CONGREGATIO PRO CLERICIS

The Lord’s passion is supreme evidence of God’s infinite love for us: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life" (John 3,16). It is also definitive evidence of the love that Christ, real God and real man, has for us, as He Himself stated: "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends" (John 15,13). We who are Christ’s priests wish to accompany Jesus closely – very closely!

Strengthened by Christ’s love for him, the priest faces the inevitable painful moments he will experience. We now strongly renew our desire to be with Christ who, in the Eucharist, is our refuge and our best rest!

Jesus often retired to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane, situated on the Mount of Olives. This information is provided by Saint John (18,1) and Saint Luke (21,37).

Arriving in this Garden, Our Lord experienced the supreme moment of His agony accompanied by His apostles. But very soon Christ was filled with mortal anxiety, with such bitter sadness and tribulation that he turned to the three disciples: "My soul is sorrowful even to death" (Mark 14,34). This was because Jesus has become a man; He is a real man, with all humankind’s characteristics: fear, anguish, natural sadness: it is in fact logical that human beings should meet death against their will.

This praying in the Garden shows us that "in the unity of His Person there were two natures, the human nature and the divine one, a since his divine nature did not include omnipotence, it was right for Christ to ask His Father for help to strengthen this will" (see Summa Teologhiae, III, q.21,a.l). And Jesus prays with a profound sense of His being the Father’s Son. Only Saint Mark has preserved for us, in the original language, Jesus’ filial exclamation to the father: "Abbà", the name with which Jewish children addressed their parents with total trust.

Like Jesus, who was constantly in prayer with the Father (see Le 3,21; Mc 1,35), we too who are priests must be men of filial prayer, men accustomed to finding t any given time intimate communion with God, so as to say with Saint Ambrose: "I am never so little alone as when I am alone" (Epist. 33: CSEL, 82,229).

Next to the Lord we will find the strength to bring men closer to God, to reignite their faith, to create apostolic commitment and fraternal sharing.

The prophet Isaiah – speaking personally of the Lord - proclaimed the realties of His suffering, saying: "I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard; My face I did not shield from buffets and spitting. " (Is 50,6).

Matthew’s Gospel soberly describes the fulfilment of this prophecy: "Then he (Pilate) released Barabbas to them, but after he had Jesus scourged, he handed him over to be crucified" (Mt, 27,26). Jesus Himself – in the third announcement of the passion, as he travelled to Jerusalem – had taken the twelve to one side and , along the way, said the them: "Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death, and hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and scourged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day. (Mt 20,18).

Jesus did not oppose any resistance to the torments and the torture. The facts state this clearly. "There was in him no stately bearing to make us look at him, nor appearance that would attract us to him. He was spurned and avoided by men, a man of suffering, accustomed to infirmity, One of those from whom men hide their faces, spurned, and we held him in no esteem. Yet it was our infirmities that he bore, our sufferings that he endured… by his stripes we were healed" (Is 53,2b - 5).

Facing Jesus who was scourged for love of the Father and for us, profound feeling of gratefulness to Jesus, and a profound pain for our sins, spring from our hearts. Like all good believers even the presbyter has the need to acknowledge and confess his own sins and weaknesses. He is the first to know that practicing this sacrament strengthens him in his faith and in mercy for God and his brothers" .

"The soldiers led him away inside the palace, that is, the praetorium, and assembled the whole cohort. They clothed him in purple and, weaving a crown of thorns, placed it on him. They began to salute him with, "Hail, King of the Jews!" and kept striking his head with a reed and spitting upon him. They knelt before him in homage. " (Mark 15,16-16-19).

The soldiers used Jesus as the object for their jokes. And since they have heard Him being accused of calling Himself a king, they crown Him and pretend to honour Him as such.

Aching, whipped and crowned with thorns, with a reed as a sceptre in His hands and an old purple cloak over His shoulders, Jesus is the symbol – now universal – of human suffering: "ecce homo".

Every priest is the good Samaritan, in the likeness of Christ, to alleviate human suffering: this is his mission. A good shepherd, the priest exists and lives to serve humankind; he prays, studies, works and makes sacrifices for his faithful and for every human being; for them he is ready to give his own life, loving just like Jesus Christ, doing everything possible with all his strength and without limits.

