Year for Priests - Thoughts for the week

YEAR FOR PRIESTS

Who is the Priest?

The priest is, to use the old Latin phrase, an alter Christus, meaning “another Christ.” Upon receiving Holy Orders, the soul of the priest is imprinted for all eternity with a mark, a character; his soul is forever changed – as happens at baptism and confirmation - - but now his being is reconfigured in the image of Christ Jesus the High Priest.

The priest is a man consecrated, set apart. This not his own doing, but the work of God, who has called him to be a special sign, a presence of Christ, among His people.

In the ordination rite, the new priest’s hands are anointed with the Sacred Chrism. The anointing of sacred things - - a ritual inherited from ancient Jewish religious custom - - means that they, in this case, the hands of the priest, must be used solely in service of the divine. As the priest is consecrated in his being through the sacrament, his hands become a sign and symbol of his office: to sanctify by means of the sacraments, most especially to consecrate the Body and Blood of Christ and to forgive sins in confession.

The priest is the sacramental presence of Christ Jesus. As he strives to conform his life to the life of the Lord, his prayer is that of John the Baptist: “He must increase, while I must decrease.” The more Christ increases in the soul of the priest, the more Christ like he becomes in his actions, thoughts, and words, the more an alter Christus he becomes, the more a sacramental presence of the Lord in the world and in the Church.

Fr. Joshua Guillory