The Priest Is Not His Own.

I think almost everyone of has heard about the famous book of Archbishop Fulton Sheen “The Priest Is Not His Own”. Considering Benedict XVI’s “Year of the Priest”, it is quite opportune to think about the priesthood. The priesthood is more than a job; it is a special call to holiness through sacrificial love and service to others and the priest is the man who acts in the Person of Christ. The anthropology of priesthood must be discovered, and it is that of Christ.

“The priesthood is the love of the heart of Jesus”, the saintly Curé of Ars would often say. “A priest forever”; these three words speak tellingly of the priesthood and the life led by those called to it. A priest’s duties continue every hour of his life, both waking and sleeping: he serves others in the sacraments, in daily life, and even when on vacation. He should devote his life to the lives of others. Ordination affects the soul of a priest forever — through this life and the next. The priesthood, like parenting, is a vocation — not a job. Parents guide their children, priests guide their parishioners. Parents feed their children materially, priests feed their parishioners spiritually. Parents love their children, priests love their parishioners. The essence of both roles lies in serving others.

The sacrifice of the Eucharist is considered the life source of the priesthood. A priest’s daily proximity to Christ’s sacrifice on the cross through the sacrifice of the Eucharist allows him to observe and imitate Christ more closely than is possible for the laity. Priests are called to a closer communion with this sacred mystery of Christ’s Body and Blood. In his service to others, a priest should “take the Mass with him into his work”. Each and every priest is ordained to make Christ manifest and present in the local community. But each and every priest is also a human being with different talents, different strengths, different weaknesses, and different temperaments. What the priest must do is clear: he must make Christ alive and present in the lives of His faithful ones. How he does that is as varied as the number of parishes in the Church. Pray that God keeps all of His priests under His watchful eye, and, as St. Basil prays in his liturgy, "...let none of us who stand about Thy Holy Altar be put to confusion..."