Fourth Sunday of Easter
A priest lays down his life for his people
Last Sunday we commemorated the arrival in Hobart Town of the first priest, Fr Philip Conolly, two hundred years ago. With his arrival the ministry of the Church here began.
On the Friday after Easter we ordained Jessie Banez to the priesthood here in St Mary’s Cathedral. Jessie was the eighth ordination here in the Archdiocese since my arrival here eight years ago.
We have four men who belong to religious communities who are also preparing for the priesthood, and the other week a young man from this Cathedral parish approached me about wishing to become a priest.
This is a most encouraging sign for the future of the Church here in Tasmania. There are men stepping forward to offer themselves for service as priests.
A vocation to the priesthood is a mysterious thing. There is a level of human attraction in the desire to become a priest, but a priestly vocation cannot be simply understood at the human level. A vocation is, as the name suggests, a calling. The calling is ultimately a work of grace.
In usual circumstances this grace comes to a person who is living the life of faith. A person who lives their faith has opened their life to God. They have a spiritual dimension to their life which enables them to detect and respond to the movements of the Holy Spirit. The deeper the faith, the more one’s heart is aligned to the will of God.
It is not unusual that a vocation comes as a surprise. It is not necessarily anticipated. Yet the sense of a vocation is something which resonates in the spirit, and it endures over time. God does not impose, but invites.
The invitation attracts and strangely appeals. Thus, a vocation sits well with the person. They feel that it is right, and they respond with joy and expectation.
What does it mean to become a priest?
Each priest may well summarise his life in different ways. He does know that his identity is changed. This is not a job, but involves a change of being. He is a priest. It is his deepest identity, just like a couple know that they are changed when they marry. They are now a husband and wife.
While we might immediately identify the role of a priest with saying Mass, the first role of the priest is to preach. This was the call given to the Apostles, to go forth and proclaim the Gospel to all creatures. Preaching is meant to foster faith. Without faith there can be no sacramental life. At Mass faith is nourished as we listen to the Word of God and then the priest preaches. Then we move to the Liturgy of the Eucharist. This is the necessary order.
As St Paul says, “they will not believe unless they have heard of him, and they will not hear of him unless they get a preacher” (Rom 10:14). Thus, the first role of the priest is to preach – and not only at Mass, but whenever the opportunity presents itself. Preaching elicits faith. This will always be the first and most essential role of a priest.
Then, among those who have faith, the priest is the minister of the grace of the sacraments. At each sacramental moment the priest is the instrument of the saving action of Christ in the soul of the believer. This reaches its highpoint when the priest alone can effect the transformation of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, which he then administers to the people.
The priest is also a pastor within the Christian community. He is the spiritual father of the parish community. His leadership is exercised as an act of service, modelled on Christ who came not to be served but to serve.
In this role of pastoral leadership, the priest models himself on Christ the Good Shepherd. The Gospel today expresses the character of the good shepherd as one who lays down his life for his sheep.
This expresses a profound truth about the priestly ministry. A priest freely accepts celibacy so that his life is lived solely for the service of the people. He has no wife, no family. He offers himself completely for the good of the parish community and for the work of the Church.
The priest makes a gift of himself. As Jesus says of himself, “I lay it down of my own free will”. A priest chooses to lay his life down for the people he is called to serve. He does this freely. He wants to do it.
When Pope St John Paul II reflected on his fifty years as a priest, he described his vocation as a “gift and mystery”. He saw his calling as a gift from God. And he understood his calling as a mystery, the mystery of the working of grace in his life. This is true of every priest. We know our vocation is a gift from God. We also know that its outworking is a mystery. No priest is perfect, but their very humanity is a bridge through which God works. They are simply chosen instruments of God’s saving work.
Today, the Fourth Sunday of Easter is known as Good Shepherd Sunday as the Gospel reading each year is taken from John Chapter 10 where Jesus describes himself as the Good Shepherd.
Having just commemorated the two hundredth anniversary of the arrival of the first priest, it is a suitable occasion to reflect on the role of priest in the life of the parish and indeed in the life of each of us. No doubt we can all see how the preaching, ministry and witness of priests have enabled us to live and grow as faithful disciples of Jesus Christ.
Today let us thank God for the gift and mystery of the priesthood in the Church, and in each of our lives.
Archbishop Julian Porteous
Sunday, 25 April 2021.