this life.”

We need to hear this kind of language today to remind all of us, priests and religious and the laity, what almighty God has entrusted to weak vessels of clay: nothing less than the dispensation of Himself and His gracious mercy to a sinful, wandering world.

This is the mystery of the priesthood, but there is also a scandal of the priesthood: that God should have endowed weak human beings with so much power and so much authority. It is precisely because of this, the scandal of Christ’s giving so much to such little people, that those of us who are not priests should beg the living God daily to strengthen the weakness in Christ’s priests so that they may be, not “worthy” of their office as no one is worthy of the priesthood, but that they might not impede the work of the Master who wants to save the world through them. That is why He died on the cross.

We priests need to remember this so that we may not be seduced by the world around us and not crushed by the evil spirit whose demoniac machinations, so the modern Popes say, are mainly aimed at the Catholic priesthood without which Christianity would be absent on earth. If human beings forget this, the devil does not. He knows that as the priesthood goes, so goes the Church.

Pray that Christ who ordained us priests may keep us close to Himself that we may not impede the work of salvation He has put into our most unworthy but priestly hands.

Conference transcription from a retreat that Father Hardon gave in December, 1977 to the Handmaids of the Precious Blood

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Retreat on the Priesthood The Priesthood of the Faithful

Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

There is more than passing value in looking at the meaning and implications of the priesthood of the faithful. There is much confusion these days in some quarters about who and what is a priest; there is an overwhelming amount of what they call identity crisis in many priests. So many writers are saying that ordination makes no difference, that every Christian is equally a priest, and that priests (as they are properly called) are merely functionaries; long, learned disquisitions on this subject say priests are not really different from the faithful. Finally, most of the agitation about women’s ordination stems from confusion over who is a priest….” Oh, she can be a priestess!”

The Mass, being in the vernacular, now brings out more clearly than ever the intimate participation of the faithful in the Holy Sacrifice. The liturgy says throughout “we” and “our” and “us”, “your sacrifice and mine.” Somehow they share in the offering of the Mass. Somehow the faithful participate; they must, otherwise the language of the liturgy would be unintelligible. They participate in the priesthood. The question is, how? It is worth going into this subject because it is part of divine revelation.

We have the explanation in the first letter of Saint Peter, the first letter of the first Pope, in which he speaks on the priesthood of all Christians. My intention is first to quote what he says, and then explain briefly what the Church says he means, all the while make applications to our own personal and corporate spiritual life.

He (speaking of Christ) is the living stone, rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him; set yourselves close to him so that you too, the holy priesthood that offers the spiritual sacrifices which Jesus Christ has made acceptable to God, may be living stones making a spiritual house. As scripture says: “See how I lay in Zion a precious cornerstone that I have chosen” and “the man who rests his trust on it will not be disappointed.” That means that for you who are believers, it is precious; but for unbelievers, “the stone rejected by the builders has proved to be the keystone, a stone to stumble over, a rock to bring men down.” They stumble over it because they do not believe in the word; it was the fate in store for them. But you are “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a consecrated nation, a people set apart” to sing the praises of God who called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were “not a people” at all and now you are the People of God; once you were “outside the mercy” and now “you have been given mercy.” I urge you, my dear people, while you are “visitors and pilgrims”, to keep yourselves free from the selfish passions that attack the soul. Always behave honorably among pagans so that they can see your good works for themselves and, when the day of reckoning comes, give thanks to God for the things which now make them denounce you as criminals.

As we prayerfully reflect on the inspired words of the first Vicar of Christ, we find they contain four great mysteries of Christian revelation that are like four pillars of the priesthood of the faithful. They are: vocation, community, faith, and responsibility.

The first pillar is vocation, in the mysterious designs of Providence, not everyone has been actually called to Christianity. We are not now here referring to God’s absolute Will; but de facto, concretely and historically, less than one half the human race has even heard the name of Christ. As Saint Paul asks, how can anyone believe in Him unless they have heard of Him? Before us, there were those who had heard and we inherited their faith. In

127 a word, our primary vocation, on which all other vocations rest, is our vocation to Christianity. Fundamentally, it was this that Christ, speaking to all of us, meant when He said, “Come follow me.”

We do not often enough think of being a Christian as not merely “a” vocation, but “the” vocation, of which all other vocations are only aspects and variety. God’s ways are not men’s ways. The fact is plain that not all have actually, existentially received this call. We have. In our own country there are millions who haven’t the vaguest notion of who Christ is!

Some years ago I happened to be travelling on a train on Christmas Day. I got into conversation with two little boys whose ages were about seven and ten. As we were talking, I found out they knew that the day was Christmas. “But,” I asked them, “What is Christmas?” Well, they told me something about Santa Claus and Christmas trees. So I further asked them, “Do you know today is Somebody’s birthday?” Both said it was not their birthday. “No”, it is some great Person’s birthday – Jesus’ birthday.” They had no idea. And behind them, of course, was the ignorance of their parents.

We, unworthily, have been called. That is why Peter uses the word “chosen.” We have been called, selected; we have been preferred. Truly it cannot be because God foresaw such great heroic virtue in any of us. No Lord, depart from me a sinner! Never get the idea that having a vocation or being called is something which the one who is called merits. God calls whom He wills. But He does choose. Having been chosen, we then have an extraordinary dignity. All our consequences of being Christians follow from the fact that we have been called specially.

The second pillar is community. We are called. That is a collective, not a distributive plural. No doubt each one is called as an individual, but we are called to join an already existing community. The first believers were Mary and Joseph. That is the nucleus of Christianity in whose midst was Jesus. He couldn’t have made the collectivity or community aspect of this vocation more plain. In fact, He made sure there was the making of a community even before He was conceived; it is why Mary and Joseph got together, to make sure there would be at least two to start this thing going.

We are called to something; that something is a community. That is why Saint Peter uses words that are symbolic of community. He speaks of Christians forming a spiritual house made up of many stones; that was in the days before they made houses of wood. It takes many stones to build a house. We are a chosen race having a common ancestry in Jesus Christ. That is what a race is, people who somehow have a common heredity. We are, he said, a consecrated nation, having all been born. And that is what “nation” really means: people somehow born together, politically speaking, within a geographic space; and spiritually speaking, all born of grace. We form one nation, a nation of grace. And we are a people set apart. We are not to be, because we are not, like those who are not called; and we’d be out of our Christian minds to suppose that there is any credit to us.

Our priesthood as Christians, therefore, is that of a community. We belong together; we are members of the Body of Christ. Christianity is not solitary – that is a contradiction in terms. There are no solitary Christians, which doesn’t mean we don’t sometimes feel lonely. We have solidarity; we are not solitary. Nature is individual, is divided, is in pieces, grace creates community.

The third pillar of our common priesthood is of course faith. This is what, building on the grace that God gives us, makes us a Christian community. We are first and mainly a community of believers. Let me make that stronger. We are a community only insofar as we are believers. Much of the confusion in so many peoples’ minds nowadays arises from the fact that there are those who no longer believe but still claim to belong to the community. No they don’t! You either believe and you belong or if you don’t believe, you don’t belong. And it is possible to have belonged and to cease to belong. 128

By our faith we believe, which means we grasp that we cannot see; we accept on the word of God. He sees. We take His word; we embrace what He tells us is true. But let us never think that because we do not see with reason when we believe, we do not see. Yes we do! We see by faith. One of the most comforting phrases in Latin is “lumen fidei”, the light of faith. We have it. We can see things that people who don’t have the faith just don’t see. When we kneel down before the Holy Eucharist, reason tells us it is bread; faith tells us it is Jesus. We love other people including those who don’t love us; reason sees an enemy, while faith sees a friend. This is seeing. A person dies. Reason sees the life principle of the body leaving the body and leaving a corpse; faith sees the human spirit leaving this world, thank God, for a better one. Faith sees.

The heart of the Christian priesthood is faith. Whether it is the priesthood of the faithful, which is why they are called faithful and why they are priestly, or whether it is the priesthood of those who are ordained, the heart of the Christian priesthood is faith.

One of the great joys of this common priesthood of the faithful is to be in the company of other people who also believe. We have all had enough experience in life to know what the opposite means. This is no make believe; it’s real. The moment we enter a home or a group or a religious community and are among people who believe like we do, we relax and feel that we belong, even though we may never have met before. It is as though we have known each other all our lives. And we have, because in Jesus Christ we have long ago met before we have met in body.

The fourth pillar is responsibility. God does not call anyone in vain. He always calls for a purpose. Every vocation implies a mission. Simply put, to have been called to be a Christian is to be called to exercise the responsibilities of a Christian. What are they? They may all be summarized in the word which we all know synonymizes priesthood: sacrifice. To have been called to be a Christian is to be called to a life of sacrifice. Sacrifice means surrender. Since the priesthood we are talking about is the priesthood of Jesus Christ, who sacrificed not things outside of Himself but Himself, it must also somehow mean the surrender of ourselves.

Our faith could not be more sublime. It could also not be more demanding. This priesthood is not something merely to reflect on; it is something to put into practice. How?

Saint Peter says that we must sacrifice of our selfish passions, and he identified what kind of passions we are meant to sacrifice. We are told to sacrifice our passion to spite, deceit, hypocrisy, envy and criticism. Now we know that not to be spiteful, when we have every reason to be; or deceitful, when it would be so helpful; or hypocritical, when no one would know; or envious, when somebody has something that we obviously like; or critical, when it is too clear for words that the person is wrong – not to do these things calls for immense sacrifice.

Needless to say, what Peter specially had in mind is the kind of sacrifice on this level which those who are Christians are called upon to practice to be members of a community. We are not spiteful unless other people are around; or deceitful unless there is somebody to deceive. Why be hypocritical if there’s nobody to impress; or envious, if we don’t see someone better or better off than ourselves; or critical, unless we are living so closely with someone else that we can watch every breath they breathe? The sacrifice of our selfish passions is our lifetime of sacrifices, and Peter tells us that this is the first and continuous exercise of our priesthood of believers.

Our priesthood is secondly, as Peter further tells us, the sacrifice of patience, patience in putting up with those who oppose us. In Peter’s time he had his pagans; in our times we have our pagans, and they are all around us. We are, therefore, to expect to be criticized, to be opposed, to be handicapped in so many ways by those who do not believe. This was in large measure Christ’s sacrifice. He was finally put to death by His own people who did not believe in Him and by the pagan Romans who, perhaps, could not have been expected to believe. What He 129 endured in His way, as He told us, we are to expect to endure in our way. I don’t know where Christians got the idea that being a Christian in any day is anything but to arouse opposition. You can be the nicest person in the world. Jesus was the nicest person in the world. Look what they did to Him!

The unbelieving world will oppose us, and does oppose us just because of what we are: mothers with families; men practicing chastity; priest’s faithful to their commitment; religious behaving like religious. There are many that admire Sisters in religious garb; they thank God and thank Sisters for looking like Sisters. But not all. Sometimes, may God forgive them, our worst enemies and the greatest sacrifice of patience we are called upon to practice is from those who have been with us but who have left us.

Thirdly, Peter says that the priesthood of the faithful is to be a sacrifice of witness. The apostle could not have been more extreme in describing who we are. He called us a royal priesthood. Conscious of our dignity, of our royalty, we are to behave accordingly by frankly, though humbly, witnessing through our practice of virtue so that the world might learn to know and love Christ from having seen us. A Christian is always on display, is always watched; a Christian is always to give witness to the great High Priest, who witnessed to His undying love for mankind by dying on the cross.

Saint Peter finally says that we exercise our priesthood of believers by our praising God, which he calls our spiritual sacrifice because it comes from within the spirit of man. You might wonder why Peter would call this praising God a sacrifice. When we talk about the sacrifice of the New Law, we mean necessarily the sacrifice of self. What does praising God mean? Very simply, it means not praising self. Concretely, we praise God in what we call our “acts of adoration.” To praise God is to adore God. The greatest temptation to which man is prone is to adore himself. If the word sounds strange, the reality is not strange at all. Adoration of God, otherwise known as praising God, means paying attention to God, acknowledging Him; it means admiring God.

Praising God means paying attention to God, and we know what sacrifice that takes, because it means turning attention from self. Acknowledging God’s greatness, who He is, means sacrificing that recognition of ourselves which we so hunger for that nations have been plunged into war because of one man’s ambition to be acknowledged as great. Psychologists tell us the deepest hunger of the human spirit is to be acknowledged as something by someone else. People will die to have this hunger satisfied. Acknowledging God in adoration means we acknowledge God’s greatness by acknowledging our nothingness. That is what we were before He made us and that is what we would be except for His love, nothing! This is the hardest sacrifice of all, the sacrifice of the praise of God.

