The Love of the Heart of Jesus
Benedict XVI's Year For Priests
Chris Sparks
Issue date: 10/1/09 Section: Features
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On the forthcoming Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Friday 19 June 2009-a day traditionally devoted to prayer for the sanctification of the clergy-, I have decided to inaugurate a "Year for Priests" in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the "dies natalis" of John Mary Vianney, the patron saint of parish priests worldwide.-Pope Benedict XVI, Letter proclaiming the Year for Priests, beginning on the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, 19 June 2009.
This summer, a friend called upon me to help with a ministry project, and when we were done, I headed up north to visit some of my dad's family over the Fourth of July weekend. That side of the family is Protestant, and so there was some curiosity over where I had been and what I had been doing. One cousin asked me, "What's the difference between the Catholics and the Methodists? I asked my minister, but she gave me a long explanation that didn't really seem to answer the question."
I had to pause and think for a moment. There's a lot to be said in answer to such a question, all sorts of issues and practices, all sorts of teachings and heritage, but eventually I answered, "It all comes down to the priesthood." For on reflection, I realized, that was the true font and nexus of the differences.
Everything, from sacraments and liturgy to belief in the apostolic succession and the hierarchical nature of the Church, all are tied into this one aspect. The priests are the dispensers of the sacraments which give us the grace to enter into heaven. They stand before us in persona Christi and become our spiritual fathers through their ordination. This ordination is made possible and passed down to us through the apostolic succession, from the hands of the apostles to the successors of the apostles-the bishops. All of this, in order to make possible the extension of the new and everlasting covenant throughout all generations of man unto the end of the world.
The priesthood is an awesome thing. The powers of Almighty God are bestowed upon men: the power to forgive sins, to raise a person into new and everlasting life through baptism, to join together a couple in marriage (a union which no man can sunder), to call God Himself, in his full power and being, down onto the altar into the Eucharist. The angels watch with awe, the devils with terrible wrath and envy, such actions on the part of human beings, incarnate as God is incarnate, made one with Him through the sacrifice of His Son.
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