It is He who chooses, not we

[D]iscipleship, or let us just call it by its proper name of priesthood, is not something one can pick out for oneself. It is not something one can devise as a way of being able to attain security, earn one's bread, reach a social position. One cannot simply choose it as a means whereby one finds certainty, friendship, security; how one might construct one's life for oneself. It can never simply be one's own provision, one's own choice. Priesthood, if it is right, is not something one can give oneself nor seek oneself. It can only be a response to His will and to His summons.

What is always needed is that we should come out of what is simply our own will, simply the idea of being able to bring ourselves to realisation and of what we could make of ourselves and wanted to have, in order to let ourselves be led by him, indeed let ourselves be led where we do not want to go. If this basic will is not present to enter into another will and become one with this, to let oneself be led where we had not reckoned on going, then the priestly way is not being trod and could only become a disaster. Priesthood rests on having this courage to say 'Yes' to another will, to respond to the summons of the other....

--Card Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI), Homily, 13th Sunday of Ordinary Time, 1986, Ministers of Your Joy, pp 31-32

Eucharist points to past sorrow and future joy and fills the priest's life with meaning

Thus the bread of the Eucharist is for us at once the sign of the cross and the sign of God's great and joyful harvest. It looks back to the cross, to the grain of wheat that died. But it also looks forward in anticipation to God's great wedding feast to which many will come from east and west, from north and south (cf Mt 8:11); indeed, this wedding feast has already begun here in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist, where men and women of all races and classes can be God's happy guests at table.

It is the priest's finest and sublimest ministry that he can be the servant of this holy meal, that he may transform and distribute this bread of unity. For him too this bread will have a double meaning. It will--to start with--remind him too of the cross. At the end he too must somehow be God's grain of wheat: he cannot be content with giving only words and external actions, he must add a piece of his heart's blood--himself. His fate is tied to God. What that means we have heard in the epistle. It means many kinds of external contestation and failure, the consciousness of not having really been the grain of wheat, and perhaps this is indeed the most oppressive and difficult of the lot, the realisation of how pathetic what one has done is measured against the immensity of one's task. Those who know this will understand why the priest says before the Preface every day: 'Pray, brethren, that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father.' And he will let many kinds of thoughtless talk pass and instead hearken to the complete urgency of this summons to share in bearing this sacred divine burden.

But even for the priest the grain of wheat does not simply point to the cross. For him too it is a sign of God's joy. To be able to be the grain of wheat, the servant of the divine grain of wheat Jesus Christ, can at the same time make man glad in the depths of his heart. In the midst of weakness, the triumph of grace is fulfilled, as once again we have heard in the epistle from Paul, who experienced the immense joy of God precisely in his wretchedness. Not without embarrassment does the priest learn how through his weak and petty words people can smile in the last moment of their life; how through what he says people find meaning again in the ocean of meaninglessness, meaning on the basis of which they are able to live; and he learns with gratitude how through his ministry people discover the glory of God. He learns how through him God does great things, through his very weakness, and is full of joy that God has found someone as mean as him worthy of such mercy. And in learning this he becomes at the same time aware that God's joyful wedding feast, his harvest of a hundredfold, is not just a promise in the future but has already begun among us in this bread that he is empowered to distribute, to transform. And he knows that to be able to be a priest is at once the greatest demand and the greatest gift.

So we can well understand that today the Church allows the priest to pray after holy communion once again what he is able to say every day in the Office with the psalmist of the Old Covenant: 'And I will come to the altar of God, the God of my joy' (Ps 43[42]:4). We want to ask God that he will always let something of the splendour of this joy, if it is necessary, fall on our life; that he may give the radiance of this joy ever more deeply and purely to this priest who today for the first time comes before the altar of God; that he will still continually shine upon him when he does so for the last time, when he comes before the altar of eternity in which God shall be the joy of our eternal life, our never-ending youth. Amen.

--Card Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), Homily at a priest's first Mass, 1962, in Ministers of Your Joy, pp 20-23

THE PRIEST'S STRUGGLE TO BE HOLY

I admit that we are all weak, but if we want help, the Lord God has given us the means to find it easily. One priest may wish to lead a good, holy life, as he knows he should. He may wish to be chaste and to reflect heavenly virtues in the way he lives. Yet he does not resolve to use suitable means, such as penance, prayer, the avoidance of evil discussions and harmful and dangerous friendships. Another priest complains that as soon as he comes into church to pray the office or to celebrate Mass, a thousand thoughts fill his mind and distract him from God. But what was he doing in the sacristy before he came out for the office or for Mass? How did he prepare? What means did he use to collect his thoughts and to remain recollected?

