Today, when we honour Jesus Christ as the High Priest, I’m thinking about this precious gift I’ve received with many others around the whole world – about priesthood.
This morning together with Canon Pat Munroe we celebrated Mass in our locked, empty church. During the Mass I realised once again in my life that the vocation to the priesthood is a gift that God gives to some for the good of all. Dear Jesus, who are we, as your priests? Who should we become as your priests?
I remember a few thoughts from Pope Francis’ homily about priesthood. He said:
A good priest, therefore, is first of all a man with his own humanity, who knows his own history, with its riches and its wounds, who has learned to make peace with this, achieving the fundamental serenity proper to one of the Lord’s disciples.
A priest is a man at peace who diffuses serenity, even at strenuous moments, transmitting the beauty of a relationship with the Lord Jesus.
We priests are apostles of joy: we announce the Gospel, which is the quintessential ‘good news’; we certainly do not give strength to the Gospel … but we can favour or hinder the encounter between the Gospel and people. Our humanity is the ‘earthen vessel’ in which we conserve God’s treasure, a vessel we must take care of, so as to transmit well its precious contents.
These three images, the Pope reflected, show that: we are not priests for ourselves, and our own sanctification is closely linked to that of our people, our anointment with theirs. You have been anointed for your people. Knowing and remembering that we are ordained for the people, the holy people of God, helps priests not to think of themselves, to be authoritative, not authoritarian; firm but not hard; joyful but not superficial: in short, pastors, not functionaries. And our Pope is right. St. Ambrose, in the fourth century, said: Where there is mercy, there is the spirit of the Lord; where there is rigidity there are only his ministers. So, the minister without the Lord becomes rigid, and this is a peril for the people of God.
And this is I best remember from Pope’s homily: The good that priests can do arises above all from their closeness and their tender love for people. They shouldn’t be philanthropists or functionaries, but fathers and brothers. The fatherhood, brotherhood of a priest does so much good.
I have to be honest with you. There is something that scrapes my heart and my soul today. What is it? It is a simple question: Where is your heart Tomasz, among the people, praying with and for the people, involved in their joys and sufferings, or rather among the things of the world, worldly affairs, your private space?
On the feast of Jesus Christ the Eternal High Priest – PLEASE !!! – pray for us all, His priests.
Tomasz MAMELKA - Timperley 