We finally praise God by our admiration of God, which means that we so often, even daily, have to turn away from the mirror of self-admiration. We know this is costly. Faith tells us that it is here that we practice our priesthood, not just once in awhile, but all day, participating in the priesthood of the Savior, sacrificing ourselves like Him. But in addition, since He is God as well as man, we must also sacrifice ourselves for Him.

Jesus, our great High Priest, help us to better understand what it means to share in your priesthood. Help us to live this kind of priestly life, a life of daily, total, self-sacrifice.

Conference transcription from a retreat that Father Hardon gave in December, 1977 to the Handmaids of the Precious Blood

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Retreat on the Priesthood The Priesthood and the Sacrament of Penance

Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

It is remarkable how much publicity the sacrament of penance is getting these days. A whole stadium of people are assembled and in an elaborate ceremony are given general absolution. In other cases, several thousand people are brought together in response to massive publicity to be given general absolution before Christmas. The newspapers give these spectacles large coverage, and the media make heroes of reconciliation of the bishops who sponsor these “Rallies of Mercy.”

All the while Catholics are confused. They have been taught to believe that auricular confession (by word of mouth to word of ear) to a priest, privately and confidentially, was necessary. At the same time, reports from one diocese after another are generally the same—people are just not coming to confession the way they used to. What happened, and what is the future going to be?

Let me ask a few pertinent questions and try to give each an answer. First, what is the Church’s official and defined doctrine about the role of the priest and the faithful in the sacrament of penance? Second, why has there been such a lessening of the use of this sacrament among the Catholic people? Third, what does the Church expect of her priests so they might be what they should be: administrators of this sacrament?

When the so-called “reformers” of the sixteenth century attacked all the Sacraments, but with special virulence this one, the Church at the Council of Trent took stock of her God-given faith and for all future ages told the faithful, including bishops and priests, what the sacraments are. The Council Fathers gave no less than fifteen detailed definitions on the sacrament of penance; all would be useful to recall in these days when there is so much that is odd being said and done in the name of compassion, that is sometimes in contradiction to the expressed teaching of the Church’s infallible Magisterium.

Here are just four of these fifteen definitions that are specially apropos to our reflections. Each of these is in the form of a canon, which means a solemn declaration and closes with a condemnation of heresy for everyone who denies this article of the Catholic faith.

First. “If anyone says that in the Catholic Church penance is not truly and properly a sacrament instituted by Christ our Lord to reconcile the faithful with God as often as they fall into sin after Baptism, let him be anathema.” Second. “If anyone says that these words of our Lord and Savior, “Receive the Holy Spirit; whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; whose sins you shall retain, they are retained,” ought not to be understood as referring to the power of remitting and of retaining sins in the sacrament of penance as the Catholic Church always understood them from the beginning; and if anyone, to disprove the institution of this sacrament, twists the meaning of those words and refers them to the Church’s authority to preach the Gospel, let him be anathema.” Third. “If anyone says that sacramental confession was not instituted by divine law or that it is not necessary for salvation according to the same law; or if anyone says that the method which the Catholic Church has always 131 observed from the very beginning and still observes on confessing secretly to the priest alone is foreign to the institution and command of Christ and that it is of human origin, let him be anathema.” Fourth. “If anyone says that to obtain remission of sins in the sacrament of penance it is not necessary according to divine law to confess each and every mortal sin that is remembered after proper and diligent examination— even secret ones and sins against the last two commandments (the ninth and tenth)—and those circumstances which change the species of a sin, but says that such confession is only useful for instructing and consoling the penitent, and that it was formerly observed only for the purpose of imposing and canonical penance; or if anyone says that those who make an effort to confess all their sins wish to leave nothing for the forgiveness of the divine mercy; or finally, that it is not permissible to confess venial sins, let him be anathema.”

Thank God for the Church’s teaching. But how sadly that so many, including those in positions of great influence in the Church, have forgotten this teaching.

In the light of the foregoing, it follows that hearing confessions places a heavy demand on the generosity of a priest. To tell not just one sin but all of them and if they are grave, with all their attending circumstances takes time; and on the part of the priest, it takes a lot of patience. If he is to give the penitents the opportunity to do what Christ, speaking through the Church, commands them to do, the priest has no option; he must be convinced that it is worth the effort.

This is the hub of the problem, the question “Is it worth the effort?” First in Holland, then in France, and gradually elsewhere, ideas began to spread that were at variance with the Church’s—which in this case is Christ’s explicit teaching. And some of these ideas at variance to the Church’s teaching were circulated by bishops. The early confessions of children were discouraged, until by now a whole library of propaganda exists trying to tell priests why they should not hear children’s’ confessions until long after they have gone to Communion and well into their older years. And, borrowing from the Protestants who abolished auricular confession, the practice of giving indiscriminate general absolution came into prominence.

Why drop in confessions? There are mainly two reasons. First, because of the prevalence of so many strange ideas that have penetrated the priestly mind. Priests can be brain-washed like anybody else about auricular confession not being of divine origin but an ecclesiastical invention. “Are you sure that Christ wants individual confessions to be made to an individual priest?” some good pastors are now asking.

Secondly, because these ideas have combined with the natural lethargy of a priest. Priest or no priest, we all have the same seven capital tendencies, which are pride, lust, anger, covetousness, envy, gluttony and sloth. So strange ideas have combined with the natural lethargy of a priest to make spending sometimes hours in the confessional seem useless. These ideas became a convenient excuse for not doing what only a deep faith even makes intelligible, let alone inspires the willingness to put into what, can sometimes be heroic practice, as only a priest understands.

When Saint John Vianney (the Cure of Ars) was canonized, the Church said that one of the reasons for his canonization and later declaration as patron of parish priests was that he spent so much time, sometimes sixteen hours a day, in the confessional, hearing the confessions of the thousands of people who came to him.

So, to answer the question, “Why the drop in confessions?” is very simple: it is because erroneous ideas and human nature have obscured the faith vision that many priests should have of themselves as ambassadors of Christ’s mercy.

What does the Church expect of her priests relative to this great sacrament? The Church expects much of her priests, but only because the Christ who ordained them expects the same. Pertinent to the sacrament of penance,

132 the Church has said a great deal, speaking from centuries of wisdom through General Councils, through papal declarations, through the teachings of her saints and through the practice of the great priests of Catholic history.

What do we find in this library of instruction about the priests and the sacrament of reconciliation? We find especially these things: if a priest is to preach the dignity and the importance of the sacrament of penance to the faithful, he must himself use this sacrament. Everyone, without exception, must go to confession. In a word, if a priest’s exhortation to the faithful is to be taken seriously, if he tells them they are to go to confession, he must go himself. In the Society of Jesus, her priests are expected to go to confession at least once a week. Pope Pius XII went to confession every day.

If a priest is to appreciate the greatness of this sacrament, he must prayerfully reflect on what it means. He is no mere counselor; he is surely not a therapist; he is a representative of Christ. The more he looks at himself in his own sinfulness, the more he is saddened by the disproportion between his own incapacity and what the people who confess their sins need. He must see with the eyes of faith that he is only an instrument, though a necessary one, in the hands and through the lips of the Master.

Here are a few sentences from Pope Pius XI’s encyclical to priests upon which every priest should periodically read and meditate. The Holy Father was speaking of the priests’ power of pardon:

This is that power which God gave neither to angels nor archangels—the power to remit sins. “Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained,” a tremendous power, so peculiar to God that even human pride could not make the mind conceive that it could be given to man. “Who can forgive sins, but God alone?” When we see it exercised by a mere man there is reason to ask ourselves, not, indeed, with pharisaical scandal, but with reverent surprise at such a dignity: “Who is this man who even forgives sin?” But it is so: the God-man who possessed the “power on earth to forgive sins” willed to hand it on to His priests, to relieve, in His divine generosity and mercy, the need of moral purification which is rooted in the human heart. What a comfort to the guilty, when, stung with remorse and repenting of his sins, he hears the word of the priest who says to him in God’s name: “I absolve thee from thy sins!” These words fall, it is true, from the lips of one who, in his turn, must needs beg the same absolution from another priest. This does not debase the merciful gift, but makes it, rather, appear greater, since beyond the weak creature is seen more clearly the hand of God through whose power is wrought this wonder

Priests must meditate on what God has entrusted into their hands; otherwise, as so many have allowed, they will not appreciate what they have and, to the tragic detriment of thousands of souls, will not exercise this power of pardon.

Finally, to become the channel of Christ’s mercy to others through this great sacrament, the priest must earnestly strive to become more and more like the sinless Christ Himself, like the Christ whose office he exercises when he pardons sins. Why?

The absolution of the priest is valid no matter what his moral condition. This is an article of faith. But having said that, we also know that God uses as the instruments of His grace, those most effectively who are most closely united with Him. After all, the priest’s role in the confessional is not only to absolve. He has, as we are told by the infallible Church, three roles: one to absolve, another to instruct, and a third to heal. His power of absolution is absolute. Provided the penitent does his or her part and the priest seriously intends to absolve, the sins, by the power of the keys committed to the Church, are removed.

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How we need to counsel and advice, when it comes to healing, and how we need consolation and encouragement. Other things being equal, when it comes to instructing, the Church keeps telling her priests, “Be holy yourselves, because the holier you are, the more effective will be just a word, even a brief sentence.” That sentence is a sacramental sentence. The Christ who speaks through His priests will teach the penitent and will heal the weak and feeble soul as only Jesus can; and He can because He is God. But the instrument must be totally resigned and conformed to the Divine Will.

Needless to say, we should daily say even a short prayer of thanks to God, asking Him to bless the priests who, over the years, have exercised in our regard this blessed sacrament of reconciliation. We should also pray and ask the dear Savior who came not to call the just, but sinners to repentance, that His priests might rise to the dignity to which they have been called and use this sacrament in season and out of season at no matter what cost to themselves, because it is especially in this sacrament of peace that the Prince of Peace continues to inspire peace in the hearts of a troubled, worried, and anxious world.

Conference transcription from a retreat that Father Hardon gave in December, 1977 to the Handmaids of the Precious Blood

Retreat on the Priesthood The Priesthood and the Eucharist

Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

The priesthood in the Catholic Church is identified with many things, because over the centuries of the Church’s history there have been priests engaged in a bewildering variety of enterprises. There have been priests who were great preachers like John Chrysostom; great theologians like Thomas Aquinas; mystics like John of the Cross and Ignatius of Loyola. There have been priests who were scientists, explorers, poets and even artists. And looking over the roster of the great Jesuits in the last four centuries, it is unbelievable in what a variety of occupations the priests of the Society were involved.

But none of these professions identifies what is the principal reason for the priesthood. Moreover, in our day a priest may be engaged in any one or several different pursuits that can occupy most of his time: he can be pastor, teacher, counselor, writer, administrator, or social worker. He can be working in a Chancery or a publishing house, but the main reason he has been ordained is because of the Eucharist.

So true is this that if we would specify the heart of the priesthood we would have to say it is the Eucharist, the Eucharist as presence and the Eucharist as sacrifice. Each of these levels of the Holy Eucharist is totally dependent on the priesthood. Without the priesthood there is no Real Presence, nor Eucharistic Sacrifice. But what may be less obvious is that if the Real Presence and the Mass depend on the priest, the priest also depends on them. And I am not sure which dependence is more absolute.

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Without the Eucharist the priesthood is doomed to failure and, as history by now sadly testifies, to extinction. You see, the priesthood has become extinct in many parts of the world where it had once gloriously flourished. That which the priests create they also require for their survival.

First then, the priest and the Real Presence. In the year 1079 A.D. a certain French priest by name, Berengarius was required to sign a solemn profession of faith in the Real Presence. His problem was that he was a theologian and as such he had difficulties, which is not surprising. But what was unfortunate was that, he began to talk, teach and write about these difficulties regarding the Real Presence. His problem could not have been more fundamental. How is it possible, he asked himself and his listeners and readers, for the same Jesus Christ to be at once in heaven and also on earth? He was on earth, so Berengarius said, before His death and even for a short time after His resurrection, and then He ascended into heaven. Truly He had been on earth but He went to heaven. Where then, he asked, is Christ? In heaven. Where can He also not be? He cannot also be on earth, was Berengarius’ conclusion.

I had this brought home to me very strongly about two years ago when I was asked to contribute an article on the Catholic doctrine on the Real Presence to a special issue of the Ecumenical Review, to coincide with the International Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia. I was asked, after I wrote my article, if I would share it with a Baptist theologian counterpart. I said I would, provided that I could answer his reply. I wrote my article and sent it in; he wrote his. This nationally recognized Baptist theologian said that he respected my faith but could not understand how Christ can be both in heaven and on earth at the same time. My answer was very short: “Who said you can understand it? The point is, is it true?”

