Today Christ left us two greatest gifts. He left us the priesthood and the Eucharist. Both the Sacraments are intimately linked together. Without the priesthood, there is no Eucharist. Without the Eucharist, the priesthood is meaningless. The thing is this. Stating that the Eucharist is a great gift, we can understand. Many appreciate the Eucharist and accept it as a central and dailyfeature in their lives. However, the priesthood, that is debatable considering the glaring scandals in the last few decades. Is it that important a gift for the Church? Yes, it is but it is a truth that is not readily acceptable. We may accept the notion of its importance but the reality is another different matter altogether. Priests have not always lived up to their vocation.
Today is the eve of Christ’s great passion. It is His final countdown. One can frame His impending death as a garden-variety political struggle, that is, of a group of people who are afraid of Christ’s influence and their consequent loss of authority. Or if one desires a Church of the poor, then the washing of the feet may be interpreted as an emphasis on the service of the priesthood. The priest must serve and it downplays the cultic role and its accent on the Eucharist. Just as an aside, exactly two months down the line, the spotlight will land on the Eucharist through the Solemnity of Corpus Christi.
Both Holy Orders and the Eucharist are at the heart of a cosmic conflict. In instituting both these Sacraments, Christ is rallying His Body, the Church to the great cosmic spiritual war that has taken place since the beginning of creation. He starts tonight with the battle to defeat sin and to vanquish death. Up until the coming of Christ, death was the final chapter and those who were virtuous were just waiting in a state of limbo. Sin has separated us from the life of God. Now, Christ enters into a combat to win back souls and to open the gates of heaven for those who are waiting for salvation.
Both the Eucharist and the Priesthood go beyond this evening’s Passion. Yes, Christ goes to His death for our sake. But there is more. The forces that are arrayed against Christ’s Kingdom are still at work in the world.
Perhaps we have become good pacifists. After two great wars and witnessing so many deaths, we are sworn to detest war as unnecessary. Hence, we are no longer accustomed to hearing the language of combat or conflict. If anything,we are more interested in the fight against climate change or for people to gain equal access to wealth in the world.
Yet at night in our prayer, a line is rather revealing. 1 Peter 5:8, “Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the Devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour”. How does the Devil in this cosmic battle devour souls? If tonight, we have this great of Christ for the Church which is the priesthood, perhaps we should not be surprised by the spiritual attacks mounted on the institution of the priesthood in general and on individual priests in particular.
It is easy to appreciate the Eucharist. This is the food, the weapon to endure thecosmic struggle. We are not left alone. Christ gives us food for the journey, the viaticum. However, we seldom see the other part of the equation which is the priesthood. We often view vocation as a finished product and that priests are supposed to be priestly. Few see that the Devil will want to attack the priests themselves and destroy the priesthood. Right from the beginning of any priestly or religious vocation, the Devil and his minions are already at work.
It feels like an excuse for the priesthood to state that a defective priest is the Devil’s work as it lessens one’s culpability. This makes it easier not to be accountable or responsible. Worst of all, a priest should not be pointing this out because it will come across as vested self-interest. It is not to give priests an easy pass but to recognise that the priesthood component of Christ’s great gift tonight can be easily overlooked. The prophet Zechariah said this, “Strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered”. We heard this on Palm Sunday’s Passion Narrative from Matthew’s Gospel.
We should temper our expectations of the priesthood and perhaps enter into a more focused prayer for this class of flawed people. Without the priesthood, the battle against Satan’s kingdom is already lost. At the least, there should be concerted prayers for vocation. Secondly, to pray for priests most especially because they can fail and they will. We should never be surprised by the foibles or imperfections of priests. This is not an excuse but rather an invitation to a more prayerful approach to this crisis.
The likes of St Jean Marie Vianney are few and far in between. The failure of the shepherds reveals, not really a failure of formation but rather a crisis of holiness. God is holy and nothing unholy can enter His presence. This is not helped by present philosophy which confuses bad with good, profane with holy. Currently, to be good, you need to be bad. That confusion seems to suggest that good or bad is immaterial because we have a God who does not really care because He is all loving. Does such a confusion not lend itself to a kind of tepidity or lukewarmness amongst us all?
Since we are sensitive to the need for justice, perhaps we should also consider that justice demands that God’s holiness be acknowledged. Nothing unholy will ever enter His Presence. It does not in any way denigrate who we are, unworthy but rather states who God is. He is holy and our duty in life is to approach Him with holiness. If holiness is a universal responsibility, all the more shepherds need to be disciples of holiness.
Holy Thursday is the gift of the priesthood and the Eucharist to the Church. Perhaps, it might just be a time to double down in praying for the priesthood, the “persona Christi” broken by sin and damaged by the ways of the world. Today we see the world from the perspective of justice and in particular justice for victims. No doubt that justice for victims is important. Yet there is also a need, not justice, not mercy but a need in terms of healing to pray for the Church, specifically for the priesthood. A holy priest is a compelling witness ofChrist’s presence in the world.
Holiness is a reminder of transcendence. It is a kind of separation, not meant to belittle the mundane but meant to uphold the sacred and the eternal—the true abode of souls. A priest of the world is amazing but a priest shot through with and shining forth in holiness exudes the presence of a transcendent God. Pray for that kind of a priest amongst us.
