Like all other gifts of God, the Priest is an unfathomable mystery. It is a gift of God for the vitality of His mystical Body, namely the Church. It is impossible to say who the priest is without a reference to the living Christ in the Church. This is how Vatican II remembers it, «The function of the presbyters, connected to the Episcopal order, participates in the authority with which Christ himself sanctifies, governs his own Body and makes it to grow» (Presbyterorum ordinis 2).

Every priest is a gift

The priesthood is a gift, which he who receives it undeservedly must always re-discover. Each priest knows this well: it is not flesh and blood that have produced the mystery palpitating in his person, that passes through his words and actions, but the grace gushing down from the side of the Redeemer. Nobody becomes priest because he wants it! The call of the Bishop reminds it: he who is called answers “here I am”, making himself available to be made up by Christ, docile to his Spirit. The imposition of the hands on behalf of the Bishop, a gesture by means of which the priest is “created”, reminds us that it is a gift. No man can give this gift to himself, since he can only receive it, with humility and thanksgiving. The imposition of hands is for a priest something like the overshadowing that happened for Mary of Nazareth; the Holy Spirit overshadowed her and did great things in her little human reality. 

The lay believers also must always re-discover that the priest is a gift, that communion with Christ passes and grows thanks to his ministry. Who can presume to feel one with Christ without fetching his communion from the sacraments, especially from the Eucharist? However, there is no Eucharist without the priest: Jesus wanted both of them on the vigil of his Passion. This is why we commemorate both the Eucharist and the Sacred Order in the evening Mass on Holy Thursday. This is how John Paul II reminds us of the bond between the Eucharist and the priest, «To be truly a Eucharistic celebration, the assembly needs absolutely an ordained priest to preside it. On the other hand, the community has no power to give the ordained minister to itself. The minister is a gift that the community receives through the Episcopal succession that goes back to the Apostles» (See Enciclica Ecclesia de Eucharistia 29).

Collaborators of unity

The priesthood concerns a concrete person, without making it exclusive. It is a gift grafted in a vital flow, which comes down from Christ, passes through the ministry of the Bishop and remains anchored in him. The receiver of the gift is the people of God, in all its components and states of life. 

The fact that the priesthood is not autonomous in what the priests do and say, but co-operates with the Episcopal order, proves that God grants the gift “in” the Church and not outside or against her. «In the single local communities of faithful the priests represent the Bishop, with whom they are united with trustful and open soul. 

Associated with their bishop in a spirit of trust and generosity, they make him present in a certain sense in the individual local congregations, and take upon themselves, as far as they are able, his duties and the burden of his care, and discharge them with a daily interest”(Lumen Gentium 28.

The evident feedback of this relativity is that, in the Eucharistic Prayer, the presbyter mentions the name of the Bishop after that of the Pope. This is a sign that his Eucharistic-ecclesial ministry, necessary for the life of the Church, is relative to him who is the foundation of the Church. Effectively, «the priests can exercise their ministry in dependence on the Bishops and in communion with him» (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1567).

The sacramental bond with the other presbyters testifies that the presbyter breathes “in the Church”, and this explains the priestly college. «The presbyters, constituted in the priestly order through the ordination, are bound together by an intimate sacramental fraternity; in a special way, they form a unique presbytery in the dioceses to whose service they are ascribed under their own Bishop (…).

All of them work for the same cause, namely the edification of the Body of Christ» (Presbyterorum Ordinis 8). The ordination rite underlines this by calling all the presbyters who are present –after the Bishop- to impose their hands on the head of the chosen person.

Therefore, the presbyter is ordained and works in the Church. He acts in the person of Jesus, the Head, but works also in the name of the Church. This is what the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us, and explains, «…this does not mean that the priests are the delegates of the community. The prayer and offering of the Church are inseparable from the prayer and offering of Christ, her Head. It is always the cult of Christ in a through the Church. It is the whole Church, Body of Christ, that prays and offers herself, “per ipsum et cum ipso et in ipso” – for him, with him and in him- in the unity of the Holy Spirit, to God the Father. The whole Body “caput et membra” –head and members- prays and offers itself. Therefore, those who are the ministers in the body in a specific sense are ministers not only of Christ, but also of the Church. The ministerial priesthood can represent the Church just because it represents Christ» (no. 1553).

A donated life

Like the Bishop, the priests are ministers (servants) of Christ living in the members of his Body. “Therefore the presbyters, in carrying on their function of presiding over the community, must act in such a way as, without aiming at their personal interests, but being uniquely at the service of Jesus Christ, they may join their work with that of the lay faithful. They must behave among them, according to the example of the Master, who came among us “to serve and to give up his life for the redemption of many, and not to be served” (See: Mt 20,28). Let the presbyters recognise and promote loyally the dignity of the laity and the specific role that the laypersons exercise in the mission of the Church” (Presbyterorum ordinis 9).

The presbyter must prolong the mission of Christ, involved as they are in the service of Christ, Priest and Pastor. Called to build up the unity of the believers in one Body, the priestly ministry invokes the proclamation of the Gospel, the celebration of the sacraments and prayer. These are the issues constantly resounding in the rite of ordination through the proposed homily as well as in the assumption of commitments on behalf of the chosen ones and in the prayer of ordination. In this prayer, the Bishop asks God, «Grant that they may be, together with us, faithful dispensers of your mysteries, so that your people may be renewed with the washing of re-generation and nurtured at the banquet of your altar. Let the sinners be reconciled and the sick receive relief. Let them be one with us in imploring your mercy for the people entrusted to them and for the whole world».

The priesthood is a gift of God that implies a sincere oblation to Him, to his designs of salvation to the benefit of humanity here and now. In this sense, to offer ourselves to God coincides with our offering ourselves to others, for others, without particular interests, rather with freedom and gratuity. By spending himself for the good of others, the priest proves the truth of his love for God, after the example of Christ Jesus! Actually, the Priest gives himself to God not because God needs him, but because God wants to need the priest, in order to give Himself to all those who wish to encounter Him. Pope Benedict XVI called this back to memory in his homily on Holy Thursday 2009, «The priest is taken away from his links with the world and offered to God and it is like this that, starting from God, he must be available for others, for all men and women». This is why, in the priestly ministry, the vertical and horizontal direction cross each other: the vision of heaven and earth, the self-offering to God and to man.

The priest receives the call to be like the bread that he consecrates on the altar for the life of the Church: consecrated bread for the sacrifice. Broken Bread to create communion; offered Bread to arouse oblations. It is difficult for a human being to correspond worthily and daily to this Christological-ecclesial vocation, amidst the misunderstandings of our own miseries and those of others. Therefore, the priest needs prayer, friendly support, consolation, correction and forgiveness of his people, every day. 

Corrado Maggioni cmm
Lecturer in the Pontifical Faculty
Theological Marianum
Via Romagna 44 - 00187 Roma