The One Who Gives Us Jesus

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that You are here, that You see me, that You hear me. I adore You with profound reverence. I ask Your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, St. Joseph, my father and lord, my Guardian Angel, intercede for me.

“Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for that which endures to eternal life.”

Who is the one who prepares the Blessed Eucharist for us and gives Our Lord to us?

It is the Priest.

If there were no Priests, there would be no Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, no Holy Communion, and no Real Presence of Our Lord in the Tabernacle.

And who is this, Priest?

St. Paul says to Timothy he is the “man of God”. It is God alone who chooses him and calls him from among men for a very special task.

St. Paul to the Hebrews says: “No man takes the honor to himself; he takes it who is called by God, as Aaron was.”

God sets him apart from everyone else, St. Paul says “to preach the Gospel of God”.

He also says that God signs him with a sacred character that will endure forever, making him “a Priest forever” and bestowing on him the supernatural powers of the ministerial priesthood, so that he is consecrated exclusively for the things of God.

St. Paul says to the Hebrews the Priest, being “taken from among men, is ordained for men in the things that pertain to God, that he may offer up gifts and sacrifices for sins”.

By his ordination, the Priest is consecrated in soul and body. He becomes a being totally sacred, likened to the Divine Priest Jesus.

The Priest, in the ministerial priesthood, is thereby a true extension of Jesus, sharing in Our Lord’s vocation and mission.  He fills Our Lord’s role in the most important works of universal redemption, namely, divine worship and the spread of the Gospel.

The most important function that a Priest has to do every day is to say Mass.

In his own life, he is called to reproduce completely the life of Jesus: the life of the One who was a virgin, of the One who was poor, of the One who was crucified. And it is by making himself like Jesus that he is a “minister of Christ Jesus among the Gentiles” says St. Paul.

“A guide and instructor of souls,” we are told in St. Matthew.

If all baptized faithful, by their Baptism, were called to participate in the common or universal priesthood of the faithful – which is the basis of the universal call to holiness – then in the ministerial priesthood, Priests are called with a particular obligation to be holy.

St. Gregory of Nyssa wrote: “One who yesterday was one of the people, becomes their master, their superior, a teacher of sacred things and leader in the sacred mysteries.”  And all this happens through the work of the Holy Spirit.

St. John Chrysostom says: “It is not a man, nor an angel, nor an archangel, nor any created power, but it is the Holy Spirit which bestows the priesthood on a person”. The Holy Spirit, he says, makes the Priest's soul a likeness of Jesus.

He empowers the Priest to fill the role of Jesus so that the Priest at the Altar acts in the same person as Jesus.

It's not surprising that some saints have called the priestly dignity as being heavenly or divine or infinite. Lovingly venerated by the very angels.

So great that “when the Priest conducts the Divine Sacrifice, angels station themselves about him and in a choir they chant a hymn of praise in honor of the Victim who is sacrificed,” says St. John of Chrysostom.

And this happens at every Mass!

Sometimes you may hear people saying that was a beautiful Mass, or that it was a great Mass. Sometimes people refer to the singing or the communitarian aspect or other things.

But we have to remind them that the Mass is always great.

Even if you have a 103-year-old Priest celebrating Mass for one person who is 104 and deaf, that Mass is still great. All these wonderful things happen at every Mass.

It's not the external, physical, material things that make the Mass great, but the Transubstantiation: the coming down of our Lord onto the Altar.

And Christ offered himself to his Heavenly Father, as He did on Calvary.

St. Francis of Assisi was unwilling to become a Priest because he considered himself unworthy of such a high vocation. He honored Priests with special reverence, considering them his “lords” because in them he saw “the Son of God”.

His love for the Eucharist blended with his love for the Priest, who consecrates and administers the Body and Blood of Jesus. And he paid special veneration to the hands of the Priest which, kneeling, he used to always kiss very devoutly.

In some European countries, after the ordination of the first Mass of the Priest, there's a ceremony of the kissing of hands. The faithful come up precisely to kiss the hands of the Priest.

St. John Bosco says, “I urge you to have the highest respect for Priests. Take off your hats as a sign of reverence when you speak with them or meet them in the street, and kiss their hands respectfully.

Keep especially from showing contempt for them in word or deed.  Whoever does not respect these sacred ministers should fear a great punishment from the Lord.”

