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I cannot imagine driving around without Waze or for others Google map. We have become that dependent on GPS navigation to guide our way. This dependence might help us to appreciate the Gospel theme today.
From the readings, we hear how the community of believers was shaping up. There appeared to be a process of specialisation as more were added to their number. The Apostles were now to focus more on the spiritual welfare of the newly baptised. A class of servants, the “diakonoi”, now formed the beginning of the ministry of service (diakonia) to the community. They are our deacons today.
The separation of duties did not and does not diminish in anyway the vocation of ALL believers. Everyone has been called to participate in the priesthood of Christ. Not the ministerial or cultic priesthood but the priesthood in which each member offers to God, from where they are, with all they have for the glory of God and the service of the people.
According to the Principle and Foundation of the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius, humanity is created to praise, revere and serve God. Perhaps one can understand the vice of “selfishness” from this perspective. Everything we have is a gift from God. So to speak, every talent we have is on loan to us by God. Thus the offering of ourselves, in whatever capacity we have, to God is right and just. This is the spiritual sacrifice of the common priesthood which is to consecrate the world to God and to participate in Christ’s mission on earth.
In the Gospel we see these sacrifices from the perspective of Christ and who He is as we are brought back to a time before the Passion. He was talking to them to prepare them for His Calvary that they would soon experience. In order to assure them that His eventual loss of life would not be a defeat, the exchange between Jesus and Philip and Thomas, gave us two certainties.
Firstly Jesus promised them a future after the Resurrection. If there were doubts about life after death, this conversation provide powerful proof there that is an after-life. Otherwise, why would Jesus speak of going to prepare a place for the disciples to follow. Furthermore that going away presumes that one needs to die. Under the glorious glow of Easter, we are assured that death will no longer be the final chapter. It will not be the end of the story and it will certainly not be a closed door.
Under the triumph of the Cross, we dare and should in fact speak of (a) life after life because the victorious and risen Lord has tamed death and transformed it from a trap to a doorway that leads into the other life. The Canticle of the Sun composed by St Francis of Assisi has a stanza which reflects the attenuation or the weakening of death rendering it less frightening and affectionally more friendly. “Be praised through Brother Death of Flesh, from whom no living man can flee”. Death is no longer a chokehold but the welcome embrace of a friend who has been waiting to journey with us to the next life.
However there is a difference between life before the curtain of death and life after. The stanza continues “Woe to those that he finds in sin but those in grace he sets free”. This is a maxim which many may have heard before. "I shall pass this way but once; any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now”. Note a sense of urgency here. We are alerted and notified not to be complacent because the crossing once made is irreversible. Once we have passed the curtain, there is no returning.
As such Thomas’ query provides the second certainty found in the Gospel. Thomas wanted to know how he or anyone else could enter into the resurrection to which Jesus replied. “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life”. There are two side to this certainty. From the perspective of evangelisation, it is for us to proclaim Jesus. We need to tell the world that He is the Way and not just a way amongst many other ways. He is the Truth and not just a truth amongst many other truths. He is the Life and not just a life amongst many others lives. Such a proclamation can be structured and methodical. In fact, it is easier to announce to the world that Jesus is the way which can make it feel less threatening personally. What do I mean? Wear a Sacred Heart tee-shirt, hang a cross or a rosary in the car or tattoo a Jesus on the Cross on your chest etc.
There are many ways to express our faith but these can also be less personal in the sense that we can follow a programme without personal investment. We tell others about Him and if more embrace Him, we would consider that our efforts have borne fruits. For example, increased in baptism, more confirmation of those who have not been confirmed or greater attendance of the Landings programme etc.
What is more difficult to be and to do is to personally follow Jesus as the Way, to speak Jesus as the Truth and to live Jesus as the Life. That requires working on ourselves, which involves a lot of effort. Everyone knows that self-reflexion is already difficult to do let alone self-change. Often enough in our spiritual life, we take one step forward and we fall back two. To change our personal behaviour to conform to Christ is much harder than wearing a tee-shirt or tattooing His Cross on our forearm.
In a way, Protestants may have got it right when they ask us if one has accepted Jesus as the personal Saviour. Social religion, in which people practise their faith because everyone else does so can be empty. One goes to Church as expected. When a child is born, he or she is baptised because it is customary to do so. Marriage must be officiated in the Church because of parents’ wish etc. Personal profession is different because it requires my conscious investment of time and space.
Time to pray and time to let God into our lives. It is hard to live Jesus as the Way and the Truth because the path is long and arduous. It requires sacrifice etc. St Therese of Lisieux who never left the Carmelite monastery conceived of a life where Jesus became the centre of everything she did. It was not easy for her. But she showed that it is possible.
In conclusion, Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life but more than merely proclaiming Him for others to accept etc, we will be more convincing if we follow His path letting His Truth guide us to the life we are supposed to have which is to be with God the Father. Perhaps it is time to go beyond Waze or Google Map. Let us take the whole Way of Jesus.