Would you like me to teach you how to grow from virtue to virtue and how, if you are already recollected at prayer, you can be even more attentive next time, and so give God more pleasing worship? Listen, and I will tell you. If a tiny spark of God’s love already burns within you, do not expose it to the wind, for it may get blown out. Keep the stove tightly shut so that it will not lose its heat and grow cold. In other words, avoid distractions as well as you can. Stay quiet with God. Do not spend your time in useless chatter.

If teaching and preaching is your job, then study diligently and apply yourself to whatever is necessary for doing the job well. Be sure that you first preach by the way you live. If you do not, people will notice that you say one thing, but live otherwise, and your words will bring only cynical laughter and a derisive shake of the head.

Are you in charge of a parish? If so, do not neglect the parish of your own soul, do not give yourself to others so completely that you have nothing left for yourself. You have to be mindful of your people without becoming forgetful of yourself.

My brothers, you must realise that for us churchmen nothing is more necessary than meditation. We must meditate before, during and after everything we do. The prophet says: I will pray, and then I will understand. When you administer the sacraments, meditate on what you are doing. When you celebrate Mass, reflect on the sacrifice you are offering. When you pray the office, think about the words you are saying and the Lord to whom you are speaking. When you take care of your people, meditate on how the Lord’s blood that has washed them clean so that all that you do becomes a work of love.

This is the way we can easily overcome the countless difficulties we have to face day after day, which, after all, are part of our work: in meditation we find the strength to bring Christ to birth in ourselves and in other men.

--St Charles Borromeo

IMPORTANCE OF THE MINISTERIAL PRIESTHOOD

What use would be a house filled with gold, were there no one to open its door? The priest holds the key to the treasures of heaven: it is he who opens the door: he is the steward of the good Lord; the administrator of his goods … Leave a parish for twenty years without a priest, and they will end by worshiping the beasts there … The priest is not a priest for himself, he is a priest for you

--St John Mary Vianney

GREATNESS OF THE PRIESTLY VOCATION

Without the Sacrament of Holy Orders, we would not have the Lord. Who put him there in that tabernacle? The priest. Who welcomed your soul at the beginning of your life? The priest. Who feeds your soul and gives it strength for its journey? The priest. Who will prepare it to appear before God, bathing it one last time in the blood of Jesus Christ? The priest, always the priest. And if this soul should happen to die [as a result of sin], who will raise it up, who will restore its calm and peace? Again, the priest… After God, the priest is everything! … Only in heaven will he fully realize what he is

--St John Mary Vianney

RESPONSIBILITY OF THE PRIEST

The saintly Curé d'Ars would often say with tears in his eyes: "How dreadful it is to be a priest!". And he would add: "How a priest who celebrates Mass like an ordinary event is to be pitied! How unfortunate is a priest with no inner life!". May the Year for Priests lead all priests to identify totally with the Crucified and Risen Jesus so that, in imitation of St John the Baptist, they may be prepared to "shrink" that Christ may grow and that, in following the example of the Curé d'Ars, they feel constantly and profoundly the responsibility of their mission, which is the sign and presence of God's infinite mercy. Let us entrust to Our Lady, Mother of the Church, the Year for Priests which has just begun and all the priests of the world.

--Benedict XVI, General Audience, 24 June 2009

TREASURES IN CLAY VESSELS

Living witnesses of the power of God at work in human weakness, consecrated for the salvation of the world, you remain, my dear brothers, chosen by Christ himself in order to be, through him, salt of the earth and light of the world.

VIDEO MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI TO PARTICIPANTS IN THE INTERNATIONAL RETREAT FOR PRIESTS
[ARS, SEPTEMBER 27 - OCTOBER 3, 2009]

SERVANTS OF CHRIST'S JOY

That is precisely where one of the greatest challenges of our time lies. Indeed, today more than ever the priest, a man of the divine word and of the sacred, must be a man of joy and hope. To people who can no longer conceive that God is pure Love, he will always affirm that life is worth living and that Christ gives it its full meaning because he loves human beings, he loves them all.

The religion of the Curé d'Ars is a religion of joy, not a morbid quest for mortification as has sometimes been believed: "Our happiness is too great; no, no, we shall never understand it" (Nodet, p. 110), he would say, and further: "when we are travelling and see a bell-tower, this view should quicken our heart beat, just as the sight of the roof of her beloved's dwelling place quickens the bride's heart beat"(ibid.).

VIDEO MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI TO PARTICIPANTS IN THE INTERNATIONAL RETREAT FOR PRIESTS
[ARS, SEPTEMBER 27 - OCTOBER 3, 2009]

THE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS AND PRIESTHOOD

A true sacrifice is anything that we do with the aim of being united to God in holy fellowship – anything that is that is directed towards that supreme good and end in which alone we can be truly blessed. It follows that even an act of compassion towards men is not a sacrifice, if it is not done for the sake of God. Although it is performed by man, sacrifice is still a divine thing, as the Latin word indicates: “sacri-ficium,” “holy-doing” or “holy-making.” Man himself can be a sacrifice, if he is consecrated in the name of God, and vowed to God – a sacrifice in so far as he dies to the world in order to live to God. This is also an act of compassion: compassion of a man for himself. Thus it is written: take pity on your own soul by doing what is pleasing to God.

