Reflection of Pope Benedict
XVI on the Priestly Ministry
Wednesday 14th April 2010
Dear friends,
In this Easter season, which leads
us to Pentecost and also directs us to the celebrations closing the Year for
Priests, planned for next June 9, 10 and 11, I cherish dedicating again some
reflections to the topic of the ordained ministry, pausing on the fruitful
reality of the priest's configuration to Christ the Head, in the exercise of
the three "munera" he receives, that is, the three offices of teaching,
sanctifying and governing.
To understand what it means to act
"in persona Christi Capitis" -- in the person of Christ the Head --
on the part of the priest, and to understand also what consequences stem from
the task of representing the Lord, especially in the exercise of these three
offices, it is necessary to clarify first of all what is intended by [the word]
"representation." The priest represents Christ. What does it mean,
what does it signify to "represent" someone? In ordinary language it
means -- generally -- to receive a delegation from a person to be present in
his place, to speak and act in his place, because the one who is represented is
absent from the concrete action.
We ask ourselves: Does the priest
represent the Lord in the same way? The answer is no, because in the Church,
Christ is never absent, the Church is his living body and he is the Head of the
Church, present and active in it. Christ is never absent; in fact he is present
in a way totally free of the limits of space and time, thanks to the event of
the Resurrection, which we contemplate in a special way in this Easter season.
Hence, the priest who acts "in
persona Christi Capitis" and in representation of the Lord, never acts in
the name of someone who is absent, but in the very Person of the Risen Christ,
who makes himself present with his truly effective action. He really acts and
does what the priest could not do: the consecration of the wine and the bread
so that they will really be the presence of the Lord, [and] the absolution of
sins. The Lord makes present his own action in the person who carries out such
gestures. These three tasks of the priest -- which Tradition has identified in
the different mission words of the Lord: teach, sanctify, govern -- in their
distinction and in their profound unity, are a specification of this effective
representation. They are in reality the three actions of the Risen Christ, the
same one who today teaches in the Church and in the world and thus creates
faith, gathers his people, creates the presence of truth and really builds the
communion of the universal Church; and sanctifies and guides.
The first task of which I wish to
speak today is the "munus docendi," namely, that of teaching. Today,
at the height of the educational emergency, the "munus docendi" of
the Church, exercised concretely through the ministry of each priest, is
particularly important. We live amid great confusion about the fundamental
choices of our life and the questions about what the world is, from where it
comes, where we are going, what we must do to carry out the good, how we must
live, what are the really pertinent values. In relation to all this there are
so many contrasting philosophies, which arise and disappear, creating confusion
about the fundamental decisions, how to live, why we do not know more,
ordinarily, from what thing and for what thing we were made and where we are
going.
Fulfilled in this situation is the
word of the Lord, who has compassion on the crowd because they were like sheep
without a shepherd (cf. Mark 6:34). The Lord had made this confirmation when he
saw the thousands of people who followed him in the desert because, in the
diversity of currents of that time, they no longer knew the true meaning of
Scripture, what God was saying. The Lord, moved by compassion, interpreted the
word of God, he himself is the Word of God, and thus he gave guidance. This is
the function in persona Christi of the priest: to render present, in the
confusion and disorientation of our times, the light of the Word of God, the
light that is Christ himself in this our world. Hence the priest does not teach
his own ideas, a philosophy that he himself has invented, has found and that
pleases him; the priest does not speak of himself, does not speak by himself,
to create perhaps admirers or his own party; he does not say his own things,
his own inventions, but, in the confusion of all the philosophies, the priest
teaches in the name of Christ present, he proposes the truth that is Christ
himself, his word, his way of living and of going forward. True for the priest
is what Christ said of himself: "My teaching is not mine" (John
7:16); that is, Christ does not propose himself, but, as Son, is the voice, the
word of the Father. The priest must also speak and act like this: "My
doctrine is not mine, I do not propagate my ideas or what pleases me, but I am
the mouth and heart of Christ and make present this unique and common doctrine,
which the universal Church has created and which creates eternal life."