In answer to the error of Berengarius, a Council was called in Rome, presided over by Pope Saint Gregory VII. Berengarius was summoned and he was told to sign the following statement:

This profession of faith in the Real Presence has been ever since the touchstone of Catholic orthodoxy. Those who believe this are Catholics; those who do not are not Catholics.

It was not coincidental that the Holy See had to exact this attestation of belief in the Real Presence from a priest of the eleventh century, or that this statement has been quoted in countless documents of Popes and Councils, because this is where the priest’s constant test of faith is to be found. I well know the act of faith that this requires; that act that I had to make the first time I consecrated the host and knelt down before what I believe was God in human form, brought down on the altar by the words that I, a sinner, had pronounced. I have struggled with too many priests or with theologians preparing for ordination, not to know that this is the crux of a priest’s faith.

A priest, therefore, makes the Real Presence possible and no one—no king, prince, genius, or the will of a thousand people or the combined efforts of a whole nation—can substitute for the power of a priest’s consecrated words. “This is my body…This is the chalice of my blood.”

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As the Fathers of the Church do not hesitate to say, there is no less a miraculous change taking place on the altar than took place in the womb of Mary at the moment of the Incarnation. Before she pronounced her words there was no Christ on earth. The moment she did, He took dwelling in her body. The moment before the words of the priest are pronounced over the elements of bread and wine, there is just bread and wine. He pronounces the words, and then divine power changes the substance of bread and wine into the very living body and blood of the living God.

But having the power to make the Real Presence real is not the same as keeping alive his own faith in what except for him would not even exist on earth. The priest must sustain this faith in this same Real Presence. He has no choice. He must spend some time every day before the Blessed Sacrament. If he earnestly does, the more surely will his faith be strengthened and his effectiveness in carrying on Christ’s work among souls he increased. Depending on how constantly his faith is nourished at the feet of Christ whom he brought down on the altar, the more his faith will give faith to those who do not believe and strengthen the faith of the others whose faith may be weak.

No less than the Real Presence, so the Mass is impossible without the priest. In fact, it is only at Mass that the consecration takes place and bread and wine are changed into the body and blood of Christ. Yet we know that the Mass is not merely the Eucharistic Consecration. By the way, some people, through no fault of their own thinking, look upon the Sacrifice of the Mass as a kind of means to an end: we need the Mass to have the Real Presence. That’s true, but hardly adequate. The Mass is not only a means to give us Christ’s Presence; it is also Christ’s sacrifice.

No less than having carved in marble the clarity of the Real Presence, so the Church has lucidly defined what the Mass is. It is simply and unequivocally the sacrifice of Calvary repeated, reenacted, re-presented. The Mass reenacts Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. Jesus Christ really present in His human nature, therefore with a human will, is capable of offering Himself no less really now, than He did nineteen centuries ago, because the heart of sacrifice is in the will.

Christ’s willingness to die, His readiness to shed His blood, is no less real now, than it was when He actually died. As the Church tells us, the only reason He does not die is because being immortal and glorified He cannot die. But the fact that He now has an immortal body has not deprived Him of human free will. It is with that will that He re-offers Himself to His Father, not now to merit the grace which had been gained for us on Calvary, but to dispense the grace; to channel what had been gained; to distribute what had been won; to confer that for which He had died.

On Christ’s side, the Mass which the priest offers is, as the Church further tells us, unbloody. It is the same sacrifice because it is the same priest, Jesus and the same victim, Jesus. But no less than as the lips of the human priest make possible the Real Presence, so his words of offering Christ to His heavenly Father and separately consecrating bread and wine make the real sacrifice possible. But the one who is really making the sacrifice is Christ, through the instrumentality, as the Church’s doctrine tells us, of His human priest. So much for the priest and the making the holy real sacrifice possible.

But once again, no less than the Real Presence is to nourish the faith of the priest, so the real sacrifice of the Mass is to enable the priest to be a priest, who is one who sacrifices and sacrifices himself. A priest must live up to what his name signifies: one who surrendered himself completely as no one else on earth is expected to surrender.

136 many theologians, “The only reason you were studying all these long dreary years, is not for you—you’re not worth it—it’s for the people who will need even things you don’t think you need. That’s not the point. They need it.” This means a sacrifice of his preferences, conveniences, place of living and form of ministry; to be directed under obedience to that to which he is assigned and to the utmost of his human capacity, strengthened by the grace of God.

I admire priests who die working. Saint John Francis Regis died in the confessional. A fellow Jesuit died teaching class. My pastor died on the stage distributing prizes to graduates from the commercial high school in the parish. Beautiful! A priest is to totally spend himself for the souls that Christ entrusted to his care.

There is a grave shortage of vocations to the priesthood in many countries and in many dioceses in the United States. Among the reasons I would especially assign this one: The young men in whom there may be the first flowering of a priestly vocation have not been sufficiently inspired by the priests who entered their lives. The Church desperately needs priestly vocations, and she will get them on one condition: provided priests are what they are supposed to be, men who do not shrink from hard work, do not hesitate to undergo inconvenience and even pain; men whose one preoccupation is to save souls, to bring back sinners or to elevate the weak and the timid to sanctity; men who in the words of Saint Ignatius fight and ignore the wounds; who labor and ask for nothing except God’s love in return; in a word, priests who are not afraid of sacrifice; whose Mass is not only their liturgy but their life. For such priests we should pray, and beg the great High Priest to send such laborers into His harvest.

Conference transcription from a retreat that Father Hardon gave in December, 1977 to the Handmaids of the Precious Blood

Retreat on the Priesthood Priests and the Ministry of the Word

Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

Since the life of a priest is to be modeled on the life of his Master, even as Christ went about preaching and teaching the Word of God, so the primary duty of a priest after the offering of the Mass and the administration of the sacraments is to proclaim God’s revelation to a world that needs nothing more than to hear the message of salvation. The term “primary duty” may seem too strong; the Latin expression is “Primarium manus” and that is the terminology used by the Second Vatican Council in its Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests. “Since nobody can be saved who has not first believed, it is the first duty of priests as co-workers of the bishops to preach the Gospel of God to all men.”

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What is the Church’s teaching on the duty of priests in proclaiming the message of salvation, and what responsibilities does this place on priests if they are to live up to the Church’s, which means Christ’s, high expectations? Many people have never read the documents of the Second Vatican Council. Even if they were read when they first came out, by now there has been such a debris of second and third rate commentators as to have in some peoples’ minds quite thoroughly obscured what the Church really taught.

Here is what the Second Vatican Council states on the subject of the duty of priests as proclaimers of God’s Word. “Priests owe it to everybody to share with them the truth of the Gospel in which they rejoice in the Lord. Therefore, whether by having their conversation heard among the gentiles they lead people to God; or by openly preaching proclaim the mystery of Christ to unbelievers; or teach the Christian message or explain the Church’s doctrine; or endeavor to treat of contemporary problems in the light of Christ’s teaching—in every case their role is to teach not their own wisdom but the Word of God and to issue an urgent invitation to all men to conversion and to holiness.”

Out of this document I would like to select certain passages that are specially, even embarrassingly significant. Priests are said to “owe it to everybody to share with them the truth of the Gospel, in which they rejoice in the Lord.” What is the Church telling her some four hundred thousand priests in the Catholic Church?

First of all that this is no option. To proclaim the Gospel is no luxury; it is an obligation. Priests owe it to everybody, and if they owe it, others have the right, a God-given right, to hear God’s Word proclaimed. Priests are further told they are to share with everybody. It means, therefore, that the Gospel is to be shared with all who are under their immediate care, but not only those. A priest is never off duty; a priest never retires.

Among the many things that a great moral theologian taught his priest-students was to make sure that they never held back the hard sayings of the Gospel. “For example”, he said, “if you are preaching in a wealthy parish and it happens to be the Gospel, or you take the occasion to preach of the difficulty of the rich to save their souls, tell them like it is. They may never call you back. No matter. They have heard the Word of God.” Whatever weakness a priest has, it should never be human respect.

Priests are to share with everybody. You don’t share except what you yourself already have. Evidently, a priest himself already possesses a large storehouse from the ocean of God’s wisdom. If a priest is never off duty, so a priest also should never stop learning and acquiring.

Priests are to share the truth, which means they know the truth and know the difference between truth and untruth. Too often when we talk about discernment of spirits we think correctly but inadequately of discerning between the spirit of good and the spirit of evil. But even more fundamental is to recognize the difference between the spirit of truth and the spirit that is the father of lies. Given the times in which we are living, we hear if anything too much about the devil and not always by people who believe in him. Oh, he is real alright! The one thing we should know about the evil spirit is that he is a deceiver. And a priest must know when somebody is trying to deceive him.

Priests are to share with everybody the truth of the Gospel, in which they rejoice in the Lord. There is such a thing as enjoying the truth. In fact, if a priest does not himself enjoy what he believes, the odds are he won’t bother sharing it. It means, therefore, to have both the truth and to live it. Joy is living the truth. There is no joy in living a lie.

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Priests are to share the Gospel not only with believers but with unbelievers, too. How that needs to be emphasized. The world’s population is growing geometrically; it is now close to four billion, four thousand million people. The chasm separating the number of Christians in any shape or form from those who are not Christians is becoming greater by many millions every year.

Dear Lord, who is at fault? I believe you became man and died for the human race; yet less than half of this world population has even heard your Name!

Now theology tells us that it is possible for the good Buddhists or the pious Shintoists to be saved. But is that why Christ came into the world and died, that men should not have known that the Son of God is in our midst in human flesh; not believed in the Real Presence; not known that “God so loved the world, “as John tells us, “That He sent His only begotten Son” to become one of us; not to be really clear and lucid about the purpose of life? Only God knows, but I dare say a good half of America does not really know why it exists. Who is at fault? All of us. Because Christ, having done His work, left not merely the preservation of the faith, but its propagation to all of us according to our respective states of life; and among the responsible persons are especially priests.

The letters that Saint Francis Xavier wrote back to Europe seem almost like the letters of a madman; he was overcome by the teeming millions all around him hungry for the Word of God, and there was no one to tell them. So much so that he wrote more than once to Saint Ignatius, “My hands actually drop dead. I sometimes have to have them supported to baptize the people who want to become Christians once I tell them that God loves them and died on the cross and shed His blood for them. That kind of a God they want to believe in.” No wonder he wore himself out, lived a very short life, died exhausted preaching the Gospel.

Priests are to teach, not their own wisdom, but the Word of God. This means they meditate on the Word of God daily. Do you know why Saint Dominic’s order, the Order of Preachers, came into existence? Because the clergy of Dominic’s day were just not preaching the Word of God. Saint Dominic’s motto for his Order is “Contemplata Alius Tradere”— to pass on to others what I have first contemplated. But I must first have done the contemplation.

No less than Christ, who had His vision of the Father which we don’t have, a priest, too, must live on faith. But he must, through his daily meditation, contemplating the truth, become so enamoured of that truth, so embued with its depth, so on fire with zeal to share it that he can’t wait until he gets out and shares it with as many as are willing and even those who are unwilling to listen. Daily meditation is absolutely essential for a priest.

Priests are to teach in such a way that they invite people to conversion and to holiness. Note these are the two goals of priestly zeal. First, to conversion. This means that the first object of their preaching and teaching the Gospel should be to bring sinners back to the God from whom they are estranged. It is not only the ignorant or the unlettered who are in need, but often also the too-learned and educated. Many wealthy people, who perhaps have become so immersed in the things of this world in the process, have lost contact with God. We can practically quote Christ in saying this: it seems that not a few will be lost. If they are, I partly blame priests who have not had the courage to insist with those on whose, perhaps, generosity they depend. That’s what makes it hard, when you have to bite the hand that feeds you.

Or, on another level, among the learned. A priest should never apologize to anyone for his own lack of learning. If he is not as learned as he thinks he should be, let him learn more so he can cope with the educated world. He gets an assignment, say, to a University parish. He must measure up to the academic level, as far as in him lies, of the people in whose favor he is to preach the Gospel, so they will listen, so he

139 can use the sesquipedalian words they use and tell them in their own jargon, “You are sinners, and in plain Anglo-Saxon you’re going to hell unless you repent.” I also know they expect priests to talk this way. They are scandalized when a priest plays up to them or carters to them or, may God forgive him, is afraid of them.

Moreover, it is not only to convert sinners. It is also, as the Church tells her priests, to invite people to holiness. Never, I believe, has the peoples’ desire for things of the spirit been greater than today. The editors of Doubleday tell me in their more than seventy-five years of publishing existence, never have they had so many people buying so many books, often the great, so-called “out-moded” classics. Saint John of the Cross, I am told, is selling well. They just made a brand new edition of Caussade’s “Abandonment to Divine Providence” because of the clamor for this kind of reading. People want it. And the more demonic the forces outside in the world become, the more people will tell themselves and tell the God in whom they believe, “Lord, who else but you can save us?”