The veneration of the consecrated hands of the Priest has always existed in the Church.

During the persecutions of the first centuries, there was a particular cruelty that was practiced – in particular, on Bishops and Priests – which consisted in cutting off their hands so that they could no longer perform the Consecration nor give blessings.

Christians used to search out those amputated hands, treat them with spices and preserve them as relics. The kissing of the Priest's hands is also a delicate expression of faith and love for Jesus, whom the Priest represents.

The Eucharistic Prayer No. 1 talks about the holy and venerable hands in which Our Lord lovingly makes Himself present every day.

St Augustine says, "Oh the venerable dignity of the Priest, in whose hands the Son of God becomes incarnate as He did in the Virgin's womb!”

In the last twenty or thirty years, Pope John Paul II during his pontificate wrote or published something like five long documents on the priesthood. Very beautiful documents – they're all on the Internet – as though stating the sort of Priest the Church wants for the 21st century.

The Holy Curé of Ars said, “We attach great value to objects that are handed down and kept at Loreto, as the holy Virgin's porridge bowl and that of the Child Jesus. 

But the Priest's fingers, which have touched the adorable Body of Jesus Christ, which have been put into the chalice where His Blood was and into the ciborium where His Body was: might anything be more precious than those fingers?”

Perhaps we haven’t thought of it before, but it’s quite so.

The saints emphasize this point.

There was a certain Queen, St. Hedwig, who used to attend Masses every morning in the Chapel of the court, showing herself very grateful and reverent towards the Priests who had celebrated Mass.

She used to offer them hospitality, kiss their hands devoutly, see that they were fed, and show them every honor. She would show deep feelings when exclaiming, “God bless the one who made Jesus come down from Heaven and gave Him to me.”

The stories of the Catholic persecution in England are very moving. When you hear how some Catholics risked their lives to shelter Priests who were going around the countryside celebrating Masses for people who want it, at great risk to their lives also.

In many countries where there was persecution, similar things happened.

We should keep alive this respect and veneration, this supernatural outlook of looking at those who are dispensers of the graces of God, as St. Paul says.

The faith of the saints was something that was truly great and produced great results.

St. Paul says the saints “lived by faith.” They acted on faith and love that showed no limits when dealing with Our Lord.

St Francis of Assisi said, “In Priests, I see the Son of God.”

"Every time I see a Priest,” said the holy Curé of Ars, “I think of Jesus.”

When St. Mary Magdalen de' Pazzi referred to Priests, she referred to them as “this Jesus”.

Similar things come from St. Catherine of Siena and St. Teresa of Avila.

The Curé of Ars used to say: “If I met a Priest and an Angel, I would first pay my respects to the Priest, and then to the Angel! If it were not for the Priest, the Passion, and Death of Jesus would not be of any help to us. What good would a chest full of gold be if there were no one to open it?  The Priest has the key to the heavenly treasures.”

Who causes Our Lord to come down in the white Hosts?

Who puts Our Lord in our tabernacles?

Who gives Jesus to our souls?

Who purifies our hearts so that we can receive Jesus?

It is the Priest, only the Priest.

He is the one foretold in the Hebrews “who serves the tabernacle”, who has the “ministry of reconciliation,” says St Paul, “who is for you a minister of Jesus Christ” and dispenser “of the mysteries of God”.

In many instances, heroic Priests are sacrificing themselves to give Jesus to their flock.

Several years ago, in a Parish in Brittany in France, an old Priest was lying on his deathbed.

At that time, one of his parishioners was also nearing the end of his life: one who was among those who had strayed from God and the Church.

The Pastor was distressed because he could not get up and go to him. So he sent the Assistant Priest to him, suggesting to him to remind the dying man that once he had promised that Parish Priest that he would not die without the Sacraments.

The parishioner, hearing this, excused himself with the words: “That promise I made to the Parish Priest, not to you.”

The Assistant Priest could do nothing but leave the dying man and report his answer to the Parish Priest.

The Parish Priest was not discouraged and, though he realized that he had only a few hours left, he arranged to be carried to the home of the sinner.

He was brought into the house and succeeded in hearing the dying man's Confession and gave him Our Lord in Holy Communion. And then he said to him, “Farewell till we meet in Paradise!”

