Letter of Pope John Paul II to all priests

for Holy Thursday 1987, observed April 16

(April 13, 1987)

1. "And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives."¹

Dear brothers in the priesthood, allow me to begin my letter for Holy Thursday this year with these words, which take us back to the moment when, after the Last Supper, Jesus Christ set out to go to the Mount of Olives.

All of us who, through the Sacrament of Holy Orders, enjoy a special ministerial sharing in the priesthood of Christ, on Holy Thursday concentrate our inner thoughts upon the memory of the institution of the Eucharist. For this event marks the beginning and source of everything that we are, by the grace of God, in the Church and the world. Holy Thursday is the birthday of our priesthood, and so is also our yearly feast day.

This is an important and holy day not only for ourselves but for the whole Church, for all those whom God has made for himself in Christ "a kingdom of priests." ² For us, this is particularly important and decisive, since the common priesthood of the whole People of God is linked with the service of the ministers of the Eucharist, which is our holiest task. And so today, dear brothers, as you gather round your bishops, together with them renew in your hearts the grace given to you "through the laying on of hands" ³ in the Sacrament of the Priesthood.

On this extraordinary day, I wish - the same as every year - to be with you all, as also with your bishops, since we all feel a deep need to renew in ourselves the awareness of the grace of this sacrament which unites us closely to Christ, Priest and Victim.

Precisely for this purpose, in this letter I wish to express a few thoughts on the importance of prayer in our lives, especially in relationship with our vocation and mission.

2. After the Last Supper, Jesus sets out with the Apostles for the Mount of Olives. In the series of the saving events of Holy Week, the supper constitutes for Christ the beginning of "His hour." Precisely during the supper the definitive accomplishment of everything that is to make up this "hour" begins.

In the Upper Room, Jesus institutes the sacrament, the sign of a reality that is still to take place in the series of events. Therefore He says: "This is my body which is given for you";⁴ "This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood." ⁵ Thus is born the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of the Redeemer, to which is intimately linked the Sacrament of the Priesthood, by virtue of the mandate given to the Apostles: "Do this in memory of me." ⁶

The words which institute the Eucharist not only anticipate what will happen on the following day: they also deliberately emphasize that this imminent accomplishment possesses the meaning and significance of a sacrifice. For, "the Body is given ... and the Blood is poured out for you."

In this way, at the Last Supper Jesus places in the hands of the Apostles and of the Church the true sacrifice. That which at the moment of the institution still represents a prophecy, even though a definitive one - but is also the actual anticipation of the sacrificial reality of Calvary - will then become, through the ministry of priests, "the memorial" which perpetuates in a sacramental manner the same redeeming reality. A central reality in the order of the whole divine economy of salvation.

3. Setting out with the Apostles and going toward the Mount of Olives, Jesus goes forward precisely to meet the reality of His "hour," which is the time of the paschal fulfillment of God's plan and of all the prophecies, both ancient and more recent, contained in the "Scriptures" in this regard. ⁷

This "hour" also marks the time when the priesthood is endowed with a new and definitive content as a vocation and a service, on the basis of revelation and divine institution. We shall be able to find a fuller exposition of this truth above all in the Letter to the Hebrews, a fundamental text for knowledge of Christ's and our own priesthood.

But in the context of the present considerations, the essential fact seems to be that it is through prayer that Jesus goes forward toward the accomplishment of the reality that came to a climax in "His hour."

4. The prayer in Gethsemane is to be understood not only in reference to everything that follows it during the events of Good Friday, namely Christ's passion and death on the cross; it is also to be understood, and no less intimately, in reference to the Last Supper.

During the Last Supper Jesus accomplished what was the Father's eternal will for Him, which was also His own will, His will as the Son: "For this purpose I have come to this hour." ⁸ The words that institute the sacrament of the new and eternal covenant, the Eucharist, constitute in a certain way the sacramental seal of that eternal will of the Father and of the Son, the will which has now reached that "hour" of its definitive accomplishment.

In Gethsemane the name "Abba," which on Jesus' lips always has a Trinitarian depth (for it is the name that He uses in speaking to or about the Father, and especially in prayer) casts upon the pains of the Passion a reflection of the meaning of the words of the institution of the Eucharist. Indeed, Jesus comes to Gethsemane to reveal a further aspect of the truth concerning himself, the Son, and He does so especially through this word: Abba. And this truth, this unheard-of truth about Jesus Christ, consists in the fact that "being equal to the Father" as the Father's consubstantial Son, He is at the same time true man. In fact He frequently calls himself the "Son of Man." Never so much as at Gethsemane is the reality of the Son of God revealed, the reality of Him who "takes the form of a servant" ⁹ in accordance with Isaiah's prophecy. ¹⁰

The prayer in Gethsemane equals and even exceeds any other prayer of Jesus, in revealing the truth about the identity, vocation and mission of the Son, who came into the world to fulfill the fatherly will of God to the very end, when He says, "It is finished." ¹¹

This is important for all who enter Christ's "school of prayer"; it is especially important for us priests.