Christ chooses to be with us and He does that through the gift of the Eucharist. At least that was the message of last Sunday’s Gospel. He inserted Himself into the despair of the Disciples who were fleeing from what they thought was the failure of Jesus’ political programme.
The means to ensure His Presence is the Eucharist. And the human instrument to make present the Eucharist is the priesthood. Today it is a good time to speak about being called to the sacrament of Holy Orders.
The word order suggests hierarchy, rank, arrangements etc. In terms of arrangements, both the Responsorial Psalm and the Gospel outline the pastoral pattern of what it is to be a priest. God is the Good Shepherd and Jesus calls Himself the Gate of the sheepfold. He is the one who watches over the flock and is prepared to lay down His life for the sheep. Pope Francis echoed this when he said that the shepherds must smell like their sheep.
There have been reports of the increase in the number of baptisms this year at Easter. But the statistics of priestly vocation show stagnation or in some places, the number seems to be dwindling. How shall we approach this sacramental crisis?
There is an inseparable link between the priesthood and the Eucharist. One is unable to exist without the other. In celebrating the Eucharist, the priest is ordained to act “in persona Christi”. The Eucharist, as the source and summit of Christian life, is the purpose of a priest’s ministry. Given by Christ to His Church, the priesthood is for the purpose of confecting the Eucharist to provide the faithful with the means of salvation brought about by Christ.
Very central to the salvation of humanity is the Eucharist that Christ offered us before He returned to the Father. That means He intended the Mass as a way for us to be present at the sacrifice of Calvary. Each one can take part in Christ’s sacrifice and gain inexhaustible fruits from that. For centuries, we have lived this faith.
The crisis caused by scandals notwithstanding, we need to address the issue of the shortage of priests in the local Church. Time flies and passes us by quickly and often without our realising it, we wake up and suddenly we are already in our 60s with the shadow of our past years stretching behind and the prospect of a future that is rather dim. The median age of priests falls in the territory of heart problems or diabetes or any of the debilitating diseases.
Still, the parishes need to be staffed. The solutions of the Anglican communion, of married priesthood or a female clergy have not in any way worked. Their numbers continue to drop. We have increased lay participation as a solution butstill it remains that our theology does not or cannot support the confection of the Eucharist without Holy Orders. We may want to change the theology but that is the topic of a conversation for another day.
What can be done in the meantime?
Firstly, recognise the connexion. If Christ intended the Eucharist as the ordinary means of salvation and the priesthood as the instrument that makes thatpossible, then the lack of instruments cannot be a case of the absence of calling. Christ has not stopped inviting young men to join Him in this sacrifice of praise and worship. It is we who have stopped listening and responding. The vocation crisis is symptomatic of a generation that has not responded to God—ours is an era deaf to God’s calling.
I say this with a kind of apathy. It is not that I do not care. Rather, I am way past the sell-by-date and I am increasingly irrelevant. When I am dead, it is not that I do not care. Rather I cannot care because the dead has no say in this world. And the shortage of vocation is not my problem but it is definitely your problem or the problem of the living.
Second, a vocation is not death. The idea that one sacrifices and loses everything is not true. It is a sacrifice, yes and, it makes a lot more sense for the word “sacrifice” means that we trade our life for the life of others. However, the less we believe in the Resurrection, the less appealing will the idea of sacrifice be because the priesthood is truly an oblation. One must believe that there is more to this life that makes it possible to embrace the loneliness attendant with giving up one’s autonomy.
Thirdly, the model for our economic life is basically driven by production and manufacturing. The metrics of success for us are work and wealth accumulation. Poverty is simply having nothing to shout about. It is not difficult to translate such a model into the priesthood. The same standard for the measurement of success easily seeps into the Church. With wealth inequality, our idea of justice is equitable distribution of wealth etc. Priests are drawn into this endeavour and are supposed to be at the forefront of fighting for justice. It is surely a noble enterprise. But behind this utilitarian mentality, we easily reduce a person’s worth to his or her ability to produce. So what happens when a person has finally outlived his or her usefulness?
The proliferation of homes for the aged is witness to this kind of thinking that a person is valued only when he or she can produce. Thus, our elderly priests are shunted to homes and there, like other elderly, are left to slowly fade away. The point here is that the priesthood is fundamentally a call “in persona Christi”.
Ultimately, he does not need to do anything except to celebrate Mass and make present Christ’s Body and Blood. Sadly, we value people for what they can doand not who they are. A priest is a priest by virtue of his ordination; not by virtue of what he does or can accomplish.
Finally, Christ chose 12 fallible men to shepherd His people. The first amongst them was the first to deny Him. The one trusted with money was the one who sold Him. Without a doubt Christ chose frail and flawed men to stand in His person. However, now what we demand is, as in everything in this world, from politician to priest, a candidate who is perfect. Apparently no one can fail and there is no room in the closet for any skeletons. But whatever our standard, there is no denying that Christ willed for priests to pastor His people. Thus, our job is to pray for more young men to courageously accept Holy Orders and pray for them to grow into the Heart of Christ so that like the Master who laid down His life, we will have holy priests who willingly lay down their lives for the people whom they serve.