The courageous Parish Priest was carried back to his rectory on a stretcher. When he arrived, the covers over him were raised, but the Priest did not move. He had already passed away.

There are many such stories.

Priests are the bearers of Life, mediators of salvation between Our Lord and souls.

Where Priests are lacking, the spiritual and moral condition of a people declines.

Where there is no response to the Priestly or missionary vocation, there will be lacking “multipliers” of Jesus, as St Peter Julian Eymard used to say. And faith weakens or never matures.

It happened on one occasion that the leader of a Japanese tribe asked St Francis Xavier, immediately after a sermon on the love of God for men: “How come to God, if He is so good as you say He is, has waited so long before making Christianity known to us?”

“Do you want to know why?” replied St Francis Xavier. “Here is why: God had inspired many Christians to come and announce to you the Good News, but many of them have not wanted to heed His call.”

Worthy Priests give every Church its stability and fruitfulness.

One writer said that every true Church has “for its foundation holy Priests, for its columns holy Priests, for its lamp a holy Priest, on its pulpit a holy Priest, at the Altar a holy Priest, alter Christus!”

We should try and be grateful to the Priest because he brings us Our Lord.

St. Josemaria used to encourage people, in particular, to pray for the fulfillment of the lofty mission of the Priest, which is the mission of Jesus.

“As the Father has sent me, I also send you.”

We could ask ourselves if there is some occasion each week or each day when we pray for Priests. One particular moment could be after we receive the Sacrament of Confession, to repeat the Penance that we were given for the holiness of that Priest who heard your Confession.

I often like to think of the story that Pope Francis tells us of how he was going to a party or something some evening when he was 16. He dropped by the Church just to make a little visit for a moment and there was a Priest hearing Confessions.

He went into Confession and he said: “That confession changed my life. It was there that I decided to become a Priest.”

Very beautiful story.

I often think about that particular Priest who was in that Confessional at that particular point in time. It might have been a Saturday evening. The final of the Champions League might have been playing. He might not have felt good. He might have been there for a couple of hours with nobody coming.

But then a soul comes in.

It's going to have an impact on a global level.

And because that Priest was there, Pope Francis lived to tell the story of that Priest fulfilling his mission.

That's why we have to pray for all Priests, that they might be where they should be at the right point in time. That they might dispense the Sacraments where and when as God wants them to be. Fulfilling their priesthood daily and living out the mission of Jesus.

The Priest, we are told in the Hebrews, is “likened unto the Son of God”.

The Curé of Ars used to say that “Only in Heaven will he be able to measure his greatness. If he were to understand it already here on earth, he would die, not of fright but of love. After God, the Priest is all."

And that's why St. Josemaria wanted us to pray for Priests.

He indicated three specific days in the year to pray especially for priests: June 25, the anniversary of the ordination of the first three Priests; August 4, the feast of the Curé of Ars; and Holy Thursday, the institution of the Priesthood.

That sublime grandeur brings with it an enormous responsibility that weighs upon the human nature of the Priest, a human nature fully identical to that of every man.

A person told me once in another country: sometimes Priests forget that they're human.

Pray for Priests so that they remember that they're human. That they absorb all the formation that they're given in a very deep way.

Pray also for seminarians. And for the great work of formation of seminarians and future Priests in the 21st century.

For all those ideas that John Paul II, Pope Benedict, and Pope Francis have placed in their encyclicals about how they would like the priesthood for the next century to be.

Also pray for that important aspect of priestly formation that St. John Paul talked about, which is the ongoing formation of Priests, so that they get reminded and go deeper into all the basic points that they have learned at an earlier age.

"The Priest,” said St. Bernard, “by nature is like all other men; by dignity, he surpasses every other man on earth; by his conduct, he ought to imitate the angels.”

Another writer says the divine calling, a sublime mission, an angelic life, a very high dignity – what immense burdens, all on poor human flesh!

The priesthood can be a cross and a martyrdom.

There are heavy responsibilities for the salvation of souls that are laid upon the Priest.

He is to try and bring the faith to non-believers, to convert sinners, to give fervor to the lukewarm, to stimulate the good to become even better, and to encourage the saintly to walk along the heights of perfection.

And the Priest cannot give what he does not have. So the most important thing is that he takes care of his own spiritual life. That he be truly one with Jesus.

