At the Last Supper, Our Lord gave His priests a compelling reason for being holy, holding Himself up as the example. ' I dedicate Myself for their sake, that they too may be dedicated through the truth. It is not only for them that I pray; I pray for those who are to find faith in Me through their words.' - John 17:19-20 -
He sanctified Himself not for Himself alone, but for them too. They in turn were to sanctify themselves for the Church and all future believers. Spirituality begins at the top, not at the bottom. The mirror reflects the light of the sun but does not create it. Sanctity is a pyramid: 'Gracious as balm poured on the head till it flows down on to the beard; balm that flowed down Aaron's beard, and reached the very skirts of his robe.' - Psalm 132:2 [133:2, RSV] -
God is holy; that holiness comes to earth in Christ. Christ bestows it on His priests with their cooperation; they, in the measure in which they accept, contribute to making the people holy. The people do not give the priest the special powers to sanctify that he possesses. It is Our Lord who gives these powers, and He gives then to enable the priest to make the people holy. From the mountain, where one communes with God, sanctity descends. 'So Moses went down again to the people, and rid them of defilement. ' - Exodus 19:14 -
For the sake of the Church, Our Lord come into the world and (as He said) sanctified Himself. But what precisely does this expression mean? How can one consecrate oneself? Could Aaron consecrate himself? Could I consecrate myself? But Christ could consecrate Himself because He is a "high priest, now, eternally with the priesthood of Melchizedek" - Heb. 6:20 - He could sanctify Himself because He was both Priest and Victim: 'Order your lives in charity, upon the model of that charity which Christ shewed to us, when He gave Himself up on our behalf, a sacrifice breathing out fragrance as He offered it to God.' - Eph. 5:2 -
In biblical usage, to dedicate or sanctify means to set apart as an offering to God, a sacrifice.
Thou shalt set apart for the Lord thy God all the first-born of thy cattle and sheep. - Deut. 15:19 -
There is no ransoming the first-born of ox or sheep or goat; they set apart for the Lord. - Num. 18:17 -
All Old Testament sacrifices were holy to the Lord as types of the "first-born" - Luke 2:7 - who in a special way became sanctified, that is, was set apart as a sacrifice for our salvation, on Good Friday. His own official sanctification, as He affirmed the previous night, was the meritorious cause of His priests and people being sanctified. Saint Paul understood this clearly: 'Christ shewed love to the Church when He gave Himself up on its behalf. He would hallow it.' - Eph. 5:25-26 -
From the foregoing it is clear that Our Lord made Himself "holy" or "priestly" or "saintly" for our sake. To reproduce this holiness in us priests, the help of heaven is needed. The night of the Last Supper, Christ spoke to the Heavenly Father on our behalf, saying His own "Pater Noster." Previously, He had said to the Apostles, when they asked how they were to pray: 'And He told them, When you pray, you are to say, Father.' - Luke 11:2 -
Our Lord never said "Our Father" of Himself and us together but "My Father" and "Your Father" because He is the Natural Son; we, the adopted sons. His sacerdotal prayer of Holy Thursday night, like the prayer He had given the apostles on the earlier occasion, contain seven petitions: 1. Perseverance 2. Joy 3. Deliverance 4. Holiness 5. Unity 6. Our Lord's constant companions 7. Enjoyment of His glory in heaven.
Our Lord sanctified Himself for our sake, and that - as has been indicated - involved sacrifice. He immolated Himself, just as whatever was dedicated to the Lord under the Old Testament was immolated.