It was in this phenomenal context of our strange world that the Second Vatican Council has explained in the clearest terms how God is calling all His faithful to holiness. Yes, all of this is true. But it can be pathetically true unless these people find among their priests those who are willing to talk to them about the things of God; to give them counsel and direction; teach them; train them in the things of the Spirit. It is especially priests who themselves being holy, are to teach holiness to others. Holiness can be taught, always of course with the assistance of the Holy Spirit.

On both levels of this teaching, conversion and leading people to holiness, a priest will be only as effective as he is first of all knowledgeable. Where does he get this knowledge? Holiness by itself is not quite enough; he must know. He gets this knowledge from study; but it must be sound, authentic, orthodox doctrine that he learns. It is not easy for a priest always to distinguish between the sound and the spurious in the books and the journals that he reads, the lectures he hears, or even the guidelines he sometimes receives from those in his diocese or community who are to direct his preaching and teaching ministry. Yet, distinguish he must. A priest must learn; he must read; he must listen. But either he reads and hears the truth, or the faithful will not receive the truth from him.

The laity need priests to teach them God’s truth and nothing but the truth. Sadly, they are not always getting the truth. I think it is a miracle of grace that our laity have by and large remained so faithful to the Church in spite of the sometimes atrocious nonsense they are being taught in religious education programs, in the lectures, in the sermons, in the conferences they hear, in the columns in diocesan papers they read, behind all of which stands this anguishing need which can be met in the Church only by the priests. They must know the truth; otherwise, in God’s Church, who else will know it?

Is there some single and simple formula for the priests to identify what is Catholic truth and what, though perhaps very learned, is either untruth or dubiously true or only someone’s fervid speculation? Yes. The acid test more than ever today is whether what is written or said conforms to, or is in contradiction to the teaching of the Vicar of Christ. Those who agree with him are teaching the truth and they should be listened to. Everyone else is to be ignored.

In the years to come the faith which Christ came into the world to give the world, will remain intact, and the Church He founded will be strong where, and to the extent that priests have been aware of their responsibility as spokesmen for Christ in the modern world. All other elements in the Church, and they are many, are useful or even necessary. But the last analysis the Church stands or falls in any place or among any people on one condition, that the truth of Christ’s revelation is being proclaimed. The first divinely

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appointed proclaimers of this truth are priests. With Saint Paul, they should say, “Woe to us, if we do not proclaim the Gospel, the full Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Conference transcription from a retreat that Father Hardon gave in December, 1977 to the Handmaids of the Precious Blood

Retreat on the Priesthood

Humility and Obedience in the Priest

Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

It may seem a bit strange that all the major exhortations of the modern Popes to priests stress the importance of the virtues of humility and obedience, with no exception. On second thought, however, it is not unexpected. You would expect priests to be reminded to practice especially the two virtues on which so much depends in their lives and ministry. Why? In answering this question I will take up each virtue separately and try to show why it is so important for priests, if they wish to be priestly priests, to be humble and obedient, and how they can grow in humility and obedience.

As we apply these ideas to a priest, we see immediately that he will have difficulties above the ordinary in keeping himself humble. Faith tells him, and the faithful recognize the fact, that he is possessed of extraordinary powers. On his consecrated words depends the Real Presence of Christ on earth. No priests, no Eucharist. On his intention to separately consecrate the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ depends the continuance of the sacrifice of Calvary. On his words of absolution depends the reconciliation of sinners with God. On his anointing of the sick depends their remission of sin and the gaining of strength, when needed to enter into eternity. On his teaching the revealed Word, depends the Faithfull’s possession and preservation of the faith. On his counsel depends, in large measure, the growth of souls in sanctity.

And so the list might go on. Every facet of the ministry is the exercise of such influence in the lives of others that no one under heaven is more exposed to the temptation of pride than a priest. Perhaps some people, especially in academic circles, still wonder why the Church is suffering so gravely at the hands and lips of her priests. We need not wonder. Most of the chaos in the Catholic Church today is due to the pride of priests.

What adds to the gravity of the situation is that the media (the radio and television, newspapers, magazines and publishers) give priests so much occasion for publicity and such opportunities for recognition, especially if they have strange ideas, that unless priests are extremely careful, their vanity and desire for praise will be exploited 141 by the enemies of the Church to the detriment of the people of God. It is hard enough to be humble when a person is not educated, as priests certainly are; or not to be held in honor just in virtue of their office. A youngster in his mid-twenties is just ordained, and immediately the faith of the people sees in him a man apart. He gets respect and attention that no one else, naturally speaking, could get.

Combine all these factors and we begin to see what a great responsibility a man assumes when he is ordained: the responsibility for the practice of that most fundamental of virtues, humility. How hard is the task he has to face, as no one but a priest understands.

When the great Doctor of the Church, Saint John Chrysostom, as a simple hermit was being urged to become a priest, he strenuously resisted what he called not an invitation but a temptation, before he finally was ordained. Later on he wrote a book about it, a masterpiece on the priesthood. One of his main fears, as he confessed, was the dread of pride. He said to his friend Basil (later on, Basil the Great), who was telling him to be ordained, “I beg and beseech you, I know my own soul, my weakness, my infirmities. I know too the greatness of this ministry and all the difficulties of its office. The waves which break upon the priestly soul are greater than those which the winds raise upon the seas and the worst of these is that most terrible rock which is pride.” Is it any wonder the greatest mystic since Saint Paul, Francis of Assisi, did not dare to be ordained? Thus spoke and acted the saints and thus speaks every honest priest in the depths of his heart. He knows that his single worst enemy in the world is the demon of pride.

A humble priest is therefore no respecter of persons. And if anything, he prefers the poor and unimportant, the simple and unattractive, the lowly, the ignored – people who will not nourish his self-conceit, or throw fuel on his pride.

There is a long passage in the Second Vatican Council’s Decree on the Life and Ministry of Priests that deals with the subject of their obedience, and it intertwines the practice of obedience with the virtue of charity. Certain key passages in that Decree bring to the surface important implications for priestly obedience.

Priests are told that, “The priestly ministry, being the ministry of the Church itself, can only be fulfilled in the hierarchical union of the whole body of the Church.” Consequently, a priest is obedient and obediently working with and under and through the hierarchy, or his work will not be blessed by God. There is no such thing as a priest going off on his own, independent of ecclesiastical obedience, and expecting God to grace his labors. A priest is not ordained for himself; he is ordained as the Vulgate has it “ad alios”, for others. But being a priest, he is not only ordained for others; he must also work with others, “cum allis”, and those others are his fellow priests united under the hierarchy. 142

There is nothing that man possesses that is more precious to him than his own will. This is the heart of the priest as sacrifice, because standing at the altar, though he does indeed offer the Holy Sacrifice, yet there he is only the instrument of the great High Priest Jesus Christ who is the principal priest sacrifice at Mass. But the one thing which the priest can most call his own, his own free will, is what he surrenders when he obeys. It is that surrender that is so pleasing to God and so demanded by God of the priest.

Third, priests are told to carry out obediently the commands and suggestions of the Pope, their bishop and their superiors. There are two profound insights here. The first is that perfect obedience in anyone, here in a priest, does not wait to be commanded. In fact, by the time a person has to be commanded, he or she may still obey of course, but that is not the main function of obedience, to give solemn commands. True obedience responds even to the suggestions or intimations of ecclesiastical authority.

Notice too, that the first one that a priest is told to obey is the Pope. Thirty or forty years ago, had a Council been held at that time, that Council probably would not have felt it necessary to explicitate Pope, bishops and superiors. In today’s Church this can be a difficult obedience indeed. Part of the crisis in the Catholic Church is that some of the most explicit directives of the Holy See are given lip service but are not seriously put into practice, or for priests, are not preached.

We have, for example, the Pope’s most formal, authentic, and solemn condemnation of contraception. How seldom in these United States do we find any pastoral letters from bishops, or sermons from priests reemphasizing the Church’s solemn teaching; a recent poll claims that between seventy and ninety percent of Catholic American married couples practice contraception.

The Holy See insists on first confession for children before their first Communion. Yet, in travelling across the country, I hear some of the most pathetic stories from mothers who are trying to find priests who will hear the confessions of their young children.

The Holy See has given the clearest declarations on the grave obligation to recite the Divine Office. The Pope, following the Council, gave unequivocal directives on clerical garb. Is it any wonder so many religious women have removed their habits? Priests, who themselves are disobedient to the Church’s directives for them; in turn tell the women religious that they too don’t have to be identified as consecrated to God. The Holy See has repeated forthright statements on the sacred vestments to be worn for the offering of the Mass. I’ve attended the Divine Service where angels would weep to see how the priest or priests were undressed at the altar. They would show more respect to a policeman than to the Son of God.

Rome has repeated warnings about following the prescriptions of the Liturgy, about not making up one’s own Eucharistic Canons or substituting other prayers or readings for those clearly indicated and prescribed, with manifold options, but nevertheless prescribed by the Church. 143

Anyone who knows the state of affairs today can testify, a priest’s obedience is mightily tested, especially in these crucial areas of the mind of the Vicar of Christ and of the Holy See.

Conference transcription from a retreat that Father Hardon gave in December, 1977 to the Handmaids of the Precious Blood

Retreat on the Priesthood Christ the High Priest on Earth

Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

As we begin our meditation on the priesthood of Christ, we should immediately distinguish the two stages of its existence: namely, His life on earth and His life in heaven. We carefully note that while the Son of God, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, had no beginning since He was from all eternity, yet Jesus Christ had a beginning. He began at the moment of the Incarnation when Mary told the angel: “I am the handmaid of the Lord, let what you have said be done to me.”

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In having a beginning, Jesus Christ will have no end. He began at Nazareth but will continue forever. Within this span which began in time, we further note that Christ had a mortal ending when He died on the cross. He had an absolute beginning at the Incarnation; he had an end when He died mortally on Calvary. Consequently, the priesthood of Jesus was terrestrial, temporal, and mortal and the priesthood of Christ is celestial, eternal and immortal.

Our concern in this meditation is with the first: the priesthood of the Savior on earth in time and in His human, natural capacity for suffering and for death. We can ask a few questions and answer them briefly, but reflection on these answers is indispensable, because all the grandeur and mystery of our salvation is locked up in the priesthood of Christ; it took place in history, but its effects transcend history and will go on eternally.

When did Christ’s priesthood begin? The priesthood of the Savior began at the Incarnation. The Son of God could not have been a priest before His Incarnation because He was not yet the God-man. God as God cannot be a priest. God had to become man to become priestly. His priesthood, therefore, began at the moment that He assumed humanity. But what is perhaps more surprising is that no less than anyone else, Christ had to be ordained. He was ordained to the priesthood. In other words, not even the Son of God ordained Himself. He had to be ordained. The language is filled with mystery but mystery hides great truth.

In the Old Testament, ordination to the priesthood was done by having the Levites anointed with visible oil. The unction was, of course, purely accidental. It flowed on their skin, and because Yahweh so ordained, this unction or anointing conferred on them the privilege and the right that no one else enjoyed—to offer sacrifice to the divine majesty. So selective were those who were chosen to be ordained that all the rest of Israel was to support them in order that they might devote themselves exclusively to the work of the Almighty.

The God-man Jesus Christ was also anointed. The language in spite of its apparent symbolism is not symbolic at all. In fact, if anything is symbolic, it is the anointing with oil; but not Christ’s anointing. His unction was of course not with the visible oil, as the Fathers of the Church unanimously declared; He was anointed with the invisible oil of the divinity. The moment the hypostatic union took place, when the divinity of the Son of God was united with the humanity provided by Mary that humanity was covered over, was enveloped, had poured over it the divinity of the Second Person of the Trinity. The anointing of Christ was not merely external or less still, merely accidental. It was, in the profoundest sense in which words can be used, substantial and interior. The whole of the human nature of Christ was entirely anointed by the divinity. Christ was ordained in the womb of Mary. As Saint Paul tells us, the moment He was ordained, His divinity, which before the ordination was incapable of offering sacrifice, was now enabled. The Almighty God had to acquire something! He was enabled to suffer and to experience pain. He was enabled to shed blood. He was enabled to die. What a terrifying enablement!

