The Role and Importance of the Priesthood

Summary

• Introduction: The Old Testament Scene
• The Priest's Role
• Challenges of the Modern Priesthood
• Archbishop Lefebvre and the Society
• The Crisis of Vocations
• Examples of Holy Priests
• The Need for Support and Faith
• Conclusion: A Call to Faith and Action

Introduction: The Old Testament Scene

In the Old Testament, there's a powerful scene. While the Israelites are wandering the desert yet again, they defied God and they murmured against him. And so God rose raised up a pestilence against them. And while Moses was begging for God to relieve them of the of this pestilence, people were quite literally getting sick and dying instantaneously as the pestilence would move. So. So Moses ran to Aaron and told him to put incense in a in a thermal or in the censor brazier and to run out and to stand between the people of God and the pestilence. And he did. And where he stood, that's where the pestilence stopped. Now, the image that is given there is the image of the priest. That is what the priest job is, is when the infirmities, the pestilence of the world infects people. The priest is the one who marks the stopping point. The priest is the one who stands between his faithful and the evils of this world. He's the one who stands between God and his faithful. And He takes their prayers and brings them to God, their offerings, and brings them to God. But then He brings all the graces from God down to them. He is the middle man. He is the one who stands between. He is the one who is separated from everybody else because he does not belong to this world, nor to the next in a way that is very particular to him. The priest is the one who is celebrated above all, because he wields a power that is incomprehensible to this world. The power of God himself.

The Priest's Role

Our Lord Jesus Christ when he came on this earth so loved us that not only did he lay down his life for us, but he wanted to continue his presence perpetually upon this earth. And the way he did that, the means by which he did that, was through the priesthood. Now, this is something we don't talk enough about, particularly because, well, it seems sometimes it can feel a little bit self-serving to us, like where we're patting our own selves on the back. But that is not the case. We I was reminded of this recently by a priest friend, a diocesan friend who was explaining to me one story of when he was a young priest, had just been ordained. He he was very uncomfortable with the way that people would come up and kiss his hand. And at one point, he tried to tell a very pious Filipina that that was not that was unnecessary, that he's not something particular special. And she very bluntly said, Father, it's not for you, so shut up and do it. And to deal with it. And she said, I'm kissing the hand of our Lord Jesus Christ, not you. And that's the problem, is many times we look at the person or the priest and we get stuck with that. And unfortunately, that has been emphasized and overemphasized to the point that it is truly difficult to see anything more than just the person of the priest. The reason for that is because of the recent scandals of how terrible the the shall we say, the the media coverage is and how badly many priests have acted. And for many of the difficulties and problems that we have seen in the church, not to mention the fact that the church herself, Rome herself, has been producing an erroneous idea of what the priest is, de-emphasizing his supernatural character and emphasizing the humanitarian character that he carries. The priest is first and foremost a man of God. More than that, he is a man, a man who is separated from all others for the purpose of being able to act with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself to offer our Lord Jesus Christ Himself to God Himself. He is the one who carries the faithful. He is the one who brings God to the faithful. He is the one who is supposed to elevate all humanity. He is the saint to fire of the entire world, not because of the person who possesses the priesthood, not because they're worthy of it. Nobody could be.

Challenges of the Modern Priesthood

We have a crisis of vocations. Part of this is because of the watering down of the concept of what a priest is. But also this has to do with the fact that many people in their spiritual, in insecurities, do not understand their nature or their purpose and receiving this power, if it is reduced entirely to charitable works and humanitarian labors and to the to to being the servants of the faithful, then all of a sudden the whole purpose of the priesthood becomes human and they lose their character and they lose their spirituality. This is what Archbishop Lefevre saw when he started the society. As in Pius the 10th. He first came up with the ideas bad with the idea back in the forties, he had the concept for it because he saw the attacks against the church. He saw modernism ravaging the church and neo modernism starting to get its claws into her as well. He saw the problems of the fight that was going on against the modern world. He saw the direction of how everything was going. And so he decided that it would be a wonderful idea. And then he decided it would be a wonderful idea to have an organization, a religious order that was dedicated specifically to the priests and the priesthood. That is the purpose of the society's in attempt. That is the sanctification of priests through the spirituality, the true traditional spirituality of what the priesthood is. Now, this is something that we lose sight of all too frequently. And the reason for that is because we're just very busy with everything we have to do. And that's normal and that's natural. That's actually it's actually not a bad thing in and of itself. So long as we don't lose sight of our purpose, what we are and why we are.

