Whenever we talk about the priesthood of all believers, we often get confused and try to make lay Catholics into missionaries or little clerics; losing the dignity of their priesthood - offering their lives in union with Christ for the World's salvation. A short Homily on the Priesthood of all believers, given at the Venerable English College in Rome, Tuesday 30th May 2023, on Ecclesiasticus (Ben Sirach) 35:2-15.
Over lunch after last year’s diaconal ordinations at the villa, the priest who vested me offered some advice to me as a newly ordained deacon:
I’ve noticed that newly ordained deacons and priests at the English College almost always preach about the priesthood: it’s a worthy thing to preach about, but there are other topics in need of attention.
I’m afraid that, at least tonight, I’ve fallen victim to the curse, and the readings have forced me to preach about the priesthood. But, with a spin, I am going to address the idea of the priesthood of all the baptised.
There’s a great deal of confusion out there right now about the priesthood of the Baptised: What does it actually mean? How is an ordinary lay Catholic a “priest” and how are they supposed to live out their priestliness?
There’s confusion because our frame of mind has narrowed to the point where our Catholicism is limited to the confines of the Church building and the explicit work of the Church. In many places talk of the priesthood of the baptised leads to a clericalization of the laity. We over-focus on liturgical ministries like reading, serving, and singing, or para-liturgical ministries like welcoming or the children’s liturgy. We hand them the work that priests are now “too busy” to do like catechising the young, visiting the sick and housebound, and even in some places celebrating baptisms and weddings. We attempt to turn every lay person into a “missionary” – regardless of whether they have the talent or the calling to enter into that work, or try to involve them directly in the charitable work of the Church even if they don’t have the time or the resources.
We reduce the Priesthood of the Baptised when we attempt to break up the role of the ministerial priest and divvy it out among lay people: none of these works is really priestly. A priest in the New Covenant as in the Old Covenant, is one who offers sacrifice; Jesus our High Priest offers himself on the Cross as the ultimate sacrifice and calls his priestly people to do likewise – to offer themselves as a sacrifice.
How do they do this? Well, today’s first reading from Ecclesiasticus spells it out for us; it is a life of virtue, united to the liturgical sacrifice. The Sacrifice made by ordinary Catholics is the Communion Sacrifice they make by keeping the commandments, by showing gratitude, by giving alms, by withdrawing from wickedness, and injustice. It is a life of supernatural virtue: a life of loving God and loving our neighbour, which is taken up and offered, united to the Sacrifice on the Altar, rising up to God as a fragrant offering.
This is realised in the Mass when the priest calls on the people to pray that their sacrifice may be made acceptable to God and they answer: may the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands for the praise and glory of his name, for our good and the good of all his holy Church. It is at this moment that the whole body of believers act as priests together – offering their lives in union with the one sacrifice of Christ on the Cross for the salvation of the world.
What does this mean for you and me? For ministerial priests and men training to be ministerial priests? It calls us to remember our duties towards the people of God; not to clericalize them, and reduce their priesthood to ecclesiastical busywork, but to teach them by our example and by our preaching how to live virtuous lives, and to sanctify them through the sacraments of confession and the eucharist, so that they grow in virtue and offer themselves as a fitting sacrifice to God the Father.
The priest offers sacrifice, and as we offer the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, as we hold the sacred host in our hands and offer it to the Father, we are also offering the lives of those the Father has given us to teach, to govern, and to sanctify. We are offering the thousand souls of the people we serve. It is an awesome responsibility, a great privilege, and a terrifying burden to bear. Pray for your priests who already bear it, and pray for yourselves, who may one day be called to bear it in your turn.
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