To be a priest is a gift from the
Lord, indeed a grace freely given to a man. No priest can claim that he
deserves to be a priest. They are called by the Lord of harvest. They did not
present themselves out of their qualifications and credentials. They are chosen
for reasons known only to the Lord. However, one thing is known to us: priests
are called by the Lord for a purpose.
An ordinary man, upon receiving
the sacrament of holy orders, becomes a no ordinary man anymore. There may be
no physical change that can be seen taking place on him as the bishop lays his
hands upon him and utters the consecratory prayers. But as he is ordained to
the diaconate, priesthood, and episcopate, he becomes a member of an order
aimed to perform particular duties. Through the Holy Spirit called upon him, he
receives the gift that enables him to perform sacred power coming from the Son
through his Church.[1] He
receives the gift of ministerial priesthood to be of service to others
particularly in unfolding the gifts the Lord had given to many. He is able to
participate to the priesthood of Christ, the High Priest, through the service
he renders to others, becoming an instrument of Christ in offering sacrifices
pleasing to the Father.
In the context of the economy of
salvation, a priest has a great role to play. As man originates from the Lord,
he is ordain to be with the Lord, to belong to the Him who created him. However
this return to the Lord, his origin, proved to be a challenging task to man.
Left alone by himself, man is incapable of returning to the Lord, due to sins
he commits. Sin moves him further away from the Lord and blurs his path towards
his end. But the Lord loves man so much that He desires to save him. Thus in
the fullness of time He sent His Son to save us, to open the gates of heaven
shut closed due to man’s disobedience to the Lord. Through the Son, man’s
journey of returning to his origin becomes possible. As the Son ascended to
heaven, He entrusted to the Church means through which man can access to the
road going back to the Father’s house, towards salvation. These means are
called the sacraments. Through them, graces from the Lord are attained,
enabling man to be closer to the Lord and walk the road towards salvation. These
sacraments are ordinarily performed by the priest. Thus, it can be said that
grace, enabling man to go back home to the Father, can be attained through the
sacraments performed by the priest. Without the priest, man will have great
difficulty in attaining grace that washes him from his sins and strengthens him
to continue journeying back home.
Today, priestly vocation becomes
more and more unpopular and distasteful to many young men. Entrance to the
seminary decreases every year. The number of priests is not proportional with
the number of faithful under the priests care. Many parishes in West shut down
and closed for no priest can attend to the need of the parishioners. In the
Philippines too, priests could not attend to the needs of all their
parishioners and faithful, as the same problem of proportionality between
priest and faithful is present here. Why is there a decrease in the number of
priests, despite the need for priest? Why is priestly vocation becoming
unpopular, today? Is the Lord of harvest calling fewer and fewer laborers?
The problem of the unpopularity
of priestly vocation must be viewed in the context of recent developments in
social ideologies and trends. Post-Modernity is one of the mega-trends that
preoccupied man in the past decades, accompanied by secularism. Today, in this
Post-Modern and Secular world, the Lord seemed to have no place. Agnosticism,
if not atheism, is prevalent in many highly developed communities: the
unknowability, irrelevance and absence of God. The Post-Modern man likes to get
rid of God. God is not needed anymore, as Hawking says. Some quarter of men put
their trust on themselves and on human intelligence, so much so they think they
do not need anyone, even God. They believe they can do everything. They want to
be gods and goddesses of their own world. These necessitate them to destroy and
shun away God, and all that is related to Him, including religion and
priesthood. The unpopularity of priesthood and decrease of entrance in the
seminaries are some of the by-products of post-modernity and secularism.
The Lord never ceases to call
young men to join the priesthood. However, fewer and fewer of those who are
called answer Him. This is not because of the rigors of priestly vocation e.g.
celibacy, poverty etc. It is because of the seeming irrelevance and
insignificance of this life, in this post-modern and secular world.
Priests are living sacraments of
Christ, whose priesthood they share. To be such is the greatest challenge every
priest faces today: to be Christ like.
Christ came to the world to show
the great love of the Father for man. Priest, being Christ like, must show to
the world the same great love of the Father, through the manner Christ
exemplified in His life. That is through selfless love, a faith that is in
action. Furthermore, becoming selfless for others for the sake of charity is
deeply rooted to one’s relation to the Lord. After all, how can a priest
communicate a love of the Father which he himself did not experience? The
priest of today is enjoined to pray, to establish and experience a personal
relationship with the Lord. All these, posits the great challenge of becoming a
HOLY PRIEST today: one that knows and experiences the great love of the Lord to
man, and communicate such truth to man through his own life, that is by loving
others as the Lord loves them.
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