We marvel at the infinite goodness of God who sent His Son into the world and by the power of the Holy Spirit had Him anointed a priest at that moment He entered the world. God did not just want to become man. He wanted to become a priest so that as a priest He might be able to sacrifice—not outside of Himself as in the Old Law, but sacrifice Himself. Christ was indeed a priest, but only because He became a priest. He did not have to. He became a priest at the instant He assumed our passable humanity. That means a humanity capable of suffering. At the instant He assumed our human mortality, God wanted to die; and at that instant, He assumed our human capacity to endure. That is what a priest is for—to endure. We are, according to our respective states of life, as priestly in our lives as we imitate the priestliness of Jesus who, having joy set before Him, chose the cross.

How did Christ exercise His priestly office? Christ exercised His priestly office in two ways: by sacrifice and by prayer at all times until the end of time. Priestliness implies sacrifice and prayer, which we may combine by calling it prayerful sacrifice or sacrificial prayer. You see how profound the combination is! 145

First then, the Savior exercised His priesthood by sacrifice. This means that Jesus from the instant of His Incarnation surrendered Himself entirely to the will of His heavenly Father. Get the picture! There is a will on earth and there is a will in heaven. The essence of sacrifice is the surrender of a will on earth to that will in heaven. Sacrifice means surrender. In Christ’s case this surrender had some remarkable qualities, each a meditation for our long prayerful reflection.

His surrender was, first of all, continual. It was never interrupted by any self-will. Of course Christ remained a free agent. This is the only fear that foolish man has, that somehow (what madness!) by surrendering his will to God, man will cease to be himself, whereas the very opposite is true. We are most human when we most completely surrender our wills to God. In fact, the opposite is not to be human but to be demonic. Was that not the temptation to Eve from the evil one, and through Eve to Adam? The essence of being a demon is to do one’s will contrary to the will of the Almighty.

In Christ’s case His surrender was constant. There was no reservation for even a moment of anything that Christ did because He wanted to. There are only two great mysteries in the universe, one in heaven (the Trinity) and the other on earth (man’s liberty). The mystery is that our liberty is best used and most free when it is least free, least free to do what it wants. In Christ, doing what it wants –His will apart from the will of the Father—never existed. He did always and only what the Father desired.

This surrender of the Savior was entire. It was in everything He did—in great and small things. In fact, the distinction between great and small disappears against the backdrop of doing the will of God. What is small? Nothing is small. What is big? Everything is big when what we are doing is what the Almighty wants us to do. He surrendered Himself at His conception in Mary’s womb. This was a fully conscious and totally voluntary surrender: His journey to Elizabeth in His mother’s womb, His flight into Egypt in her arms, His long hidden years at Nazareth, His temptation in the desert, His leaving home, His preaching, His being thwarted and opposed, His poverty, His exhaustless patience with those apostles, and above all, His foreseeing the Passion and voluntarily, as He insisted, choosing it. In fact, in Christ’s case, because He had the vision of God, the surrender was not as we surrender, often unanticipated and unexpected. In Christ’s case, He anticipated what He was going to surrender and He did so anyway.

Christ’s exercise of His priestly office in sacrifice was by a surrender that was painful. There was the social pain of rejection by His own people. There was the spiritual pain of knowing that in spite of His Passion so many would reject His grace and refuse to be saved. There was the psychological pain of seeing Himself taunted and ridiculed and, by all human estimates, a failure. A Man who had the desires of God found Himself condemned as a criminal and dying on the cross. This failure that Christ both saw and foresaw was not only in Palestine at that time but into the centuries to come. After nineteen hundred years, less than one half of the human race, all of which He came to redeem, even believes in His name. That was hard!

This surrender of the Savior was bloody. In other words, we can never separate the sacrifice of Christ the Priest on earth from His shedding of blood. In fact, that is what His precious blood means. It means the exercise of His priesthood by draining His blood. It began symbolically at the Circumcision. Then He shed His blood because of the interior agony He experienced in the Garden of Gethsemane. He shed His blood from the scourging, the crowning of thorns, but most especially by His being nailed to and dying on the cross.

Finally and most importantly, the sixth attribute of Christ’s sacrificial surrender was that it was loving. Christ endured what He did because He loved the Father and He loved us. Thus did Christ exercise His priesthood on earth by offering sacrifice.

The Savior also exercised His priestly office by prayer. For a moment we should distinguish between what may be called Christ’s private prayer, which we may be sure He often offered to His heavenly Father, and His 146 priestly prayer. Among Christ’s priestly prayers none is more important than the prayer He said at the institution of the Holy Eucharist. If ever we were tempted to doubt the efficacy and the power of Christ’s prayer, we have the answer in what that prayer effected at the Last Supper. It changed bread and wine into His own body and blood. Or, as we say theologically, Christ’s priestly prayer is always efficacious. It always achieves what He prays for.

But immediately after He instituted the Blessed Sacrament, gave us the Holy Sacrifice and Holy Communion, Christ offered another priestly prayer which compels further reflection: the whole seventeenth chapter of Saint John’s Gospel. It is a prayer that contains four remarkable petitions, each of which we are to make our own, and joining our priestliness with His, further advance and insure that what He prayed for would be accomplished. It was in this context that He gave us that unforgettable definition of everlasting life.

Christ’s priestly prayer was, first of all, that the whole human race might come to know and believe in His Son who became man. And we, in our way, live out that priestly prayer and help to achieve its fulfillment by our own prayer and sacrifice for that same end.

It was also in this prayer that Jesus pleaded for unity: “Father that they may be one in us, as you are in me and I am in you.” This may aptly be called His prayer for community. How we must pray and sacrifice that this unity in community. How we must pray and sacrifice that this unity in community might be achieved! Who could possibly doubt that for the followers of Christ to live together in loving community requires much prayer and sacrifice?

It was in this priestly prayer that Christ begged His Father that His followers might be protected from evil. It was here that Jesus said those incredible words: “I am not praying for the world….” Dear Lord, what do you mean? He did not pray does not now pray for those who do not want to do His will. But for those who are His disciples He prays that they might be protected from this world. How we need to put this prayer into practice today when, perhaps, the most seductive single word in our contemporary vocabulary is “world.” We are being told to relate to the world; to be relevant to the world; to be in the world; to be with the world. How we need to pray to have the wisdom to distinguish between the world of sin and the world of God’s creation, and the strength to protect ourselves, and through our prayer and sacrifice to protect others from a sinful world!

Finally, Christ prayed in that seventeenth chapter of Saint John for holiness for His followers. But not any kind of holiness. He prayed for a holiness in truth; a holiness that is founded on God’s revelation; a holiness that recognizes that being holy is being like God and acting according to the norms of God. In a word, Christ prayed that His followers might be sanctified by becoming like Himself because they had first come to know Him. That kind of sanctity is safe and secure because it is the holiness patterned on Jesus.

The names Jesus, Savior, and Priest, faith tells us are perfectly synonymous terms. Let us ask this Jesus to help us understand His priestliness, that becoming more like Him we might, like Him and with Him, help Him redeem the world.

Conference transcription from a retreat that Father Hardon gave in December, 1977 to the Handmaids of the Precious Blood

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Retreat on the Priesthood Christ the High Priest in Heaven

Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

We have already seen at some length something of Christ’s priesthood on earth. We saw that His priesthood was terrestrial or earthly; it was temporal: it ended with Christ’s death on the cross; and it was mortal: experienced by Christ and practiced by Him in His mortal human nature.

But Christ not only was a priest; He is a priest. He is our priest and He is a priest on our behalf now that He is in heaven. I dare say not too many Catholics realize this. In order to better understand this large panorama of our faith, we will look at a few questions and, while answering them, apply the fruits of our reflection to our lives.

How do we know that Christ’s priesthood continues in heaven? We know it because the fact has been divinely revealed. The entire letter of Saint Paul to the Hebrews is built around this theme. No doubt Paul reserved that letter for the Hebrews because this was the great preoccupation of Israel. What would happen, the Jews feared, if the sacrifices of the Old Law ceased?

In any case, Saint Paul tells us, in speaking of Christ: “He, because He continues forever, has an everlasting priesthood.” And again, “We have such a High Priest who has taken His seat at the right hand of the throne of majesty in the heavens.” What should this mean to us? It should first of all be a source of immense consolation that Christ did not cease to be our priest, which means our Savior, with His death on the cross. No, He continues His priestly office in our regard even now.

Why is this significant? Because it tells us what we so much need to know: that just as we are sinners now, and who doubts that, we need a Savior now. In a word, Christ’s salvific work continues even as our sinfulness still goes on. We need to be constantly and continually saved from our present misdeeds. Although Christ did indeed die for us in His mortal sacrifice, He, as it were, keeps pace with man’s sins: His priesthood is coextensive with our sinfulness.

How does Christ exercise His priesthood in heaven? Regarding the manner in which Christ now exercises his heavenly priesthood, revelation teaches us that, I quote again from Saint Paul, “He is always living to make intercession for us.” Christ’s sacerdotal office in heaven, therefore, is an office of intercession. That it is truly a priestly function is plain from the apostle’s explanation that this intercession is made always in relation to and as a result of the bloody sacrifice of the cross. This intercession is effective because Christ really died. It is as though the Savior were constantly showing the heavenly Father what He had done, as though He had invested an infinite capital of merit by His death on Calvary. Having shed His blood, His blood as it were, pleads on our behalf.

This is what Jesus meant when at the Last Supper He said, as He consecrated the chalice, “This is My blood of the new covenant… But I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine until that day when I shall drink it new with you in the Kingdom of my Father.” In a mysterious mystical sense Christ, now in the heavenly Kingdom, continues drinking of the chalice that He consecrated at the Last Supper.

What are the spiritual implications for us? Having stated some of the doctrine, we want to draw out the ascetical and spiritual implications. These implications are many, but they are summarized in this fact: while Christ has already shed Hid blood, and His blood pleads for mercy for a sinful mankind, yet, mysteriously and terrifyingly, His heavenly priesthood is only as effective as we allow Him to make it. 148

How do we allow His priestly intercession in heaven to affect us on earth? We do so first of all by our appreciation of what He has done for us. Of all the expressions of gratitude we can make; of all the forms of thanksgiving we can express, there is none that should more constantly and profoundly be in our hearts and on our lips than gratitude for what Christ has done for us by His death on the cross. We need to remind ourselves of this very often. Very properly, we thank God for the little things and the big things, and yet we are likely to forget the biggest thing.

There is a short statement by Pope Saint Clement in a letter he sent to the Corinthians about the year 90 A.D., in which this beautiful passage occurs: “Let us fix our gaze on the blood of Christ and realize how precious it is to the Father, seeing that it was poured out for our salvation and brought the grace of conversion to the whole world.”

Our first implication, therefore, is or should be grateful appreciation. Measured by our appreciation, the fruitfulness of this eternal heavenly priesthood of Christ will benefit those for whom the blood had been shed and is even now precious to the Father.

Secondly, we allow Christ’s priestly intercession in heaven to benefit us by our willing cooperation with the graces that Christ won for us by His death on the cross. This willing cooperation is no figure of speech. It means in practice that we honestly try to do three things—and really there are only these three things to do in life. First, to seek to know honestly what is God’s will for each of us. This means that we ask for light from God, and we seek counsel. Second, we seek to know how we are to do God’s will, since knowing what we are to do is not enough; we must also know how to do it. Third, having found out what we are to do and how, we then do it.

It’s remarkable how many minutes and hours and, in some cases, years may intervene between step one and two and especially between step two and three. For some people in some aspects of their life they never take step three. So do it! No one, not even the Almighty, will do it for you. You almost wonder: who is almighty? Is it God or is it we, who can say “no” to Omnipotence?

It is remarkable how many persons of normal intelligence and ostensibly good will never grow in sanctity because they lack the generosity of responding to God’s Will as they should. Why don’t they respond as they should? Sometimes it’s comforting to use the third person; it gives you the illusion of talking about somebody else. Why don’t some people respond as they should to the will of God? Because they are afraid of blood. They fear that if they really knew what God wanted them to do and found out how to do it and then did it, they would get hurt.

Here none of us is an exception. We are all frightened by those simple aphorisms of the saints about suffering. Saint John of the Cross: “The purest suffering bears and carries in its train the purest understanding.” Saint Ignatius: “The greatest joy that a follower of Christ should expect on earth is to share in his Master’s suffering.” Saint Teresa of Avila: “Desire earnestly always to suffer for God in everything and on every occasion.”

We read these sentiments and tremble. That is natural, which, quite frankly, is why there is such a thing as grace. That is what grace is all about, to cope with nature. Otherwise grace wouldn’t be what it is— supernatural. The secret is to resign ourselves to endure suffering whether it is our physical weakness, pain, sickness, old age, inability to work the way we used to or would like to, or being ignored, passed over, snubbed, unjustly rebuked; or the recollection of our past sins and broken promises, or the memory of past failures, desires and unfulfilled dreams. This is precisely what Christ’s priesthood is all about, that having died on the cross, and now interceding before His heavenly Father in our behalf, Christ is gaining for us, pouring out, if only we are willing to receive, the graces we need to cope with our nature, so as to glorify God who gives such strength to weak human beings. 149

After His resurrection, for His own profound reasons, Christ saw fit not to lose or shed or remove the five wounds on His body that He suffered on the cross and from each of which (the right hand, the left hand, the right foot, the left foot, and the open side) flowed out His blood. This loss caused His death and bought the redemption of the world.

