The Priesthood - A gift and a responsibility
THE
PRIESTHOOD – A GIFT AND A RESPONSIBILITY
Mario
D’Couto
We celebrated the feast of the Presentation of Our
Blessed Lord a few days ago and in a sense it’s a good time for us to reflect
on the lives of our dear priests and religious who serve the faithful in
various different ways. I thought of coming up with this blogpost/article as
the feast of the presentation of our Blessed Lord, in a sense, can be
understood as being set apart for a greater mission as Prophet Simeon said to
Our Lady, “Behold, this Child is set for the fall and for the
resurrection of many in Israel” (Luke 2:34). While some may feel
tempted to point the flaws of the clergy and the religious, if taken as a
whole, the good done in the Church outweighs the negativity found in the lives
of the priests and the religious. Now this is not to justify the negativity
found in the church and while justice should prevail, it would be an equal
injustice to exaggerate the faults of our dear priests and religious. There are
many men and women who have dedicated their lives to God and to the service of
His people who are living and serving Him in the best possible way. 
When it comes to the vocation to the priestly and
religious life, there are various reasons why one would want to become or not
become a priest or a religious and without going too much into details,
sometimes some people have this question that if one is going to become a
priest, who is going to carry on the family name. Apparently, this may seem
like some kind of loss but not so and here’s why.
The
apostles were clothed with the power of Jesus Christ. The priest, as the
successor of the Apostles, is clothed with their power and this fact reveals to
us the eminent dignity of the priestly character.
The
exalted dignity of the priest is derived not from his personal merits but from the sublime functions for which he is charged to carry out. So while externally, the priest looks like other men, to the eye of
faith, he is exalted above the angels, because he exercises power not given to
the angels.
Not
only does Jesus empower His ministers to preach in His name, but He commands
their hearers to listen and obey. For instance, consider the following
passages, “Whosever will not receive you, nor hear your words, going forth from
that house or city, shake off the dust from your feet. Amen, I say to you, it
shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of
judgment than for that city” (Matthew 10:14 -15) or “He that heareth you,
heareth Me and he that despises you, despises Me and he who despises Me,
despise the One who sent Me” (Luke 10: 16)
Jesus
also honours His ambassadors with His friendship and communicates to them the
secrets of heaven, “I will not now call you servants for the servant knows not
what his master does. But I call you friends, because all things whatsoever I
have heard of My Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15)
The
priests are also the dispenser of God’s grace and therefore, in this regard, it
is indeed one of their important responsibilities. As physician of the soul, he must be
conversant with its various distempers and must know what remedy is to be
applied in each particular case. If society justly holds the unskillful
physician responsible for the fatal consequences of his malpractice, surely God
will call to a strict account the spiritual physician who, through ignorance,
prescribes injudicious remedies to the souls of the patients committed to his
charge.
As
judge of the souls, he must know when to bind and when to loose, when to defer
and when to pronounce sentence of absolution. If nothing is so disastrous to
the Republic as an incompetent judge, whose decisions are haphazard and not in
accordance with the merits of the case, so nothing is more detrimental to the
Christian commonwealth than an ignorant priest, whose decisions affect the
salvation of souls.
The
advocate in our courts of justice feels bound in conscience to study the case
of his client with utmost diligence and to defend him before the jury with all
the eloquence he can master. And yet the result may not involve more than a
brief imprisonment or even a limited fine. But the priest, like Moses, stands
before God to intercede for his people and before the people to advocate their
cause before God. He not only ascends daily the altar to plead for the people
but every Sunday He mounts the pulpit to vindicate the claims which God has on
His subjects. Certainly if a lawyer is bound to study his client’s cause before
he defends it, no matter how trifling the issue, how much more imperative is
the obligation of the priest to study well his case, when he reflects that an
immortal soul is on trial and before people who are often the worst enemies of
their own soul. He has to convince the people that the narrow road which their
inclinations abhor is to be followed and that the broad road, which their self
– love and their passions tend to pursue, is to be abandoned. Conviction in
this case requires rare tact as well as eloquence and learning.
The
minister of religion also has to defend the soul not only against the
corruption of the heart but also against the doctrinal errors that are
springing up in every direction, which are preached by false teachers who bring
to their support the most spurious arguments, couched in the most attractive language.
To refute these errors often requires the consummate skill and a profound
knowledge of history and the Holy Scripture. Hence, it is obvious as to why the
Church insists that her clergy be educated men. It is obligatory for all ecclesiastical
students to devote 10 to 14 years (and more of needed) of diligent study of various
subjects some of which the main ones include, modern and ancient languages,
history and philosophy, the great science of theology and Holy Scripture. The knowledge
of God’s Kingdom is not imparted to us by inspiration or revelation. Christ does
not personally teach us as He taught His apostles. It is by hard study that the
knowledge of High law is acquired by us. He does not lift us on angel’s wings
to spiritual heights. It is only by the royal road of earnest labour that we
can obtain those heights which will enable us to contemplate the Kingdom of Heaven
and describe it to others. 
As
a popular saying goes, “With great power comes great responsibility”, the
priesthood of Christ, as mentioned earlier, is a privilege but it has to be carried
out with great responsibility and diligence. This also includes the holiness of
the priest as there is every possibility that he could suffer from vainglory
(pride). Our Lord Himself says in the Gospels, “He who has, more will be given
and the one who has little, even the little he has, will be taken away” (Matthew 13:12). The graces
obtained by virtue of the priesthood is something that cannot be hoard up for
one’s self but it has to be shared with others and while it’s for all
Christians, it would apply more for the priests as they are His direct stewards
and ambassadors of His Kingdom. 