The Crisis of Vocations

The problems in the modern world can be summed up onto one simple point. There are not enough holy priests. That's it. We don't just need lots of priests. We need holy priests who are dedicated to their calling. We need priests who are willing to become part of the sacrificial victim, sacrificial character of the priesthood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and willing to offer themselves up on the same altar that they are offering up our Lord Jesus Christ willing to give anything and everything for whatever it is God asks of them. This is how we will save souls. Not necessarily. And not only by going out and and practicing works of charity, whatever else. Those things are wonderful and part of the work, but that is not the most essential part of the work. The first and most essential form that we must have is one of sacrificial adoration. The priest must be a personage of sacrifice and sacrificial adoration. If we do not have this, we cannot save souls. Only God can save souls. And the closer we are to God, the closer we are to the model that he that he has made, the easier it is to save souls and the more fruitful our priesthood will be as it is. It's fairly easy, believe it or not. It's fairly easy to be a priest because the rules are all laid out for you. You know what you have to do. You know, you know your responsibilities. You have your job. Things are just kind of laid out for you. And if you follow those rules, it's pretty simple. God fills in all the patches. But that's not enough. God wants all of the priests. He wants all of each and every one of us. But for the priest, so much more. And just as the priests are supposed to be elevated into a different station entirely from what everybody else is, has he has also demanded more is demanded of him. This is one of the reasons we don't. We have so few people entering seminaries these days and offering themselves to be the preacher, to be a priest. They don't understand what the priesthood is. They don't think that they would be able to or worthy of or anything else. And that's just not even really enters into that doesn't even really enter into the equation. The work is God's. We are the instruments, the sacrifices Christ's. We are the participants. We are simply the mouth that speaks the words that God is speaking. That is it. It is the work of God and not of man. It is the work of God. And not of men. That means that the humanities ing over humanities ing of the priesthood is one of the most pernicious things that we could possibly do to such a lofty and beautiful character. It's easy to do. Archbishop Lefebvre insisted that the priests do not belong to the faithful. This doesn't mean that we're not supposed to give our lives for the faithful as good shepherds. This is not mean that we're not supposed to have a public apostolate and do everything we can to see to help everybody save their souls, of course. But if it doesn't start with the adoration of our Lord Jesus Christ through His works and words. It's all vanity. We must have our our gaze fixed entirely upon the altar. That is where the priest finds his reason for existence. That is where the priest finds the solution to all the questions he has. That is where the faithful also must find. Now, again, part of the the biggest part of the crisis that we are going through, the crisis of the priesthood that we are going through right now is simply that. It is simply a question of faith. We don't believe so much in the sacramental character of the priest. We don't believe so much in the lofty end of the priest because we see so much of his humanity.

