By Fr. Timothy Joseph Ring, E.P.
“The Church needs holy priests,” affirmed Benedict XVI in the homily for the opening of the Year for Priests. The ordained ministry, which is indispensable for the Church and the world, requires full fidelity to Christ and unceasing union with Him.
The priest must constantly strive for sanctity, as did St. John Mary Vianney. The interior renewal of a priest is evidenced in a livelier and more decisive witness to the Gospel, and the efficacy of his very ministry will depend primarily on his yearning for spiritual perfection.
The preceding reflections, taken from the most recent teachings of Benedict XVI, clearly show why the recently proclaimed Year for Priests transcends the mere spiritual benefit of the ensemble of priests and attains a pastoral scope that embraces the entire Church.
The heart of priestly ministry, Blessed John XXIII rightly recalled, unfolds around the Eucharistic Celebration. “…What is the main point of his apostolate, if not seeing to it that wherever the Church lives, a people…will be gathered together around the sacred altar?”, asks the Pope of the Council (Encyclical Sacerdotii Nostri Primordia, n. 53).
In fact, it is at the altar that “the priest, using the sacred power he has received, offers the divine Sacrifice.” It is also there “that the people of God are taught the doctrines and precepts of faith and are nourished with the Body of Christ, and there it is that they find a means to gain supernatural life, to grow in it…. And there, besides, the Mystical Body of Christ, which is the Church, grows with spiritual increase throughout the world down to the end of time“ (Ibid.).
This centrality of the Holy Sacrifice in the life of parishes and communities led the famous Dominican theologian Fr. Royo Marin to proclaim that its celebration “is the priestly duty par excellence, the first and most sublime of all, the most essential and indispensable for the entire Church, and at the same time the font and purest source of their own priestly holiness. Being a priest is before and above all else, to glorify God by offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass“ (Teologia de la Perfeccion Cristiana [Theology of Christian Perfection]. Madrid: BAC, 2001, p. 848).
Therefore, the priest lives for the altar. It is there that he celebrates the Holy Sacrifice; it is around which he gathers and blesses his people, and at the foot of which he sanctifies his own soul. Thus, as Blessed John XIII states, “to become holy, he will have to draw, for example and for heavenly strength, upon the Eucharistic Sacrifice which he offers, just as the Roman Pontifical urges: ‘Be aware of what you are doing; imitate what you hold in your hands‘” (Sacerdotii Nostri Primordia, n. 56).
But it is also at the altar that the priest gathers the necessary strength for spiritual combat. Through the Sacrament of the Eucharist, he unites himself with Christ and fortifies his interior life with grace. It serves as spiritual food and remedy, for the minister and the people entrusted to his care.
To feed the faithful with the Bread come down from Heaven is the greatest good that the shepherd can give his congregation. When our first parents ate the forbidden fruit, sin entered the world. However, the Divine response provided humans with infinitely more than they had lost: God Himself was given as their food!
Taken from Heralds of the Gospel Magazine, August 2009. Used by permission.