Why did Christ decide to keep His wounds and take them with Him to heaven so that as the glorified Redeemer He remains the wounded High Priest for all eternity? For two reasons, and both have to do with us. His wounds in heaven are His constant sacerdotal prayer for our salvation and sanctification. Dare we run away from our cross, realizing that we have all the grace we need, and far more than we need, to bear with all the trials that no one life, but thousands of lives could bear? We have the grace. Priest that He is, He is winning for us and giving us at this moment all the help we need.

Secondly, His wounds in heaven are His constant priestly reminder to us that heaven is to be fought for and therefore won; that heaven is a prize to be gained only after struggle; and above all, that it is a victory after a battle, in which, like Him, we are bound to get wounded. But our pain and even our blood are worth it. They must be, seeing that our divine High Priest paid so much to merit heaven for us. He did His part, the greater part—we must do ours. It is little by comparison with His; but our part must be done. No one else but we can do it.

Conference transcription from a retreat that Father Hardon gave in December, 1977 to the Handmaids of the Precious Blood

Retreat on the Priesthood Celibacy in the Catholic Priesthood

Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

Some people may be surprised at the pressure and propaganda that have arisen in our day against the celibacy of priests in the Catholic Church. But it should not be surprising, as the history of the Church from the beginning amply testifies. It was, in fact, the unwillingness of so many priests to remain celibate that tilted the pressure in favor of Protestantism in the sixteenth century. There were many other factors; doctrinal, theological, political, that cost so many millions to Catholic unity, but the center of the issue was priestly celibacy. The first thing the so-called reformers did on breaking with the Roman Catholic Church was to remove celibacy.

It is also the same unwillingness in our day that is mainly responsible for the massive exodus of so many priests from their priestly ministry. Before and during the Second Vatican Council there was extreme

150 agitation, some in high quarters, to have celibacy for priests in the Western Church made optional; but, as happened more than once in previous centuries, the Council held firm.

If we ask, “What positive good has come from the Second Vatican Council?” there are more than a dozen answers. But somewhere near the top is its unmistakable support for priestly celibacy, as the following statement of the Council makes clear. “Based on the mystery of Christ and His mission, celibacy which at first was recommended to priests was afterwards in the Latin Church imposed by law on all who were to be promoted to holy orders. This Sacred Council approves and confirms this legislation.”

When this decree was issued on December 7, 1965, there was much adverse criticism, and the storm of protest has not yet died down. In the meantime, the Holy See has dispensed many priests who were laicized also from their celibacy, but with the absolute prohibition ever again to exercise their priesthood. Once a man is ordained he is never un-ordained. In other words, the Church once again has stood strong on what is surely one of the glories of the Catholic priesthood and one of its principal means of drawing down God’s blessings on those ordained to the altar.

Why should priests remain celibate? This question has arisen many times and has been asked in a thousand ways. Why should priests not marry like, say, Protestant ministers do? Why make such a hard demand on weak human nature that is not infrequently unequal to the obligation? To begin to find a reason, we must start with the person of Christ.

When the Son of God came into the world He surrounded His Incarnation with the aura of chastity. His mother, He made sure, would miraculously conceive Him without carnal intercourse. She would be a virgin before birth, in birth and after birth, as the Church solemnly teaches. Christ was, in the words of the Liturgy, “Floss matrix virgins” – the Flower of a virgin mother. He made sure He was brought up in the virginal family of Mary and Joseph. Christ, further, all through His stay on earth remained a virgin; He never married. During His public life He showed special love for pure souls, such as the two Johns – the Baptist and the Evangelist. Christ could not have spoken more laudably about anyone than He did about John the Baptist who, Christian revelation and her tradition tells us, was a virgin. The Evangelist as he modestly admits, without identifying himself by name, was the one whom Jesus specially loved.

The great apostle Saint Paul, faithful interpreter of the New Law and of the mind of Christ, preached the inestimable value of virginity in view of the more fervent service of God. He gave the reason when he said, “An unmarried man can devote himself to the Lord’s affairs; all he need worry about is pleasing the Lord.”

All of this clear revelation of the New Testament had almost inevitable consequences. The priests of the New Covenant felt the heavenly attraction of this virtue. They sought to be of the number of those to whom, in Christ’s prediction, it is given to take this word. They felt if anyone has the grace to remain celibate, surely it ought to be the priests. From the very beginning, the first century, they spontaneously bound themselves to celibate observance.

This bears more emphasis than we normally give it. There is so much talk these days about imposition, about constraint, about placing upon a man, heavy inhuman obligations. The facts of the case are just the opposite. Priestly celibacy in the Catholic Church began as a voluntary, spontaneous desire on the part of the Church’s priests to follow in the footsteps of Christ.

So it came about that the practice in the Latin Church received the sanction of ecclesiastical law. Law followed spontaneous choice, not the other way around. There first were celibate priests, and then, wisely

151 and understandably, the Church made laws, building on what then had already become part of the Church’s tradition.

Already as early as 305 A.D., in fact before the Church’s liberation under Constantine, the Council of Alvira in Spain passed the following decree: “That bishops, priests and deacons, and in general all the clergy who are specially employed in the service of the altar abstain from conjugal intercourse. Let those who persist be degraded from the ranks of the clergy.”

By the end of the fourth century the Second Council of Carthage in Africa declared: “What the apostles taught and the early Church preserved, let us too observe.” Celibacy is not a post factum, an afterthought of the Church. It is an anti factum reality practiced by the Church and wanted by those who wanted to be Christ’s priests.

So the tradition went on. In the Middle Ages when the Church in Europe was rocked to her foundations over this law of celibacy, one Pontiff after another stood his ground, until gradually this law was restored to its original integrity.

Behind the Church’s legislation is first of all the revealed fact that the Son of God was a virgin. If a priest is another Christ, if he is to be like Christ, if he is to portray and preach Christ to the people, is it not proper that like his Master he, too, should not marry? There is no point arguing this point with a person who lacks the faith. They don’t know what you’re talking about. And there is also no need to press the argument with one who believes. If Christ is God and Christ chose virginity, and I want to be like Him – well, I want to be like Him in all respects. The imitation of Christ is the first and fundamental reason for priestly celibacy, a reason however, that is not based on natural reason or still less on reasons. You don’t argue yourself into celibacy. It is based on the deeper wisdom of faith.

Experience and history, besides the fact of revelation, show that celibacy gives the priest extraordinary freedom, as Saint Paul says, freedom from the cares and worries that necessarily go along with marriage and rearing a family. There is first of all, freedom of time to give to the people under his sacerdotal care. There is freedom of mobility to go where there is hope of God’s greater glory and the good of souls. It is impossible to move around as much as a priest who is really zealous for souls should move about and at the same time do justice to his wife and children.

A priest has freedom of interest to devote himself exclusively to his priestly ministry and not be bound, as he would be in marriage, to preoccupation with so many things that would divide his interest between the priesthood and his duties as husband and father of a natural family. How many Protestant ministers have told me, “John, I envy you your celibate life. I love my wife and my children, but I often find it literally impossible to be what my people want me to be and to give my family the time and attention they deserve.”

It would be strange, if it were possible, that God would not correspondingly bless the celibacy of His priests by showering them with an abundance of His graces for the sacrifices that, as every priest knows celibacy costs.

What Pope Pius XII wrote to priests on this aspect of their celibate life deserves to be remembered and recalled whenever anyone tries to talk down the sublimity of this Christ-like institution. “By his law of celibacy,” says the Pope, “the priest, so far from losing the gift and duties of fatherhood, rather increases them immeasurably; for although he does not beget progeny for this passing life on earth, he begets children for that life which is heavenly and eternal.”

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Every man wants to be a father. The option he has is what kind of fatherhood he will experience. This is the capstone, as only priests who are faithful to their celibacy know. Their celibacy is a true fatherhood, as that of a woman dedicated to life in a religious community is a genuine motherhood. Let no one steal that mystery of our faith. The priest is emphatically not a pious bachelor. He is wedded to the Savior’s work in this world, and celibacy is the obvious and congenial, happy, enjoyable expression of the priest’s relationship to God and man.

All of this, however, requires deep faith in the priests; it requires discipline of his senses, especially his eyes and his sense of touch. He must be a disciplined man – no one else can remain celibate. It requires much prayer and an easy communion with God. Above all, it requires a great love of Jesus Christ and, of course, a great deal of grace from the Savior who called him and ordained him to the priesthood.

The Catholic faithful want to see their priests faithful to their celibacy; how it saddens them beyond description to see a priest unfaithful to his commitment. But as frightening as the statement may sound, it is true; people get the kind of priests they deserve. Priests are not alone; they are part of the Mystical Body. They need the other members of this body to help them be what Christ wants them to be. And the help they especially need from the people they are meant to serve is these peoples’ sacrificial prayer, prayer joined to sacrifice.

Without grace, celibacy is unthinkable; without grace, celibacy is unlivable. The prayers of the priest for himself are not enough. Either he gets the support of the faithful or he will not be able to remain faithful. But given their assistance, he will obtain as God wants him to obtain, the graces that he needs to be what the priest professes to be: a mediator of the Savior to a sinful, sex-ridden world; an ambassador of Christ, the virginal Son of the Virgin Mary.

Conference transcription from a retreat that Father Hardon gave in December, 1977 to the Handmaids of the Precious Blood

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Wednesday 9 July 1997

Yamoussoukro

Conference of Mons. Norberto Rivera

THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY IN THE LIFE AND MINISTRY OF THE PRIEST

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I. Introduction

Already approaching the celebration of the Third Millennium of the new era, the Church is intensifying her preparation for the encounter with her Lord (1), "Behold, the Bridegroom comes, go out and receive him" (2).

The Holy Father, John Paul II has wished that we as priests participate in a special way in this preparation, manifesting our communion with the one Eternal Pastor. This desire called for certain moments of encounter, of reflection on the gifts of the priesthood, and of prayer.

This is the origin of the International Encounter of Priests, which the Holy Father wishes to bear a profound Marian character, clearly showing forth the Catholic priesthood as inseparable from Mary's maternal action and presence.

Thus, last year, in 1996, we came together in Fatima (a place representative of Europe), and this year we come together here in the Ivory Coast (a place representing the African continent). Next year, 1998, we will come together in Mexico, where Guadalupe is the symbol of the Marian dimension in the life of the American peoples. For 1999, as we all know, we will be in Jerusalem (a place representing all the rest of Christianity), and then we will finish in the Eternal City, Rome, at the tomb of the Apostles.

I now will begin to present the theme assigned me for this second International Encounter for Priests: the presence of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Priestly life and ministry.

II. Universal Call to Holiness

Spirituality is an attitude, it is the way of conceiving and fulfilling the ideal of the Christian life. It corresponds to an intellectual conception defining a certain style of life, and to a practical choice that specifies the means to attain the one end: union with the Father through Christ, in the Spirit.

The Holy Spirit, source of all holiness, inspires in the Church many and various ways of living the Christian ideal.

Thus the plurality of spiritualities is born from the multiplicity of concrete and differentiated realizations of the one essential holiness. This is the direction that, before all else, the Council took in chapter 5 of the Constitution Lumen Gentium on the universal call to holiness in the Church: "The holiness cultivated by those under the guidance of the God's Spirit and obedient to the Father's voice is the same regardless of the multiple ways of life and occupations. Adoring Christ in spirit and in truth, they follow him, poor, humble, and bearing the cross, so as to merit being made sharers in his glory. But each one must walk without vacillation along the path of the living faith that produces hope and works of charity, according to the gifts and functions that are his own" (3). After establishing these principles there follows a list of the different forms of life in which each one must attain his own holiness.