5. Jesus Christ, then, the consubstantial Son, presents himself to the Father and says "Abba." And what do we find? As He reveals, in a way that we could call radical, His condition as true man, as the "Son of Man," He asks that the bitter chalice be taken away: "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me." ¹²

Jesus knows that this is "not possible" and that "the chalice" is given to Him to "drink" to the very last drop. Yet He still says precisely this: "If it be possible, let it pass from me." He says it at the very moment when this "chalice" which he earnestly desired ¹³ has now become the sacramental seal of the new and eternal covenant in the Blood of the Lamb. When everything that has been "ordained" from eternity is at last sacramentally "instituted" in time: introduced into the Church's whole future.

Jesus, who had accomplished this institution in the Upper Room, certainly cannot wish to revoke the reality signified by the sacrament of the Last Supper. On the contrary, with all His heart He desires its fulfillment. If, despite everything, He prays that "this chalice pass" from Him, He thus reveals before God and mankind all the weight of the task lie has to assume: to substitute himself for all of us in the expiation of sin. He also shows the immensity of the suffering which hills His human heart. In this way the Son of Man shows His oneness with all His brothers and sisters who make up the great human family, from the beginning until the end of time. Suffering is an evil for mankind - at Gethsemane Jesus Christ experiences its whole weight, which fits our common experience, our spontaneous inner attitude. Before the Father He remains in all the truth of His humanity, the truth of a human heart oppressed by a suffering which is about to reach its tragic conclusion: "My soul is very sorrowful, even to death." ¹⁴ And yet, no one is in a position adequately to express the depth of this suffering using only human criteria. For in Gethsemane the one who beseeches the Father is a Man who at the same time is God, consubstantial with the Father.

6. The words of the Evangelist, "He began to be sorrowful and troubled," ¹⁵ and the whole development of the prayer in Gethsemane seem to indicate not only fear in the face of suffering, but also the dread that is characteristic of mankind - a sort of dread associated with the sense of responsibility. Is not man that unique being whose vocation is "constantly to surpass himself"?

Jesus Christ, the "Son of Man," in the prayer with which He begins His passion expresses the typical anguish of responsibility associated with taking on tasks in which the individual must "surpass himself."

The Gospels often record that Jesus prayed, indeed that he "spent the night in prayer"; ¹⁶ but none of these prayers has been presented in as deep and penetrating a way as the prayer in Gethsemane. This is understandable. The fact is that no other moment in Jesus' life was so decisive. No other prayer so fully formed part of what was to be ''His hour." No decision in His life was so important as this one for the fulfillment of His Father's will, the Father who "so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life." ¹⁷

When in Gethsemane Jesus says, "Not my will, but Yours, be done," ¹⁸ He reveals the truth about the Father and the Father's salvific love for mankind. The "will of the Father" is precisely salvific love: the salvation of the world is to be accomplished through the redemptive sacrifice of the Son. It is very understandable that the Son of Mail, taking this task upon himself, shows in His crucial dialogue with the Father the awareness that He has of the superhuman dimension of this task, in which He fulfills the Father's will in the divine depths of His filial union with Him.

"I have accomplished the work which you gave me to do." ¹⁹ The Evangelist says: "And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly." ²⁰ And this mortal anguish also showed itself in the sweat which, like drops of blood, streamed down Jesus' face. ²¹ This is the ultimate expression of a suffering that is translated into prayer, and of a prayer that, in its turn, knows sorrow, accompanying the sacrifice sacramentally anticipated in the Upper Room, deeply experienced in the spirit of Gethsemane, and about to be consummated on Calvary.

It is precisely to these moments of Jesus' priestly and sacrificial prayer that I wish to call your attention, dear brothers, in relation to our own prayer and life.

7. If in our Holy Thursday meditation this year we link the Upper Room with Gethsemane, it is in order to understand how deeply our priesthood must be linked with prayer, rooted in prayer.

Surely this statement is obvious, but it does need to be continually pondered in our minds and hearts, so that the truth of it can be realized ever more deeply in our lives.

For it is a question of our life, our priestly existence itself, in all its richness, encompassed first of all in the call to priesthood and then shown in that service of salvation which flows from it.