This nuptial aspect of a presbyter’s life as a pastor, will ensure he guides his community serving with devotion each and every member, enlightening their consciences with the light of the revealed truth, preserving with authority the evangelical authenticity of Christian life, correcting mistakes, forgiving, healing wounds, comforting tribulations and promoting brotherhood.

So, through the priestly ministry, the bonds linking us to Christ will make men free; his crown of thorns will bring the Kingdom’s tiara to humankind; His wounds will heal our wounds.

Saint Paul writes to the Thessalonians: "Nor, indeed, did we ever appear with flattering speech, as you know, or with a pretext for greed - God is witness -  nor did we seek praise from human beings, either from you or from others, although we were able to impose our weight as apostles of Christ. Rather, we were gentle among you, as a nursing mother cares for her children. With such affection for you, we were determined to share with you not only the gospel of God, but our very selves as well, so dearly beloved had you become to us" (1 Ts 2,5-8).

Jesus, "carrying the cross himself he went out to what is called the Place of the Skull, in Hebrew, Golgotha" (John 19, 17).

Pilate agrees with the requests and condemns the Lord to the most ignominious torment, the torment of the cross. The Lord fulfils in His Person all that the prophet Isaiah had said: "Oppressed and condemned, he was taken away, and who would have thought any more of his destiny? When he was cut off from the land of the living, and smitten for the sin of his people" (Is 53, 8).

Along the road the soldiers obliged the Cyrenean to carry the Cross. This coercion, suffered also by Simon, was accepted by Jesus. The Lord allowed Himself to be helped to teach us that we – represented by that common man, called Simon – are called upon to be "co redeemers" together with Him.

Priests are personally invited, for love of God and their brothers, to determinedly carry Jesus’ cross, feeling upon ourselves the burden of all humankind and persevering along the path of our vocations, allowing ourselves to also be helped by our brothers. Following Jesus along this path requires us to follow in His footsteps, with acts of Christian life and those of the priestly ministry, with total generosity, perseverance, and distancing ourselves from all that interferes.

Let us listen to Saint Peter: "For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his footsteps. "He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth." When he was insulted, he returned no insult; when he suffered, he did not threaten; instead, he handed himself over to the one who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body upon the cross, so that, free from sin, we might live for righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you had gone astray like sheep, but you have now returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls" (I Pt 2, 21-25).

"At noon darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And at three o'clock Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?" ¹⁴ which is translated, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Some of the bystanders who heard it said, "Look, he is calling Elijah." One of them ran, soaked a sponge with wine, put it on a reed, and gave it to him to drink, saying, "Wait, let us see if Elijah comes to take him down." Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last" (Mark 15, 33- 37).

According to Mark’s Gospel, Jesus’ last words are the beginning of Psalm 21, the prayer of the just who, followed and surrounded by danger from all sides, sees himself exiled to extreme solitude, like "a worm, humankind’s disgrace, refuse of my people" (v. 7). From the abyss of misery, abandonment and solitude, shouting, the Just resorts to Jahvè: "My God, my God, why have You abandoned me?... Since I left my mother’s womb, You are my God...Do not stay away, oh my strength! ,Come to help me" (vv. 2.11.20).

In the supreme moment, Jesus places all His trust in the Father, the Only One He can rely on amidst his death-rattles. To Him – to His Father! – the Son entrusts His own laments, abandoning Himself in Him completely: "into your hands I commend my spirit" (Luke 23,46; see Sal 30,6).

Every presbyter returns spiritually to this place and this hour when celebrating Holy Mass, together with the participating Christian community. Although immensely weakened, Jesus does not flee when faced with his "hour": "I am troubled now. Yet what should I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? But it was for this purpose that I came to this hour " (John 12,27). John is the only one who remained below the Cross, beside Mary and the devout women. This is the hour of the world’s salvation. When we celebrate the Eucharist, "in persona Christi" – hence in a specific sacramental identification with the Supreme and Eternal Priest – we return to His "hour", the hour of the Cross and the glorification. For the priest, the daily celebration of the Eucharist has an irreplaceable value. "He must live it as the central moment of his day and of his daily ministry, fruit of a sincere desire and an occasion for a deep and effective encounter with Christ, and he must take the greatest care to celebrate it with intimate participation of the mind and heart."