This fact -- that the priest does
not invent, does not create and does not proclaim one's own ideas inasmuch as
the doctrine he proclaims is not his, but Christ's -- does not mean, on the
other hand, that he is neutral, almost like a spokesman who reads a text which,
perhaps, he does not appropriate. Also in this regard Christ's example is
applicable, who said: I am not of myself and I do not live for myself, but I
come from the Father and I live for the Father. That is why, in this profound
identification, the doctrine of Christ is that of the Father and he himself is
one with the Father. The priest who proclaims the word of Christ, the faith of
the Church and not his own ideas, must also say: I do not live from myself and
for myself, but I live with Christ and from Christ and because of this all that
Christ has said to us becomes my word, even if it is not mine. The life of the
priest must be identified with Christ and, in this way, the word that is not
his own becomes, however, a profoundly personal word. On this topic, St.
Augustine said, speaking of priests: "And we, what are we? Ministers (of
Christ), his servants; because all that we contribute to you is not ours, but
we bring it out from his storeroom. And we also live from it, because we are
servants like you" (Discourse 229/E, 4).
The teaching that the priest is
called to give, the truth of the faith, must be internalized and lived in an
intense personal spiritual journey, so that the priest really enters into a
profound, interior communion with Christ himself. The priest believes, accepts
and tries to live, first of all as his own, all that the Lord has taught and
the Church has transmitted, in that journey of identification with the very
ministry of which St John Mary Vianney is an exemplary witness (cf. Letter for the
proclamation of the Year for Priests). "United in the very same charity --
affirms again St. Augustine -- we are all hearers of him who is for us in
Heaven the only Teacher" (Enarr. in Ps. 131, 1, 7).
Consequently it is not rare that the
voice of the priest might seem the "voice of one crying in the
desert" (Mark 1:3), but precisely in this consists his prophetic force: in
not ever being homologated, or homologable to some prevailing culture or
mentality, but in showing the unique novelty capable of bringing about an
authentic and profound renewal of man, namely that Christ is the Living One,
and the nearby God, the God who operates in the life and for the life of the
world and gives us truth, the way to live.
In the careful preparation of his
Sunday preaching, without excluding the weekday preaching, in the effort of
catechetical formation, in schools, in academic institutions and, in a special
way, through that unwritten book that is his own life, the priest is always
"docent," he teaches. But not with the presumption of one who imposes
his own truth, rather with the humble and happy certainty of one who has found
the Truth, who has been gripped and transformed, and because of this, can do
nothing less than proclaim it. In fact, no one can choose the priesthood for
himself, it is not a way to arrive at security in life, to win a social
position; no one can give it to him, or seek it by himself. The priesthood is
response to the call of the Lord, to his will, to become heralds not of a
personal truth but of his truth.
Dear brother priests, the Christian
people ask to hear from our teachings the genuine ecclesial doctrine, by which
to be able to renew the encounter with Christ who gives joy, peace, salvation.
Sacred Scripture, the writings of the Fathers and doctors of the Church, the
Catechism of the Catholic Church constitute, in this regard, indispensable
points of reference in the exercise of the munus docendi, so essential for
conversion, the journey of faith and the salvation of men. "Priestly ordination
means: being immersed [...] in the Truth" (Homily for the Chrism Mass,
April 9, 2009), that Truth which is not simply a concept or a whole of ideas to
transmit and assimilate, but which is the Person of Christ, with which, by
which and in which to live. And thus, necessarily, is also born the timeliness
and comprehensibility of the proclamation. Only this awareness of a Truth made
Person in the incarnation of the Son justifies the missionary mandate: "Go
into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature" (Mark
16:15). Only if it is the Truth is it destined to every creature, it is not an
imposition of something, but the opening of the heart to that for which it is
created.
Dear brothers and sisters, the Lord
entrusted a great task to priests: to be heralds of his Word, of the Truth that
saves; to be his voice in the world to carry that which helps the true good of
souls and the authentic journey of faith (cf. Corinthians 6:12). May St. John
Mary Vianney be an example for all priests. He was a man of great wisdom and
heroic strength in resisting the cultural and social pressures of his time to
be able to lead souls to God: simplicity, fidelity and immediacy were the
essential characteristics of his preaching, the transparency of his faith and
of his holiness. The Christian people were edified and, as happens with
authentic teachers of every era, recognized in him the light of Truth.
Recognized in him, in a word, was that which must always be recognized in a
priest: the voice of the Good Shepherd.