Padre Pio used to say, “The Priest is either a saint or a devil. He either moves souls to holiness or to ruin. What incalculable ruin does the Priest not bring who profanes his vocation by unworthy conduct or worse, who tramples on it, renouncing his consecrated state as one chosen by Our Lord.”

St. John Bosco says: “A Priest, either in Paradise or in hell, never goes alone. With him always go a great number of souls, who are either saved by his holy ministry and good example or are lost through his negligence in the fulfillment of his duties and by his bad example.”

In the canonical proceedings for the canonization of St. John Mary Vianney, you can read that the Holy Curé of Ars shed many tears “as he thought of the ruin of Priests who do not correspond to the holiness of their vocation.”

Padre Pio described heart-rending visions of the frightful pains that Jesus suffered for the guilt of unworthy and unfaithful Priests.

Hence the importance of praying for Priests and their holiness.

St. Thérèse of Lisieux, just before she died made her last Holy Communion to obtain the return of a stray Priest who had renounced his vocation.  That Priest died repentant, invoking Our Lord.

Many souls have offered themselves as victims on behalf of Priests. Those souls must be singularly favoured by Our Lord.

We pray on those special days for Priests: for those in danger, but also for those who stand more firmly and securely; for those who may be straying, and for those who are already advanced in perfection.

Unfortunately, people may tend too readily to criticize the defects of Priests, but it's not so common that they pray for them.

If you have the opportunity to help a Priest to get to his yearly retreat – especially Diocesan Priests; and in developing countries often they don't have the means, they need a lot of support – that's a great work of charity and evangelization.

You help a Priest to be more holy, to grow in his formation and his sanctity, redounds to the benefit obviously of the whole Parish and of the whole Diocese.

One famous Swiss saint used to talk about anyone too ready to point out the faults of Priests. He would say, “And you, how many times have you prayed for the sanctity of Priests?  (Tell me) what have you done to obtain good vocations for the Church?”

A spiritual daughter of Padre Pio accused herself in Confession of having criticized some Priests for their less-than-worthy behavior, and heard Padre Pio forcefully and decisively reply: “Instead of criticizing them, think of praying for them.”

Every time we see a Priest at the Altar, we could pray to Our Lady for that Priest.

One particular saint used to say, “O my dear Lady, lend your heart to that Priest so that he can worthily celebrate the Mass.”

St. Thérèse of Lisieux used to pray that at the Altar, Priests may touch the Most Holy Body of Jesus with the same delicacy, refinement, and purity as Our Lady.

It is said that St. Cajetan used to prepare to celebrate Mass by uniting himself so closely to Our Lady that it was said of him that “He celebrates Mass as if he were her.”

Our Lady welcomed Jesus into her arms in Bethlehem. Similarly, the Priest receives Jesus into his hands at the Holy Mass.

As Our Lady offered Jesus the Victim on Calvary, similarly the Priest offers the Divine Lamb that is sacrificed on the Altar.

As the Virgin Mother gave Jesus to mankind, similarly the Priest gives us Jesus in Holy Communion.

St. Bonaventure says that every Priest at the Altar ought to be intimately united, identified with Our Lady for “it was by her that this Most Holy Body has been given to us, so by the Priest's hands It must be offered.”

St. Francis of Assisi said that for all Priests, Our Lady is the mirror reflecting the sanctity which should be theirs, precisely because of the proximity between the Incarnation of the Word in Mary's womb and the Consecration of the Eucharist in the Priest's hands.

In The Forge, number 70, St. Josemaria says, “Try to give thanks to Jesus in the Eucharist by singing the praises of Our Lady, a Virgin most pure, without stain, who brought forth the Lord into this world.

And, with childlike daring, say to Jesus: My dearest Love, blessed be the mother who brought You into this world!”

And in 542, he says the Gospel tells us that Jesus hid when they wanted to make Him king after He had worked the miracle.

“Lord, you make us share in the miracle of the Eucharist. We beg you not to hide away. Live with us. May we see You, may we touch You, may we feel You. May we want to be beside You all the time and have You as the King of our lives and of our work.”

We could ask Our Lady, Mother of Priests, to help us to pray more for the holiness of Priests all over the world.

I thank You, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that You have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask Your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, St. Joseph, my father and lord, my Guardian Angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

JM