True sacrifices are acts of compassion to ourselves or others, done with God in mind. Such acts have no other object than the relief of distress or the giving of happiness. Finally, the only true happiness is the one the psalmist speaks of: but for myself, I take joy in clinging to God. From all this it follows that the whole redeemed city (that is to say, the congregation or community of the saints) is offered to God as our sacrifice through the great High Priest who offered himself to God for us so that we might be the body belonging to so great a head. He took on the form of a servant and suffered for us. It was under this form that he both offered and was offered: at the same time mediator, and priest, and sacrifice.

St Paul starts by exhorting us to present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, as an act of homage justly owed to him. He tells us not to con-form ourselves to the world but to be trans-formed by renewing our will and our thinking: seeking to find out the will of God, to discover what is good, what is acceptable, what is perfect; for we ourselves are the whole of that sacrifice. He continues: In the light of the grace I have received I want to urge each one among you not to exaggerate his real importance. Each of you must judge himself soberly by the standard of the faith God has given him. Just as each of our bodies has several parts and each part has a separate function, so all of us, in union with Christ, form one body, and as parts of it we belong to each other. Our gifts differ according to the grace given us.

This is the sacrifice of Christians: we, being many, are one body in Christ. And, as the faithful know, this also is the sacrifice which the Church continually celebrates in the sacrament of the altar, in which she teaches that she herself is offered in the offering she makes to God.

--VIDEO MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
TO PARTICIPANTS IN THE INTERNATIONAL RETREAT FOR PRIESTS [ARS, SEPTEMBER 27 - OCTOBER 3, 2009]

PRIESTS, CONFESSION, EUCHARIST

Dear priests, think too of the extreme diversity of the ministries you exercise in the service of the Church. Think of the great number of Masses you have celebrated or will celebrate, making Christ really present on the altar each time. Think of the innumerable absolutions you have given and will give, enabling a sinner to be forgiven. Then you perceive the infinite fruitfulness of the sacrament of Orders. In the space of a moment your hands, your lips became the hands and lips of God. You bear Christ within you; through grace, you have entered the Holy Trinity.

The priest is the man of the future: it is he who has taken seriously Paul's words: "If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above" (Col 3: 1). What he does on earth is in the order of the means ordered to the last things. The Mass is this one point of union between the means and the End because it already enables us to contemplate, under the humble appearances of bread and wine, the Body and Blood of the One we shall adore for eternity. The holy Curé's simple, concentrated sentences on the Eucharist help us perceive more clearly the riches of this unique moment in the day when we experience an encounter that is life-giving for ourselves and for each one of the faithful. "The happiness that exists in saying Mass", he wrote, "will only be properly understood in Heaven" (Nodet, page 104).

I therefore encourage you to strengthen your faith and that of your faithful in the sacrament you celebrate, which is the source of true joy. The Saint of Ars wrote: "The priest must feel the same joy (as the Apostles) in seeing Our Lord whom he holds in his hands" (ibid.). In giving thanks for what you are and for what you do, I repeat to you: "Nothing will ever replace the ministry of priests at the heart of the Church" (Homily, Mass on the Esplanade des Invalides, Paris, 13 September 2008).

--VIDEO MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
TO PARTICIPANTS IN THE INTERNATIONAL RETREAT FOR PRIESTS [ARS, SEPTEMBER 27 - OCTOBER 3, 2009]

MINISTRY, NOT PROFESSION

Our will has accepted TO exercise "the priestly ministry", not other "professions"! Above all else we are called to be priests always and, as the Saints reminded us, iin every circumstance, exercising with our very being that ministry to which we have been called. One does not merely act as a priest: one is a priest!

Let us renew, my dear brothers, in this Year for Priests, the deep feeling by which we awake each morning conscious of who we are, who the Lord has willed that we be in the Church: for Him; for His people; for our own eternal salvation!

(Mauro Piacenza, Secretary of the Congregation for the Clergy)

COMMON AND MINISTERIAL PRIESTHOOD

... the Decree of the Second Vatican Council on the Ministry and Life of Priests, Presbyterorum ordinis, says: "For, through the apostolic proclamation of the Gospel, the People of God is called together and assembled so that when all who belong to this People have been sanctified by the Holy Spirit, they can offer themselves as "a sacrifice, living, holy, pleasing to God' (Rm 12: 1). Through the ministry of priests the spiritual sacrifice of the faithful is made perfect in union with the sacrifice of Christ, the sole Mediator.

(Benedict XVI, Audience, 24 June 2009)