We know that the priesthood - sacramental and ministerial - is a special sharing in the priesthood of Christ. It does not exist without Him or apart from Him. It neither develops nor bears fruit unless it is rooted in Him. "A part from me you can do nothing," ²² Jesus said during the Last Supper at the conclusion of the parable about the vine and the branches.

When later, during His solitary prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus goes to Peter, James and John and finds them overcome with sleep, He awakens them saying: "Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation." ²³

For the Apostles therefore, prayer was to be the concrete and effective means of sharing in "Jesus' hour," of taking root in Him and in His paschal mystery. Thus it will always be for us priests. Without prayer, the danger of that "temptation" threatens us, the temptation to which the Apostles sadly succumbed when they found themselves face to face with "the scandal the cross." ²⁴

8. In our priestly life prayer has a variety of forms and meanings: personal, communal and liturgical (public and official). However, at the basis of these many forms of prayer there must always be that most profound foundation which corresponds to our priestly existence in Christ, insofar as it is a specific realization of Christian existence itself and even - with a wider radius, - of human existence. For prayer is a connatural expression of the awareness that we have been created by God and still more - as we clearly see from the Bible - that the Creator has manifested himself to man as the God of the covenant.

The prayer which corresponds to our priestly existence naturally includes everything that derives from our being Christians, or even simply from our being men made "in the image and likeness" of God. It also includes our awareness of our being men and Christians as priests. And it seems we can more fully discover this on Holy Thursday, as we go with Christ, after the Last Supper, to Gethsemane. For here we are witnesses of the prayer of Jesus himself, the prayer which immediately precedes the supreme fulfillment of His priesthood through the sacrifice of himself on the cross. "As a high priest of the good things to come ... He entered once for all into the Holy Place ... by His own blood." ²⁵ In fact, if He was a priest from the beginning of His existence, nevertheless He "became" in a full way the unique priest of the new and eternal covenant through the redemptive sacrifice which had its beginning in Gethsemane. This beginning took place in a context of prayer.

9. For us, dear brothers, this is a discovery of fundamental importance on Holy Thursday, which we rightly consider the birthday of our ministerial priesthood in Christ. Between the words of institution - "This is my body which is given for you"; "this cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood" - and the effective fulfillment of what these words express, the prayer of Gethsemane is interposed. Is it not true that, in the course or the paschal events, it is this prayer that leads to the reality, which is also visible and which the sacrament both signifies and renews?

The priesthood, which has become our inheritance by virtue of a sacrament so closely linked to the Eucharist, is always a call to share in the same divine-human, salvific and redemptive reality which precisely by means of our ministry must bear ever new fruit in the history of salvation: "that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide." ²⁶ The saintly Curé of Ars, the second centenary of whose birth we celebrated last year, appears to us precisely as a man of this call, reviving the awareness of it in us too. In his heroic life, prayer was the means which enabled him to remain constantly in Christ, to "watch" with Christ as His "hour" approached. This "hour" does not cease to decide the salvation of the many people entrusted to the priestly service and pastoral care of every priest. In the life of St. John Mary Vianney, this "hour" was realized particularly by his service in the confessional.

10. The prayer in Gethsemane is like a cornerstone, placed by Christ at the foundation of the service of the cause "entrusted to Him by the Father" - at the foundation of the work of the world's redemption through the sacrifice offered on the cross.

As sharers in the priesthood of Christ, which is inseparably connected with His sacrifice, we too must place at the foundation of our priestly existence the cornerstone of prayer. It will enable us to harmonize our lives with our priestly service, preserving intact the identity and authenticity of this vocation, which has become our special inheritance in the Church, as the community of the People of God.

Priestly prayer, in particular that of the Liturgy of the Hours and of eucharistic adoration, will help us first of all to preserve the profound awareness that, as "servants of Christ," we are in a special and exceptional way "stewards of the mysteries of God." ²⁷ Whatever our actual task may be, whatever the type of work by which we carry out our pastoral service, prayer will ensure our awareness of those divine mysteries of which we are "stewards," and will cause that awareness to express itself in everything that we do.

In this way too we shall be for people a clear sign of Christ and His Gospel.

Dear brothers! We need prayer profound and in a sense "organic" prayer, in order to be able to be such a sign. "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." ²⁸ Yes! In a word, this is a question of love, love "for others"; in fact "to be," as priests, "stewards of the mysteries of God" means to place oneself at the disposal of others, and in this way to bear witness to that supreme love which is in Christ, that love which is God himself.