As the shepherds, so the sheep; as the the priest, so the people. Priest-victim leadership begets a holy Church. What the priests are in the parish, the diocese and the nation, that likewise will the faithful be. As multitudes got the bread at Capernaum through the disciples, so the faithful get the sanctification given by Christ through our sanctification. Seeing the goal of sanctification reached, the last outburst of Our Lord's sacerdotal soul was: 'It is achieved' - John 19:30 - The tens of thousands of lambs who shed their blood as types were no longer needed. The Lamb of God had immolated Himself. Every priest must perform a like act of self-oblation and then pass on its fruits to the whole people: 'Do this for a commemoration of me.' - Luke 22:19 -
The specific thing Christ directed every priest to repeat and renew was the sacramental symbol of His death. The living out of this death is sanctification. But why must the cross be taken up daily? Because there is a ransom price on every soul. Some of them cost much. They require a great sacrifice. It is not that Christ withholds His mercy but that He has willed to dispense it through our hands. And unless the hands of the priest are scarred hands, Christ's mercies do not so readily pass through them. Blessings, power, healing and influence get clogged by worldliness.
The Church makes no impression in the world so long as those outside see it only as a sect or an organisation or one of the great religions. Our Lord made His impact through His Cross - John 12:32 - The wounded Christ redeemed; only a wounded Church can effectively apply that Redemption. When the Church is making progress, where conversations are numerous, there Christ is poor again, tired again from missionary journeys, a victim once again in His saintly priests.
Every worldly priest hinders the growth of the Church; every saintly priests promotes it. If only all priests realized how their holiness makes the Church holy and how the Church begins to decline when the level of holiness among priests falls below that of the people! God still thunders to His priests: - Isaiah 62:6-7 - Watchmen are we, who have been put on the walls of the Church by the High Priest. Day and night we must pray and preach without ceasing so as to merit the description given by Saint Augustine: aut precantes aut praedicantes.
Our dedication to the people is not only on Sundays or at Mass once a day or while hearing confessions on Saturdays. We are told to do two things: (1) "Take no rest" - strange as it may seem. No chairs! Remember? (2) "Give God no rest" Do we ever tell a beggar who wanted money, "Ask me for it when I cross the street; if I do not give it to you, follow me and seize my coat; if that does not get you what you want, throw a stone at my window at midnight." But God does say, "Wrestle with Me, as Jacob did. Give Me no rest." Like the importunate widow who aroused the judge, so we are to cry to the Priest-Victim in the face of the enemies of the Church:
Give me redress against one who wrongs me. - Luke 18:3 -
I tell you, even if he will not bestir himself to grant it out of friendship, shameless asking will make him rise and give his friend all that he needs. - Luke 11:8 -
What we are, the Church is; what the Church is, the world is. The world and all it contains is a highway on which the Bride, the Church, goes to meet the Bridegroom for the heavenly nuptials. Politics do not ultimately determine war and peace. What is decisive is the spiritual state of the Church living in and leavening the world. To read the Old Testament is to recognize that history is the hand of the Lord, Who blesses and punishes nations according to their deserts. What we do to sanctify ourselves sanctifies the world. When the shepherd is lazy, the sheep are hungry; when he sleeps, they are lost; when he is corrupt, they grow sick; when he is unfaithful, they lost their judgment. If the shepherd is not willing to be a victim for his sheep, the wolves come and devour them.
Each morning we priests hold in our hands the Christ Who shed Blood from His veins, tears from His eyes and sweat from His Body to sanctify us. How we should be on fire with that love, that we may enkindle it in others!
Do we suffer for the wandering sheep? Do we warm ourselves by a fire, talking to maidservants as Peter did, while the Lord is crucified again in the souls of sinners? Do we adopt an intransigent position with the enemies of the Church, forgetting that a Saul was made a Paul? We dress in black, but it is not to mourn Christ, for He has conquered. We are in mourning for those who bar their doors against our knock, for those still unwilling to believe though one should rise daily from the dead, for those who hand us vinegar as we cry "Sitio!" - John 19:28 - Night and day, giving God no rest, we will utter over and over again: 'I dedicated Myself for their sake, that they too may be dedicated through the truth.' -John 17:19 -
Holiness descends.......
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Sunday, May 24, 2009
I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!
I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.
HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -
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