June 2009
The following is from our bishop’s message at solemn vespers on June 18, 2009, the Feast of the Sacred Heart and the beginning of the Year of the Priest inaugurated by Pope Benedict XVI
We gather this evening to mark the beginning of the Year of the Priest. Our Holy Father planned this year as an opportunity for all to ponder once more with awe and gratitude the work of our Lord in instituting the priesthood and linking it so intimately with the Eucharist. It is a time for us to discover in a new way the importance of the priesthood and of every priest. In a particular way it is a time for us as priests to renew the consciousness of our identity, who we really are and who it is that we are called to be. It is also a time for us to reinvigorate the missionary zeal that flows from our intimacy with our Lord.
The Holy Father has selected as the title for the year, “The Faithfulness of Christ and the Faithfulness of the Priest”. In the letter to the Philippians (2:6-11) there is a clear picture of the faithfulness of Christ, a faithfulness on which we are to base our priesthood, a faithfulness that we are to try to exemplify in our priesthood. We see in this reading an invitation to have the same dispositions that Jesus showed and to try to make that present in the world today. Jesus emptied himself and it is in this self emptying that he reveals what God is like. He takes the form of a slave. It is in this that we see the form of our God who serves and it is this that we are invited to exemplify.
We are called to be priests who are faithful after the faithfulness or Christ; we have to identify our person with our ministry. In Jesus his person and his ministry coincide. So, too, our whole life is to be given to our ministry. Our vocation is our life, our life in our vocation. Speaking to priests, Father Karl Rahner, the great theologian of the last century, said that the candle on the candlestick that we are in the Church is to burn away with its own heat. This is what we are called to be and to try to reinforce this year.
As priests we need to remember that we make up one priestly people together with the laity. We are to promote the dignity and the role of the laity in the church’s mission. We need to listen to the laity and give brotherly consideration to the wishes of the laity, to acknowledge their experience and competence to share their mission and recognize the many and varied gifts of the laity. As the Holy Father said, we are not just to collaborate with the laity but be co-responsible with them for the mission of the church.
We are to be witnesses to the gospel. Pope Paul VI said that society responds more to witnessing than to teaching; and if it responds to teaching it is because the teachers also witness. We have to ask ourselves, as priests, are we truly influenced by the Word of God? Do we really extend the Word of God by our being, by our actions, by who we are? Jesus called the Twelve in Mark’s gospel first of all to be his companions. As Scripture scholars remind us, and it is evident in the gospel, they had to be with Jesus for a rather lengthy period of time before he sent them out to preach. And so it is with us. We are called to be his companions; we are called to be with him in such a way that who we are reflects him to the world around us.
The Year of the Priest is not only a year for us to renew our faithfulness to Christ but it is also a time for all the Church to help priests respond to our call, for all of the faithful to help us renew and grow in our faithfulness to Christ. It is a year wherein faith communities are called to help priests respond to our call, to help us as priests to grow in our relationship, in our ministry, in order that we might have a greater zeal as we carry out the mission of Jesus.
The Year of the Priest is also a time for all of us to reflect with heartfelt gratitude on the immense gift that priests present not only for the Church but for the world. Here we think of priests, faithful to the Word, quietly presenting Christ’s words, Christ’s actions each day. I think of priests striving to be one with the Lord in their thoughts, their will, their sentiments and their style of life. I think of priests in their apostolic labors, their tireless and hidden service, their unusual charity, constantly at the disposition of God’s people and the message of Christ. I think of their faithful ministering of God’s life in the sacraments and especially in the Eucharist. We are being invited to ponder that reality and to help priests deepen all of that within their being. And for all of us as faithful people we are being called to cooperate with the priests in bringing about the mission of Jesus.
The Year of the Priest is a year for all of us in the faith community. In the words of Pope Benedict it is a year “meant to deepen the commitment of all priests to interior renewal for the sake of a more forceful and incisive witness to the gospel in today’s world.” That’s our job, that’s what is laid before us. We begin this year in that spirit, seeking the gift that it is and seeing the responsibility that is ours in making this year what it is intended to be. We also resolve to live it out in order that we might become more committed to the proclamation of the gospel so that God’s reign might prevail more faithfully in the world.