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III. THE CHRISTOLOGICAL AND MARIOLOGICAL BASIS

Christ is the one way of the Father (4). Christ is the supreme model to which the disciple must conform his own conduct (5), until attaining Christ's sentiments (6), living his life, and possessing his Spirit (7): this is what the Church has taught in all times, and nothing in pastoral action must obscure this doctrine. But the same Church, guided by the Holy Spirit and taught through her secular experience, also recognizes that piety towards the Virgin, Mother of the Savior, and a connection with her has a great pastoral effectiveness and constitutes a force of renewal in Christian life. The reason for this effectiveness is easily intuited. In effect, Mary's multifaceted mission for the people of God is a supernatural reality fruitfully at work in the ecclesial organism. And it is gladdening to consider the singular aspects of this mission and to see how they are oriented, each one with its proper role, towards the same goal: to reproduce in the sons the spiritual characteristics of the First Born Son. She, free from every sin, leads her children to this: to conquer sin with energetic determination. This liberation from sin is the necessary condition for every renewal of Christian customs. The exemplary holiness of the Virgin moves the faithful to lift their eyes to Mary, who shines as the model of virtues. These virtues of the Mother will adorn the children, who tenaciously contemplate her example in order to reproduce her virtues in their own lives. And such progress in virtue will appear as a consequence and mature fruit of that pastoral force that springs from true devotion to the Virgin. The Catholic Church, basing itself on its secular experience, recognizes in devotion to the Virgin a powerful aid for man in the pursuit of his fulfillment. The Virgin contemplated in her real condition in the City of God, offers a serene vision and a calming word: the victory of hope over anguish, of communion over loneliness, of peace over unrest, of joy and beauty over tedium and nausea, of eternal perspectives over temporal ones, of life over death (8).

Following along the lines of Lumen Gentium and of the documents of the postconciliar Magisterium we find John Paul II's Encyclical Redemptoris Mater, which confirms the Christological and Ecclesiological basis of Mariology. The Holy Father explains the Virgin's "motherly presence" along the path of faith from two points of view: one theological, the other pastoral and spiritual (9).

IV. THE CHURCH'S SPIRITUALITY IS MARIAN

The Church too, as a body, has a spirituality, that is to say, she has taken on attitudes, made decisions, and adopted a style of life.

The Church's spirituality is a Marian spirituality because it imitates Mary's attitudes. The Church strives to form her relationship with God, with the Father through Christ in the Holy Spirit, after the style of the Blessed Virgin. This is one of the most important conclusions of Conciliar reflection regarding the place of Mary in relation to the Church.

In the documents where the Church points out her own intimate nature (Constitution Lumen Gentium) and her spirituality (Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium) she insists equally on presenting the Virgin as Typus, exemplar et imago of the Church herself.

This relationship (Mary as model for the Church) is a constant encouragement for the Church to reflect on the Mother of the Savior: to look at her, to contemplate her, to exalt her, to admire her, and above all to imitate her (10).

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This imitation of Mary by the pilgrim Church which, under the signs of the times moves towards the Heavenly Jerusalem, constitutes the foundation of the Marian character of liturgical spirituality. The imitation takes into account, above all, the exercise of the theological life of the Church, which reaches its greatest height in liturgical life (11).

The imitation and reproduction of the sentiments and attitudes of the Virgin are manifest and given life in the faithful, in seminarians, and in priests, through participation in the liturgy with a spirit of faith, hope, and charity, since the liturgy is Christ's own prayer to the Heavenly Father, exercised in union with his mystical body, and in a singular way with the Virgin.

In the Eucharist the Virgin Mary's motherhood in the order of grace has been understood and lived in a special way by the Christian people. There in the sacred Banquet Christ, with his true body, born of the Virgin Mary, is made present. Rightly so, popular Christian piety has always seen a profound link between devotion to the Blessed Virgin and Eucharistic worship, since Mary always guides the faithful to the Eucharist (12).

Reference to the person is essential to motherhood. Motherhood always defines a unique and unrepeatable relationship between two people: that of the mother with her child and that of the child with his mother.

One can affirm that motherhood "in the order of grace" maintains the analogy with "the order of nature" in its characterization of the mother-child union.

"There exists an essential relationship between the Mother of Jesus and the priesthood of the ministers of the Son, which derives from the relationship found between Mary's divine motherhood and Christ's priesthood. The Marian spirituality of every priest is rooted in this relationship. Priestly spirituality cannot be considered complete if it does not take into serious consideration the testament of Christ crucified, who wanted to confide his beloved disciple to his Mother and, through him, all priests, who have been called to carry forward the work of redemption" (13).

Mary's motherhood, which is turned into mankind's patrimony, is a gift: a gift that Christ himself personally makes to each man.

"Priests, who find themselves among the most beloved disciples of Jesus crucified and risen, must welcome Mary into their lives as their mother: she will therefore be the object of their continual attention and prayer. The ever-Virgin is for priests the mother who leads them to Christ, at the same time that she makes them authentically love the Church and guides them to the Kingdom of Heaven" (14).

V. PRIESTLY LIFE

Where does the Church's spirituality come from? From the heart of Christ, with which Mary's heart lovingly beats; in the Heart of Christ, which is the heart of the Church.

The raison d'être of seminaries and houses of priestly formation consists in conforming the lives of those aspiring to Holy Orders to the Heart of the Lord, until the sentiments and attitudes of our Savior Jesus Christ are reproduced in them(15).

The gesture with which Christ confided his disciple to his Mother and his Mother to the disciple (16) has defined an extremely close relationship between Mary and the Church. It is the will of the Lord that a Marian

156 note mark the physiognomy of the Church, her road, her pastoral activity; and into the spiritual life of each disciple a "Marian dimension" is infused (17).

Mary is much more than a model and a figure of the Church. For, "with love she cooperates in the generation and education" of the sons and daughters of Mother Church. The Church's motherhood is carried forth not only according to the model and figure of the Mother of God, but also with her "cooperation," which we understand as motherly mediation.

Here we discover the real value of the words spoken by Jesus to his mother when he was on the cross: Woman, behold your son, and to the disciple, Behold you mother. They are words that define Mary's place in the life of Christ's disciples and express her new motherhood as mother of the Redeemer: the spiritual motherhood, born from the depths of the paschal mystery of the world's Redeemer. Giving himself filially to Mary, the Christian, like the Apostle John, "welcomes as one of his own" Christ's mother and introduces her into the whole space of his interior life. That is to say, into his human and Christian "I": He took her into his home" (18). This is motherhood in the order of grace, because she implores the gift of the Holy Spirit which gives rise to the new children of God, redeemed by Christ's sacrifice: that Spirit who, together with the Church, Mary received on the day of Pentecost (19). a) The need for priestly formation in Mariology

By the coincidence of the data of faith and the facts of the anthropological sciences - when these have been applied to Mary of Nazareth - we have better understood that the Virgin is, at the same time, the highest historical realization of the gospel, and also the woman who, by her self-dominion, her sense of responsibility, her openness to others and spirit of service, her strength, and her love, has fulfilled the human dimension of life more completely than anyone else (20).

It is necessary to draw the men of our times near to the figure of the Virgin, putting into high relief her historical image of the humble Jewish maiden. It is necessary to show Mary's lasting and universal human qualities, in such a way that studying Mary sheds light on the study of man (21).

Because of her two-fold condition of perfect follower of Christ and the woman who has completely fulfilled herself as a person, she is a perennial source of fruitful inspirations for life. For the disciples of the Lord, the Virgin is the great symbol of the human being who fulfills the deepest longings of her mind, will, and heart, opening herself through Christ and in the Spirit to God's transcendence in a filial surrender of love, and fixing herself firmly in history by effective service to men (22).

Having considered the importance of the figure of the Virgin in salvation history and in the life of God's People, and following the indication of Vatican II and the Holy Fathers, one cannot seriously think of discarding today the teaching of Mariology: it is important therefore to give this teaching its proper place in seminaries and in theological faculties (23).

Research and teaching in Mariology and service in pastoral work tend towards the promotion of an authentic Marian piety, which must characterize the life of every Christian and particularly of those who dedicate themselves to theological studies and are preparing themselves for the priesthood (24).

It is necessary to stir up an authentic Marian piety among seminarians. The Code of Canon Law, when treating of the formation of candidates to the priesthood, recommends devotion to the Blessed Virgin, nourished by those acts of piety with which the students acquire the spirit of prayer and strengthen their vocations (25).

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In this sense the Congregation for Catholic Education has insisted on the need to give students in all centers of ecclesiastical studies and seminarians an integral Mariological formation that includes study, devotion, and life. They will have to acquire a complete and exact knowledge of the Church's doctrine concerning the Virgin Mary, nourishing an authentic love for this mother, which expresses itself in genuine methods of veneration and are translated into "imitation of her virtues" (26), and above all, a determined decision to live according to the commandments of God and to do his will (27); they will also have to develop the capacity to communicate that love - by words, writings, and by their own lives - to the Christian people (28). A few advantages of an adequate Marian formation follow (29): a. In the intellectual realm, because the truth about God and about man, about Christ and about the Church, are known more deeply and more sublimely through knowledge of the "truth about Mary." b. In the spiritual realm, because that formation helps the Christian to welcome and introduce the Mother of Jesus "into the whole space of his own interior life." c. In the pastoral realm, so that the Mother of the Lord is powerfully felt as a presence of grace for the Christian people.

The acquisition of a solid Marian spirituality is an essential aspect of Christian spirituality. On his road to full maturity in Christ (30), the Lord's disciple, conscious of the mission that God has entrusted to the Virgin in salvation history and in the life of the Church, takes her as a mother and a teacher in the spiritual life (31); with her and like her, in light of the Incarnation and the Pascal mystery, he stamps his own existence with a decisive orientation towards God through Christ in the Holy Spirit, so as to live out in the Church the radical invitation made by the Good News, and in particular, the commandment of love (32).

The piety related to Mary of Nazareth must constitute a permanent task, since the value of the Virgin's example and her mission are effectively permanent. The mother of the Lord is a fact of divine revelation and constitutes a motherly presence always at work in the life of the Church (33).

Marian formation in the priestly life is a determining factor for the Church's future. The priesthood is something that develops from the very beginning of one's Christian life, but it also develops in a very intense way during the seminary period. "No one gives what he doesn't have," our people say: "operatur sequitur esse," they used to teach us in philosophy; with this in mind I want to share with you, brothers in the priesthood, in the light and the embrace of the our Lady and Mother the Virgin Mary, some points that the Church has always made in her various Magisterial documents regarding the formation of her priests, ever faithful to the designs and sentiments of Christ.

Every priest knows that Mary, because she is a mother, is the eminent formator of the priesthood, since she is the one who knows how to shape the priestly heart; the Virgin, therefore, knows and wants to protect priests from dangers, exhaustion, and discouragement: with motherly solicitude she watches over the priest so that he may grow in wisdom, age, and grace before God and before men (34).

Those who do not know how to imitate the virtues of their mother are not devoted sons. The priest, therefore, must look to Mary if he wants to be a humble, obedient, and chaste minister who can give witness to charity through total donation to the Lord and to the Church (35).

The masterpiece of Christ's priestly sacrifice, the Virgin represents the Church in the most pure manner, "without stain or wrinkle," totally "holy and immaculate" (36). The contemplation of the Blessed Virgin keeps 158 ever in sight the ideal that the priest must always pursue in his ministry of caring for his own flock, so that this flock also may be "the wholly glorious Church" through the priestly gift of his own life (37).

The spirituality that the Church wants in her priests is inspired in the spirituality of Mary. Let us see these aspects and attitudes of the Virgin, and may she herself take charge of forming in them in the hearts of her consecrated ones.

b) Mary, the attentive Virgin

The importance given to God's Word in the Liturgy is well-known. The Sacred Scriptures guarantee Christ's effective presence in the Liturgy. The Church listens, welcomes, meditates, and celebrates the word that the Lord continues speaking in the Liturgical gathering (38). We can say that the Church does not even know how to gather together in assembly without giving itself the task of listening to God's word.

The attitude of listening, before the proclamation of the word, is also typical of the Virgin. The first time that the gospel speaks about Mary (39) it presents her to us in the posture of listening to and welcoming the word. And we know how essential this welcoming of the Divine Word has been for salvation history (40), seeing as we today, priests from the five continents, are celebrating 2000 years of the Word Incarnate in Mary's womb.

From the information that the gospel gives us we can conclude that the "listening-welcoming" of the word constitutes a characteristic mark of Mary's spirituality.

Welcoming the first word she becomes the mother of God; welcoming the second and last word, she becomes the mother of Christians.

This characteristic is inculcated by the Church in the life of the seminarian and the priest so as to awaken due appreciation and love for the Sacred Scriptures and the Liturgy.

c) Mary, the praying Virgin

In addition to the Church that listens to the word, there is the Church that prays. It goes without saying that prayer constitutes an essential element of the Church's spirituality (41).

Mary consecrated herself totally, as the handmaid of the Lord, to the work of her Son, diligently serving the mystery of the redemption with him and under him, with the grace of almighty God (42).

Full of faith in the promise of her Son (43), the Virgin constitutes a praying presence in the midst of the community of disciples: persevering with them in unity and in prayer (44), imploring "with her prayers the gift of the Spirit, who had already overshadowed her at the Annunciation" (45).