11. If priestly prayer renews such an awareness and attitude in the life of each of us, at the same time, according to the inner "logic" of being stewards of the mysteries of God, this prayer must constantly broaden and extend to all those whom "the Father has given us." ²⁸

This is what stands out clearly in the priestly prayer of Jesus in the Upper Room: "I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave me out of the world; Yours they were, and You gave them to me, and they have kept Your word." ³⁰

Following Jesus' example, the priest, "the steward of the mysteries of God," is truly himself when he is "for others." Prayer gives him a special sensitivity to these "others," making him attentive to their needs, to their lives and destiny. Prayer also enables the priest to recognize those whom "the Father has given to him." These are, in the First place, those whom the Good Shepherd has as it were placed on the path of his priestly ministry, of his pastoral care. They are children, adults and the aged. They are the youth, married couples, families, but also those who are alone. They are the sick, the suffering, the dying; they are those who are spiritually close and willing to collaborate in the apostolate, but also those who are distant, those who are absent or indifferent, though many of them may be searching and reflecting. Those who for different reasons are negatively disposed, those who find themselves in difficulties of various sorts, those who are struggling against vices and sins, those who are fighting for faith and hope. Those who seek the priest's help, and those who reject it.

How can one be "for" all of these people - and "for" each one of them - according to the model of Christ? How can we be "for" those whom "the Father has given to us," committing them to us in trust? Ours will always be a test of love - a test that we must accept, first of all, in the realm or prayer.

12. We are all well aware, dear brothers, that this test is "costly." How demanding at times are those seemingly ordinary conversations with different people! How demanding the service to consciences in the confessional! How demanding the solicitude "for all the churches":³¹ when it is a question of the "domestic churches," ³² namely families, especially in their present difficulties and crises, or a question of each individual "temple of the Holy Spirit":³³ of all individuals in their human and Christian dignity; when it is a question of a church-community such as the parish which always remains the fundamental community, or of those groups, movements or associations which serve the renewal of individuals and of society according to the spirit of the Gospel, which are flourishing today in the Church and for which we must be grateful to the Holy Spirit, who gives rise to so many wonderful initiatives. Such a commitment has its cost, and we must bear that cost with the help of the prayer.

Prayer is essential for maintaining pastoral sensitivity to everything that comes from the "Spirit," for correctly "discerning" and properly employing those charisms that lead to union and are linked to priestly service in the Church. For it is the task of priests "to gather together the People of God," not to divide it. And they fulfill this task above all as ministers of the Holy Eucharist.

Prayer, then, in spite of the many obstacles we meet, will enable us to give that proof of love that must be offered by the life of every individual - but especially the life of the priest. And when it appears that this proof is beyond our strength, let us remember what the Evangelist says about Jesus in Gethsemane: "Being in an agony, He prayed more earnestly." ³⁴

13. The Second Vatican Council presents the life of the Church as a pilgrimage of faith ³⁵ Each one of us, dear brothers, by reason of our priestly vocation and ordination, has a special part in this pilgrimage. We are called to go forward guiding others, helping them along their way as ministers of the Good Shepherd. As stewards of the mysteries of God, we must therefore possess a maturity of faith corresponding to our vocation and our tasks. Indeed, "it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy," ³⁶ since the Lord commits His inheritance to them.

It is appropriate, then, that on this pilgrimage of faith each one of us should fix his soul's gaze on the Virgin Mary, the Mother of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. For - as the Council teaches, following the Fathers of the Church - she "precedes" us in this pilgrimage³⁷ and she offers us a sublime example, as I have sought to show in the recent encyclical published for the Marian year which we are preparing to celebrate.

In Mary, who is the Immaculate Virgin, we also discover the mystery of that supernatural fruitfulness through the power of the Holy Spirit, which makes her the "figure" of the Church. For the Church "becomes herself a mother ... because by her preaching and by baptism she brings forth to a new and immortal life children who are conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of God," ³⁸ as witnessed to by the Apostle Paul: "My children, I must go through the pain of giving birth to you all over again." ³⁹ This the Church does, suffering as a mother who "has sorrow, because her hour has come; but when she is delivered of her child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a child is born into the world." ⁴⁰

Is not this witness related also to the essence of our special vocation in the Church? And yet - let us say it in conclusion - in order that the Apostle's testimony may become ours too, we must constantly return to the Upper Room and to Gethsemane, and rediscover the very center of our priesthood in prayer and through prayer.

When with Christ we pray, "Abba, Father," then "it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God." ⁴¹ "Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. And He who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the Spirit." ⁴²

Accept, dear brothers, my Easter greeting and the kiss of peace in Jesus Christ our Lord.

From the Vatican. April 13, 1987

Pope John Paul II