The theme for this Sunday’s Mass is the Eucharist as the Bread
of Life. In saying so, we might have missed out a component without which the
Eucharist can never be the Bread of Eternal Life. This is not Good Shepherd
Sunday but it might as well be because the Gospel appears to lend itself to
thinking about the priesthood and vocation. In general, this is a vocation
losing its appeal as the priesthood is held up in contempt simply because of
the sins of some us.
If this can be described as re-branding, I assure you it is not.
It is, if at all, to re-vision what it means to be a priest, why it is
necessary that we have the priesthood and what goes into the priesthood of
Jesus Christ.
As Church, we cannot run away from what is happening in the
world because the Church and the world do not inhabit different spaces but are
in fact sharing the same space. What we find in the world and perhaps detest,
we find it in the Church as well. How many of you follow the Britain’s
Got Talent franchise? America’s Got Talent, India’s
Got Talent, Asia’s Got Talent. Hell, even Tg
Pengerang’s Got Talent. Under a diversity and non-discriminatory
narrative, there is a strong belief that such talent hunting is truly an
exercise of democratic equalisation? Under the rule of the common, it is
believed that everyone can be talented, or have access to showcase it. If you
watched Ratatouille, you would know that everyone can cook.
Talent scouting has uncovered some hitherto hidden talents—Susan Boyle for
example? But behind this noble quest hides an insatiable chase for celebrity
status. Celebrity is, as Hugh Jackman sings in the Greatest Showman, “... for
years and years, I chased their cheers, the crazy speed of always needing more...”
And the step-sister of celebrity status is the personality cult. In a
rugged-identity era, what are these but the search for individuality. Is the
cult of personality not a reason for our fascination with the talents of our
priests? Father X can sing like Josh Groban. Father Y can cook and curse like
Gordon Ramsay. Fr Z can dance like Michael Jackson.
We want our priests to have pizzaz... holy pizzaz, hopefully.
But what was a genius of the Tridentine Mass, the missa ad orientem,
a Mass disparagingly described as priest with his backside to the people?
Firstly, the missa versus populus which has been
described to be more people-friendly has the disrespectful corollary in that it
is 100% all right for the priest to show his backside to God. If it is not
alright to show my backside to you, it is definitely alright to show it to God?
Secondly, the priest weighed down by the heavy vestments finds his so-called
personality in a manner of speaking shrouded in order than the faithful may
perceive that truly Jesus Christ is present in the alter Christus and
the only duty worth the priest’s salt is to do the one thing which Christ
depends on him to and no one in the congregation can do—confect the Blessed
Sacrament. No one in the crowd unless one is a priest. The bulkiness of the
vestments is not because we like flowing robes. It is so that the personality
of the priest might disappear under the vestments in order that Christ may
become visible—He must increase, I must decrease.
Is that important? Through the fallible instrument of the
priest, Christ gives us Himself so that we may avail of His strength to
continue the work of salvation. St Paul in the 2nd Reading speaks of changing
the world. Be the change you want the world to be. Redeem the world and in
order that the work of redemption started by Christ can continue, we need the
Eucharist and this mission cannot be done without the Catholic
priesthood.
Hence, either God is stupid or we are missing the bigger
picture. The bigger picture is how can Jesus insist on the necessity of the
Eucharist if He cannot find a way to provide it? If there are no vocations, it
is not because God has stopped calling. We may have stopped listening.
The priesthood is not a club of the meritorious. It is not a
reward of those who are saved. In the early 70s, the Society of Jesus asked this
question “Who is a Jesuit”? The answer given was “A Jesuit is a sinner, yet
called by God”. A Jesuit is a sinner because many a Jesuit come from broken
families and chances are, people who are from broken families can be
manipulative or sick. Is it any surprise that those who hold our trust fall
prey to sin? Yes, one should expect that those who are in charge of the kitty
do not steal. But Judas did and there have been Judases all through the
centuries. In the same manner, we do not pick our priests from the tree of
purity. A priest is definitely not your saviour, only Jesus is. But, despite
the priest being a sinner, he stands alter Christus, as
another Christ, so that ex opere operato, he can confect the
Eucharist.
Does the priesthood then need purification? Yes, it does. But so
does society at large. If you want good priests, widen and deepen the pool of
good families. But, for now, we need to understand that without the priesthood,
there is no Eucharist, without the Eucharist, there is no Church. Without the
Church, there is no salvation. That is ex opere operato.
A little clarification is needed. There is no guarantee that
good family equates to good priests. The general rule we follow is that a good
tree produces good fruits. Thus, the portraits of many of our priest are also
testimonies of God’s grace. He takes the weak and make them strong to bear
witness to Him.
Nevertheless, judging from sad state we are in, the Devil is
laughing all the way down in hell because the destruction of the priesthood
falls within his nefarious plans against God and humanity. Whilst there should
be vigilance against clerical abuse—of all kinds—financial, sexual and even
liturgical, we must be on guard not to sin against the priesthood. Not in the
sense that priests should be put up for adulation, but rather in the sense that
we must not lose faith in the necessity of the priesthood for the salvation of
souls.
The best priest is not one who can cook or sing or dance or even
do “great things”. The best priest is one who knows how to provide the
sacraments when needed—especially the forgiveness of sins and the confection of
the Eucharist. He is at his best when performing these actions because his
priestly anointing sets him apart for this sublime duty—to make Christ present
through the sacraments, especially through the Sacrament of sacraments—the
Eucharist. For after all is said and done, when all scandals are exposed as
they should be, when every wound is healed but the end result is that the laity
has lost faith in the priesthood of Christ, the question to ask is, what is to
become of the Body of Christ? I ask this question not to stifle whatever that
needs to be done. (This might have been the same question asked by those who
covered up the abuses, which explained the culture of silence).
I ask it because in seeking to reform the culture associated
with our priesthood, we need to recognise that priests are not plucked from the
tree of perfect families. It calls for a conversion of the whole culture that
provides for vocation. For example, the more divorces we have, chances are the
more broken the priesthood will be. Ex opere operato, we
will get the Eucharist even though it is celebrated by the most sinful priest
because the priest is merely an instrument and it is Jesus Christ Himself who
guarantees the “reality” of the sacrament. But ex opere operantis,
we will have a credibility deficit—whereby faith is challenged not so much by
the message but rather by the medium,
that is, the Eucharist may be real but the priest who confects it makes it hard
for people to believe that Christ can be present at all. In short, without a
reform of family life and our culture, we will have shot ourselves in the foot!
The Church needs more holy priests. It must begin with holy
families.