Mary is the "praying Virgin." Thus she appears in her visit to the Precursor's mother (46), and thus she appears in the last biographical sketch we have of her: in prayer together with the Apostles on Pentecost. And she, having been assumed into Heaven, has not abandoned her mission of intercession and salvation. The "praying

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Virgin" is also the Church, which daily presents to the Father her children's needs, incessantly praises the Lord and intercedes for the world's salvation (47).

To pray well, to pray with the Church, to pray like the Church is the ideal of prayer that everyone currently agrees must be attained: and this ideal is verified in Liturgical prayer. Its form is as splendid as it is, for all the rest, well-known in its highest degree: to the Father through Christ in the Holy Spirit, expressing itself, in as much as is possible, with the very words of revelation.

This style of prayer was not created by the Church, but it was taken from the Virgin of the Magnificat. She, in this canticle so full of Biblical reminiscences, intoned under the impulse of the Holy Spirit, having in her womb the Incarnate Word, directing her words towards glorifying the Father for the wonders that had taken place in her and putting into relief some moments of salvation history, allows us to pray as one ought, with inspired words present in the Holy Scriptures and in the Tradition of our Church.

Therefore, each day the Ecclesia orans, in her service of petition during vespers, repeats the Magnificat, canticle of praise that resounded for the first time in the little town of Ain-Karim. Mary is the one who prays and her prayer is the prayer of the whole Church.

The Virgin's prayer is made present in the prayer of the Church herself: and that presence leads to imitation: the prayer of the Church is the infinite expansion of that humble canticle of grace which, one day and for ever, burst forth from Mary's heart.

The prayer of the priest must not neglect the lesson in style and attitude that is found with the "praying Virgin." To want to pray with the Virgin is equivalent to inserting oneself into the most solemn prayer of the Church.

d) Mary, the Virgin Mother

Listening to God's word tends to engender life: only the word heard and put into practice bears fruit. This happened in Mary and is constantly renewed in the Church and in each one of the faithful.

Mary is the "Virgin-Mother," the one who through faith and obedience engendered on earth the very Son of the Father, without contact with man, but by being overshadowed by the Holy Spirit: prodigious motherhood, constituted by God as the "type" and "exemplar" of the fecundity of the Virgin-Church, which "is herself converted into Mother, because with preaching and baptism she engenders a new and immortal life in her children conceived by the work of the Holy Spirit and born of God" (48).

Considering that the exercise of motherhood constitutes a "service" provides a very interesting perspective. Mary, Mother of the Head and of the members, in the exercise of her motherhood at the foot of the cross, is placed by God's will at the "service" of her children - and even more, of all men.

This motherhood, this fecundity, is participated in by the priest, who, listening to the Word and welcoming it with faith in his heart, engenders life and places himself at the service of life. This fecundity is the hidden aspect, fruit of the "Virgin mother" in the priestly soul.

The celibate's total donation to God "for the Kingdom of Heaven," that is, virginity consecrated to God (49), following the example of Mary, the Virgin of Nazareth, is the source of a special spiritual fecundity: it is the

160 source of motherhood in the Holy Spirit. It is the mysterious path along which we are invited to live our priestly being and doing (50).

e) Mary, the offering Virgin

Finally, Mary is the "offering Virgin." The Church has perceived in the heart of the Virgin who carried the Child to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord, a willing oblation that transcended the ordinary meaning of the rite (51). "You offer your Son, Holy Virgin, and you present to the Lord the blessed fruit of your womb. You offer the holy victim, pleasing to God, for the reconciliation of us all" (St Bernard).

This union of the Mother with the Son in the work of redemption reaches its culmination at Calvary, where Christ "offered himself, immaculate, to God" (52) and where Mary was beside the cross (53) suffering deeply with her Only Son and associating herself with motherly courage to his sacrifice, adhering lovingly to the immolation of the Victim engendered by her and offering herself as well to the Eternal Father. To perpetuate throughout the centuries the Sacrifice of the Cross, the Savior instituted the Eucharistic Sacrifice, memorial of his death and resurrection, and he confided it to his Spouse, the Church... who accomplishes it in union with the Saints in Heaven and, in the first place, with the blessed Virgin, whose ardent charity and unshakable faith she imitates (54).

Therefore the Church, with this same oblationary fervor and spirit lived by Mary, continually exhorts the priest to prepare himself and celebrate the Eucharist, center and summit of his interior life and apostolate. May his priestly hands elevate the consecrated bread and wine, Body and Blood of the Lord, just as Mary offered him as a child in the Temple, and having consummated the redemption at the foot of the cross, may he return it to the Father as an expiatory offering for our sins.

f) Mary, Teacher of the spiritual life

Mary is the example of the spiritual attitude with which the Church celebrates and lives the divine mysteries. The example of the Blessed Virgin in this field arises from her being recognized as the extraordinary model of the Church in the order of faith, of charity, and of perfect union with Christ, that is, of that interior disposition with which the Church, the most beloved Spouse, tightly bound to her Lord, invokes him and through him gives worship to the Eternal Father (55).

In the exercise of divine worship Mary is also teacher of the spiritual life for every Christian. Thus have the faithful seen her: they look to Mary to make, like her, their own lives into worship of God, and to make from this worship a commitment for life. Mary is above all the model of that kind of worship that consists in making one's own life into an offering to God: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord, may it be done to me according to your word" (56). And Mary's "yes" is for all Christians a lesson and an example to be converted into obedience to the Father's will along the way of and amid one's own sanctification, and in a special way for priests (57).

The many relationships that unite Mary with every Christian are translated into different and effective cultural attitudes: profound veneration, ardent love, confident invocation, loving service, operative imitation of her virtues, moving wonder, and attentive study. Therefore, in a special way priests must first learn from Mary, then live her example, and finally teach the members of the Church to live it (58).

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IV. THE PRIESTLY MINISTRY

Priestly formation, finally, has an active dimension oriented to pastoral action. The figure of Mary, her operative presence in the life of the Church, is recognized as the soul of every apostolic or pastoral work. Her spirit of service inspires the priestly ministry as an expression of love and as a response to a received gift. The pastoral challenges of our times demand action inspired by Mary's life.

a) Pastoral value of Mariology

The Virgin, who was actively present in the life of the Church at her beginning, her foundation, and her manifestation, is an "operative presence" throughout history; even more, she is found in the "center of the pilgrim Church," where she performs a multiple function: cooperating with the birth of the faithful into the life of grace, giving example in how to follow Christ, and providing "motherly mediation" (59).

As do all theological disciplines, Mariology offers precious aid to pastoral work. In this sense the Apostolic Exhortation Marialis Cultus underlines that "piety towards the Blessed Virgin, subordinated to and in connection with piety towards the Divine Savior, has a great pastoral value and constitutes a renewing force for Christian life" (60). This Marian piety is also called to make its contribution in the vast field of evangelization (61).

Thus it is that the Liturgy, with a rich doctrinal content, possesses an incomparable pastoral effectiveness: the General Roman Calendar, with an intense and balanced presence of celebrations organized around the mysteries of the Lord in the person of the Virgin; the canons of the Mass, the readings of the Mass, the Liturgy of the Hours (62).

Devotion to the Virgin has a special pastoral effectiveness for renewing Christian customs, as the history of the Church in different times and places shows. The Church's piety towards the Blessed Virgin is an intrinsic element of Christian worship. The veneration that the Church has given to the Mother of the Lord in every time and place constitutes a solid witness of her "lex orandi" and an invitation to revive in consciences her "lex credendi" (63).

A fundamental aspect in the life of the Church is her pastoral dimension, carried out principally through the priestly ministry of the sacraments. The motherly expression is lived in the Church, and, therefore, in her priests when the faithful welcoming of God's word given "through preaching and baptism engenders into new and immortal life the children who were conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of God" (64). This "motherly" characteristic of the Church has been expressed in a particularly vigorous way by the Apostle to the gentiles, when he writes: "My children, for whom I suffer once more the pangs of giving birth, until Christ is formed in you" (65). These words of St Paul contain an interesting indication of the motherly consciousness of the primitive Church, united to the apostolic service among men.

Mary keeps on repeating to all men, and with greater tenderness to her priestly sons: "Do whatever he tells you" (66), which, in fact, summarizes all pastoral action at any level: docility to the will of the Son, which is the manifestation of the Father's will.

162 b) The spirit of service in Mary

A better knowledge of Mary's mission has been transformed into joyful veneration of her and adoring respect for the wise plan of God, who has placed in his family - the Church - as if in a domestic home, the figure of a Woman, who silently and in the spirit of service watches over it and "lovingly protects its journey to the homeland, until the glorious day of the Lord arrives" (67).

The fundamental aspect of Marian spirituality is service. In this way one can synthesize the different spiritualities, the different charisms with which the Holy Spirit adorns his Church. Likewise, this overcomes the unfortunate situation wherein Marian piety seems to appear only as a patrimony for women. It is obvious that, in the light of service, this piety acquires a character in itself more virile and communal, without running the risk of favoring an easygoing sentimentalism, as at times happens in Marian spirituality anchored exclusively in the "filial" aspect, typical of the 19th and 20th centuries.

The posture of "service" can be converted into the spiritual expression that harmonizes well the reverence due to the Lady with the confidence inspired by the Mother, since the Virgin is "she who, after Christ, occupies in the holy Church the highest place, and at the same time the place nearest to us" (68).

The post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation on the formation of priests in current times, Pastores Dabo Vobis, offers us a key text for understanding service as an expression of the configuration to Christ the Head and Pastor (69):

Through sacramental consecration, the priest is configured to Jesus Christ, as head and Pastor of the Church, and receives as a gift a "spiritual power," which is participation in the authority with which Jesus Christ, through his Spirit, guides his Church.

Thanks to this consecration brought about by the Holy Spirit in the sacramental effusion of Orders, the spiritual life of the priest is characterized, infused, and defined by those attitudes and behaviors which belong to Jesus Christ, Head and Pastor of the Church, and which are brought together in his pastoral charity.

Jesus Christ is Head of the Church, his Body. He is "Head" in the new and original sense of being "servant," according to his own words: "The Son of man has not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mk 10:45). The service of Jesus reaches its fullness with his death on the cross, that is, with his total gift of self, in humility and love: "he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave and becoming like men... he humiliated himself, obedient unto death, and death on a cross..." (Phil 2:7-8). The authority of Jesus Christ the Head coincides therefore with his service, with his gift, with his total, humble, and loving surrender to the Church. And this in perfect obedience to the Father: he is the only and true Suffering Servant of the Lord, both Priest and Victim.

This concrete type of service, that is, service to the Church, must animate and enliven the spiritual existence of every priest, precisely because of the demands of his configuration with Jesus Christ, Head and Servant of the Church. St Augustine exhorted a bishop on day of his ordination along these lines: "He who is head of the people must, before all else, realize that he is the servant of many. And he must not disdain being so, I repeat, he must not disdain being the servant of many, because the Lord of lords did not disdain making himself our servant."

The spiritual life of the New Testament's ministers will have to be characterized, then, by this essential attitude of service to the People of God (cf Mt 20:24ff; Mk 10:43-44), far from all presumption and thoughts of "tyrannizing" the entrusted flock (cf 1Pet 5:2-3). A service carried out as God expects and with a good spirit. In this way all ministers, the "elders" of the community, that is, the presbyters, will be able to be a "model" for the 163

Lord's flock, a flock which in turn is called to take on this priestly attitude of service before the whole world, leading mankind to fullness of life and to its integral liberation.

CONCLUSION

Every aspect of priestly formation can be referred to Mary as to the human being who better than anyone has corresponded to the vocation of God; who has become the servant and disciple of the Word up until conceiving in her heart and in her flesh the Word made man in order to give him to humanity; who has been called to educate the unique and eternal Priest, docile and submissive to her motherly authority. With her example and through her intercession, the Blessed Virgin continues watching over the development of vocations and of the priestly life of the Church (71).

To her, the Mother of the Eternal High Priest, we want to entrust our priestly vocation, received with the imposition of hands on the day of our ordination, with which we are given the unmerited gift of being Alter Christus.

To her, who keeps her priests in her heart and in the Church, we want to entrust our pastoral work and the abundant harvest of the Lord.

To her, who welcomed us from the beginning, who protected us in our formation, we raise our petition, that she may accompany us in our priestly lives and ministries.

I filially implore the loving protection of the Blessed Virgin of Guadalupe, our sweet and holy Mother, to build up our priestly lives and ministries and grant us all to meet next year in our Encounter in Mexico, in her little house of Tepeyac.

NORBERTO RIVERA C.

Archbishop, Primate of Mexico

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