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Exploring the word

25 Oct 2015 - Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

Thomas Aquinas wrote that Christ alone is the true priest. All others known by that name are merely his ministers. Aquinas got this idea from reading the Letter to the Hebrews. While all of us are summoned by our baptism into a common priesthood, and some fewer of us respond to the call to ministerial priesthood, the true priest mediator of all that’s holy among us is Jesus himself. We celebrate Christ’s mediating presence today on Priesthood Sunday. We celebrate that there is a way for human beings to be reconciled to God, that sacraments of grace and forgiveness exist and are available to us. The reality of reconciliation leaves the world a whole lot less lonely. We know this because we experience how sin operates in our relationships: We hurt each other and it opens a rift, a silence, a deepening chill. If no one moves to heal that chasm, it only gets wider, deeper, colder. Sin cuts us off from the source of life, separates Creation from Creator. Ancient priests performed daily rituals to mend the bridge between God and us, one sin and one sacrifice at a time. It was an endless and wearisome task, a losing proposition given the multiplication of sinners and opportunities to fail. We’d be lost in our estrangement from God if Jesus hadn’t surrendered his own body to be the bridge that reunited heaven and earth, once for all. Jesus is the bridge. And the church’s ministerial priests continue to throw themselves down, quite literally at ordination and every year on Good Friday, as planks in that mediating bridge so that sacraments of reconciliation can continue to cross over to sanctify the church. We celebrate the priestly ministry of mediation most heartily today. Are our priests happy to fulfill this service, passionate about delivering the healing message of Christ to the world? A personal testimony to that effect is not out of place here. We also encourage the young and the open-hearted in our midst to listen attentively if a call to serve that sacramental bridge is alive in them . The ministerial priesthood is a plank in that bridge for the sake of the church. Yet all of us as church are called to comprise that same bridge of sanctification for the sake of the world—which makes us all planks, too, summoned for bridgework as peacemakers bringing earth and heaven closer together. We’re not here to “get saved” as autonomous souls but to participate in a saving mission. We don’t skip across the sacramental bridge to personal freedom without laying down our lives, becoming beams in the architecture of salvation. Are we healers and reconcilers within our families, in the workplace, in the neighborhood, wherever we wield our authority? Do people seek us out for peacemaking roles, even if they never use the word “priest”? Related scripture links The preserved names: Matt. 10:2-4; Mark 10:46-52; 15:21; Luke 1:26-38; 6:12-16; 8:1-3; 10:38-42; 19:1-10; 23:50-52; 24:10; John 3:1-15; 11:1-44; 19:39-42 Faith and salvation: Mark 5:23, 28, 34, 36; 6:6; 8:29; 9:14-24; 10:52; 11:22-24; 16:15-18

Authors Alice Camille

priesthood Priesthood Sunday

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Exploring the word

25 Oct 2015 - Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

Thomas Aquinas wrote that Christ alone is the true priest. All others known by that name are merely his ministers. Aquinas got this idea from reading the Letter to the Hebrews. While all of us are summoned by our baptism into a common priesthood, and some fewer of us respond to the call to ministerial priesthood, the true priest mediator of all that’s holy among us is Jesus himself. We celebrate Christ’s mediating presence today on Priesthood Sunday. We celebrate that there is a way for human beings to be reconciled to God, that sacraments of grace and forgiveness exist and are available to us. The reality of reconciliation leaves the world a whole lot less lonely. We know this because we experience how sin operates in our relationships: We hurt each other and it opens a rift, a silence, a deepening chill. If no one moves to heal that chasm, it only gets wider, deeper, colder. Sin cuts us off from the source of life, separates Creation from Creator. Ancient priests performed daily rituals to mend the bridge between God and us, one sin and one sacrifice at a time. It was an endless and wearisome task, a losing proposition given the multiplication of sinners and opportunities to fail. We’d be lost in our estrangement from God if Jesus hadn’t surrendered his own body to be the bridge that reunited heaven and earth, once for all. Jesus is the bridge. And the church’s ministerial priests continue to throw themselves down, quite literally at ordination and every year on Good Friday, as planks in that mediating bridge so that sacraments of reconciliation can continue to cross over to sanctify the church. We celebrate the priestly ministry of mediation most heartily today. Are our priests happy to fulfill this service, passionate about delivering the healing message of Christ to the world? A personal testimony to that effect is not out of place here. We also encourage the young and the open-hearted in our midst to listen attentively if a call to serve that sacramental bridge is alive in them . The ministerial priesthood is a plank in that bridge for the sake of the church. Yet all of us as church are called to comprise that same bridge of sanctification for the sake of the world—which makes us all planks, too, summoned for bridgework as peacemakers bringing earth and heaven closer together. We’re not here to “get saved” as autonomous souls but to participate in a saving mission. We don’t skip across the sacramental bridge to personal freedom without laying down our lives, becoming beams in the architecture of salvation. Are we healers and reconcilers within our families, in the workplace, in the neighborhood, wherever we wield our authority? Do people seek us out for peacemaking roles, even if they never use the word “priest”? Related scripture links The preserved names: Matt. 10:2-4; Mark 10:46-52; 15:21; Luke 1:26-38; 6:12-16; 8:1-3; 10:38-42; 19:1-10; 23:50-52; 24:10; John 3:1-15; 11:1-44; 19:39-42 Faith and salvation: Mark 5:23, 28, 34, 36; 6:6; 8:29; 9:14-24; 10:52; 11:22-24; 16:15-18

