Today we
celebrate the feast of the dedication of the Lateran Basilica in
Rome. It is the official church of the Pope, even though the Pope
lives in the Vatican at St. Peter’s basilica. Celebrating the
dedication of the Lateran Basilica is a recognition of the unity of
all churches throughout the world with our mother church in Rome.
Perhaps
one of the strangest things that Jesus did before he ascended to
heaven at the end of his earthly life, was to entrust his Church to
priests; ordinary, sinful, weak human beings. This is something
that we do not understand, but we believe. Through the gift of
the priesthood He gave us the most extraordinary gift of all, the
gift of the Eucharist, which is the gift of Jesus himself really and
truly present in the form of bread and wine. There is no gift
greater than this. But the fact that he made it depend on
priests is what is so strange.
I
am sure that one reason in particular why he did this was to make it
obvious that it is God who is at work and that the Church is in no
way dependent on the gifts or skills of human beings alone,
especially not us priests.
There
is a great story in the Old Testament which explains this; it is the
story of Gideon. Gideon and his people were being wiped out by
the Amorites and it was a time of great suffering for them.
Then one day the angel of the Lord appears to this man Gideon and
says, ‘Hail valiant warrior. The Lord is with you.’
In reply Gideon says, ‘If God is with us how come we are being
wiped out?’ A fair question! The angel goes on to tell
Gideon that God has specially chosen him to lead his people to
freedom from their enemies. But Gideon asks an interesting
question. He says, ‘Why would God pick me since I am the
weakest member of my family and my family is the weakest family in my
tribe?’ In other words, why would God pick the weakest of the
weak to lead his people to freedom? It doesn’t make any sense
by our way of thinking. But then the angel convinces him that
God has chosen him and he will be alright. Gideon is then told
to raise an army and so he gets together 30,000 men. But then
to his astonishment God tells him to reduce the number of men to only
300 and he tells him why, and this is the crucial bit: lest the
people think that it is by their own strength that they have won
victory over their enemies. God chooses the weakest man around
with only a handful of men to conquer the enemy so that it will be
obvious that it was the power of God that made this happen. If
Gideon had been a great warrior and he conquered his enemies with a
huge army, then no one would be surprised. But when the most
unexpected person leads a handful of men and conquers a huge army,
then everyone says ‘Look what God did! It’s a miracle.’
I
believe that God chooses various men to be priests for the same
reason, so that it would be obvious that it is God who is at work.
So He picks weak men to make it all the more obvious that the Church
is still there because of him and not because of us priests.
It is said that when
Napoleon Bonaparte was taking over Europe he met the cardinal of
Paris and he said to him, ‘I am going to destroy the Vatican.’
The cardinal assured him that he wouldn’t be able. But
Napoleon insisted: ‘You will see; I will wipe it out completely.’
But the cardinal said: ‘We priests have been trying to destroy it for the last 1800 years and
we haven’t been able! So you won’t be able either.’
Perhaps
one of the most extraordinary things of all about the priesthood is
that the Holy Spirit of God obeys the words of the priest. When
the priest says the words of consecration at each mass the Holy
Spirit immediately and humbly obeys the words of the priest and
changes the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus. I
don’t understand this but I believe it. And when the priest
says I absolve you from all your sins in the name of the Father and
of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit immediately wipes
away those sins. God is so humble that He will obey the words
of a human being.
Jesus said to Peter:
You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church
and the gates of the underworld will never hold out against it.
Whatever you bind on earth will be considered bound in heaven.
Whatever you loose on earth will be considered loosed in heaven.
What if the priest is not a very good man or is in fact quite a
sinner? Is God any less present in the mass if the priest is not a holy man? Of course not. God would never allow his power to
depend on the goodness of a human being because none of us could ever
be good enough or holy enough. Even if the priest is a terrible
sinner, God is just as powerfully present in the mass, in confession,
and wherever He calls the priest to work. Of course it is a
great help for our faith if the priest is a holy man, but either way
God is just as much present, because God gives himself completely to
all of us in this extraordinary way through the priesthood and it
doesn’t depend on the priest being good enough. Thank God!
I think one of the greatest proofs that the Church is
from God is simply the fact that it is still here in spite of the
fact that there have been centuries of bad example, bad preaching,
scandal, etc, and yet it is still here. How can this be?
Because it is the power of God at work in his Church. There is so
much we don't understand about how God works among us, but we believe
that God continually gives us everything we need and one of the
greatest gifts He has given us is the priesthood, because without the
priesthood we would not have the Eucharist.
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