Examples of Holy Priests

So now we must start to see beyond that. It doesn't matter if you're a priest or someone you can get along with, someone you like, someone you agree with, someone you think is okay. So when you're disgusted by it doesn't matter. The priesthood is what matters. It is necessary for us to be able to see beyond just the human personage that possesses the priesthood. It is necessary that all of these tales and reports and scandals and everything else that's going on does not damage in the slightest our faith in the priesthood of our Lord Jesus Christ, the one and eternal priesthood. We must have a faith that is unshakable. Through every storm. Through every problem, every earthquake, every everything our spiritual life or spiritual belief. In the end, the priesthood of our Lord Jesus Christ must be so complete that it does not matter. That we never lose faith in the priesthood. Whatever may be the attack, whatever may be the perception, whatever, however comfortable we may be with the priest. However easy it is to talk to him. However nice he is. However terrible he is. We always need to see more. We need to see Christ himself. There are tales of when Padre PIO would be celebrating his mass. He turned around for the dominant on Sunday news and people would say it was like his face had been transformed and he didn't look like himself anymore. That he radiated Christ. And by seen the mass. There's the stories of see Philip NEARY who who actually. Ill advisedly kept a cat on the altar to keep himself sufficiently distracted. Otherwise he'd go into ecstasy every time he said mass. And then at one point it just got to the point where his server would just get used to the idea and had a rule that if he'd add that after he'd go into ecstasy, he'd leave for a half hour. And if he poked his head back in and he was still in ecstasy, he'd just close the door and leave him alone for the rest of the day. We have example after example after example of truly holy priests who appreciated what it was that they had. Saint John Vianney, the the patron saint of the parish priest, insisted that if a priest knew what he held in his hand, he would die of joy. If he truly appreciated his character, he would die of joy. We could count all these different stories, but I'd rather bring one particular one home. And this is one is particular because it is actually one of our priests. Other societies seem pious, a 10th. Father. Andre Entre la la. He was a Swiss priest, a watchmaker. Who found the society. And after went on retreats, decided he was going to become a priest. And the problem was he was a very sickly person. He had Crohn's disease back at a time when they didn't treat that too well. And he also had recurring stomach cancer. And over the course of his short life, had to suffer more than 100 operations. Toward the end of his life, he was so sickly that they even had to do many of the operations without any anesthetic or any painkillers. They just had to keep him in that state. Archbishop Lefever gave him every possible dispensation to make sure that he would be ordained because he said someone who loved God so much as this father did. Must be able to offer up the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ on the altar. He dedicated himself so completely to His labors for those short few years. He only had about four years of priesthood. But for those short few years that he was dedicated to the faithful in Geneva, which was the center of Calvinism, he converted so many and he did so much good. Including the former rector of the seminary where I went, Father LaRue. That was his first assignment, was specifically taking care of father. And it transformed him, transformed his idea of what the priesthood was. It transformed everything he knew about it, which is one reason he was so good at forming priests himself. Archbishop Lafave said, this is the kind of priest I want everybody to be, not suffering victims souls, which she was. But the kind of priest who understood his priesthood, the not just the sacrificial part, where we stand up on the altar and we offer the sacrifice of the mess, but the victim part where we offer ourselves with it, where we write God a blank check, and whatever He asks of us, we give and we offer. That is the type of priest that Archbishop often envisioned. And that's what Father the prayer was. He dedicated himself entirely to the conversion of souls and to the faithful service of our Lord Jesus Christ. Even when He was too sick to say mass, when he was too sick to concentrate on the Breviary, when he could barely move or speak, everything he did and said was about offering himself to our Lord Jesus Christ. One particular surgery went very badly. It was very draining on him. It was out without anesthesia, no painkillers. And they were wheeling him back to his hospital bed and they had had to keep his stomach open after operating. That happens sometimes with some wounds. And so they had to keep it open for the time being to let everything drain and dry before they could stitch it back together. Obviously, he was in tremendous pain, having gone through an ordeal of more than a couple of hours where several parts of his bowel had been removed. And yet they drive they pulled them into the into the hospital room. And as they are moving him from the gurney to the hospital bed, they dropped him on the floor. Of course, the nurses panicked and friend went down on their hands and knees to pick him up and to move him back onto the bed as generally as they possibly could. And they could hear him after his initial scream of agony, murmuring, Give me more, Lord, more four souls. They need more. That's the image of the priesthood that archbishop of have had. That's the goal. That should be the goal for every priest here on Earth. And that is something that is drastically, desperately missing in the church today. God knows we've had our issues in the societies in pious attend. God knows we are not perfect. God knows that that is that we have not been faithful to the vision of Archbishop of five or to the model of PRI in so many ways. God knows we're not priests as we should be priests, so many of us. But that is the goal. That is the goal. And that's the image that every one of us, each and every one of you should have. When you think of what the priesthood of our Lord Jesus Christ looks like as it is personified in a person. We must have that zeal and that passion for souls. Yes, but only through the sacrificial offering of our own life to God, letting him do with us whatever He wants, just giving of ourselves to Him. And through that gift, being able to help you. Unfortunately, as I said, we're not all like father. We're not all that holy or that pious. And this is where I'm going to ask for help. Each and every one of you, please help your priests. Doesn't matter if it's me. I'm not trying. This is not self-serving. Please. It's not about me. It's about the priesthood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Souls need help. A world is dying. Souls are going to hell all the time. If nothing else other than ignorance they need. True. Could holy priests your support, your blessings, your prayers, your encouragement, and your fidelity to the eternal priesthood of Christ is going to help so much, so many priests. Because you think that the crisis in the priesthood is bad for all of you. It's much worse for the priests. It hurts so much more when you see priests fail or hear so many other stories. It has so much more damage to the faith that the priests who have tried to be faithful and see problems and don't get support from the church and the superiors. And so, unfortunately, we're going to rely a lot on you. But in order for you to be able to help out appropriately in as completely as you should. You need to have an unshakable, unwavering, perfect, absolute faith and the priesthood of our Lord Jesus Christ. The verse right before this one and the gospel right before the beginning of the gospel is I came that they may have life and have it more abundantly. That is the whole purpose of the priesthood. He is sent by God to give life and life. Abundantly. Now, actually, the word in Latin is super abundant. Super. Abundantly over. Abundantly. Too much. The Machado. That is the life that the priest is supposed to bring. But we cannot give or we do not have. Christ is the one who works through us. But we must be faithful, faithful servants of God and servants of Christ's faithful representations of Him. And therefore, we call upon each and every one of you. To have the faith necessary to support and encourage your priests through the terrible situation we're in. And regardless of the fact of whether you like them or agree with them on everything, see through them, see through them and find Christ. And that is what you believe in, not the person in Christ. Because through that, we can find eternal life, through that faith. There is nothing that would take that life away from us. Nothing that would shake us so much that we would run away from the Church of God or run away from the promises of Christ that the gates of hell would never prevail against the church. That we would be able to maintain our faith absolute and live eternally in life, in that life in heaven, and be eternally happy with Christ. You know, father, son, the whole ecosystem.