Authors Alice Camille

priesthood Priesthood Sunday

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Exploring the word

26 Oct 2014 - Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A

ALL THE WORLD loves a debate. When two sides square off—across the family dinner table, at a staff meeting, or on the stage of presidential hopefuls—a thrill of tension ripples around the room. Who will get the better of the argument? Will truth win out over clever rhetoric? As a debate gets underway, some of us harden ourselves against all evidence in favor of a predetermined viewpoint. Others discover a new openness to the opposing perspective, and may change our minds or at least soften our hearts with greater understanding. From the time Jesus arrives in Jerusalem, the debate regarding his authority is on. There’s a tag-team approach to discrediting him. First the Pharisees and Herodians test him about taxes. They represent distinct perspectives: the Mosaic-law-toting Pharisees revile the tax, while the profiteering Herod party prefers to keep the Pax Romana. The debate leads to a draw. The response of Jesus baffles both sides. Next up are the Sadducees. They come at Jesus about resurrection from the dead, a doctrine they reject. Jesus argues biblically for resurrection and raises them one better, casting angels into the ring. Sadducees don’t buy angels either, but Pharisees support afterlife and spiritual beings. So while the Sadducees go off to sulk, the Pharisees return delighted. Jesus has divided his enemies and weakened the offensive, a classic military tactic! The happy Pharisees now pose a more candid question: which is the highest law of all? Jesus proposes the love command, which incorporates both law and prophets. To argue against Jesus now would be to argue against their own platform. The Pharisees are trounced. Jesus denounces both sides for a lack of sincerity. People of good will don’t begin in the spirit of opposition. Those genuinely allied to the truth would listen to Jesus instead of setting traps for him in public contests. This sort of religious theater isn’t what Jesus is about. There’s a bigger stage he’s yet to mount, from which he can be seen for centuries to come. Not all of us belong on a debate team. We may personally shrink from verbal sparring and open conflict. But we’re all involved in the greatest debate of history: for or against Jesus Christ. Every action we take testifies to one side or the other. Everything we value and everyone we choose to love (or hate) is another bit of evidence for our primary allegiance. On Priesthood Sunday, we acknowledge the person in our assembly who’s taken a very visible stand in that debate. The priest’s position doesn’t co-opt all others. It invites all others! As we gather around the table, the role of the priest reminds us that our response to this sacrament is part of salvation history’s great debate. Related scripture links Law as guiding light: Ps. 18:29; 119:105; Prov. 6:23 Shema Ysrael: Deut. 6:4-5 Love your neighbor: Lev. 19:18; see also James 2:8 Catechism links Sins against the neighbor: CCC 1867 The Decalogue: CCC 707-710; 1961-1964; 2056-2074 Jesus and the law: CCC 577-582; 1824; 1965-1974 The Great Commandment: CCC 2052-2055; 2083

Authors Alice Camille

Priesthood Sunday pharisees

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Exploring the word

28 Oct 2012 - Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

What’s the price of mental and spiritual blindness? It doesn’t help to argue that we’re not blind. Each of us makes decisions to close our eyes to a lot we prefer not to see or feel or think about. This kind of selective attention makes it easier and simpler to navigate through our days. It also puts us at risk as we participate in certain grand lies about the nature of our world and ourselves. It used to be that if you didn’t consciously break any commandments or commit immoral acts, you could reasonably call yourself a moral person. Then came church teaching that harbors an awareness of social sin: Because the very system that holds and sustains is corrupt, it’s fairly impossible for any of us who benefit from it not to be accountable for its many exploitative injustices. Just today, violence around the world has been visited on strangers in my name and with my financial backing. Decisions have been made not to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, heal the sick, welcome the stranger—by people who represent us and are on oour payroll. Rulings have been made to exploit the soil, threaten the water table, pollute the air, and tamper with the food supply. And it’s all on our dime, and it is we who stand to reap the (temporary) rewards of this environmental ravaging. If we say it’s not so, not our fault, then we’re not only blind but choose to bump around and pretend we’re not. That makes us pathetic because the literally, physically blind know quite well they can’t see—which means they see very well, when it comes to the truth. What are the consequences of being blind to the truth? That nothing changes, until it gets worse. Sinful systems remain in place and are unchallenged. We, too, become false, self-righteous, self-deluded. In biblical terms that is known as “hardness of heart. ”How can we be healed of our blindness? We do as Bartimaeus did. We have to run after Jesus, call his name, acknowledge our blindness, and ask to see. Be forewarned: Clear sight does not always feel like a gift. Opening our eyes to the truth about our world and ourselves makes negotiating our place in this society a whole lot messier. It means embracing small pragmatic practices, like the “reuse, reduce, recycle” mantra. It means making careful choices with investments and purchases. It means being politically informed and involved. It also means engaging in big restorative justice efforts: redistributing resources, fighting local bigotries, inclusifying communities, doing the right thing even when it costs us. Today is Priesthood Sunday. We pray for our religious leaders and also that more people with vision will feel their hearts roused to serve our church in this necessary ministry. Related Scripture links The preserved names: Matt. 10:2-4; Mark 10:46-52; 15:21; Luke 1:26-38; 6:12-16; 8:1-3; 10:38-42; 19:1-10; 23:50-52; 24:10; John 3:1-15; 11:1-44; 19:39-42 Faith and salvation: Mark 5:23, 28, 34, 36; 6:6; 8:29; 9:14-24; 10:52; 11:22-24; 16:15-18 Catechism links Faith: CCC 185-202; 222-227; 548; 1814-1816; 2616; 2666-2668

Authors Alice Camille

blindness bartimaeus Priesthood Sunday

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Homily themes

22 May 2011 - Fifth Sunday of Easter, Cycle A

To be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. The First Letter of Peter's description of God's people is reminiscent of passages in the Letters of Paul where that apostle also sees Christian life in terms of an offering of self in imitation of Christ. "I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters," Paul writes in Roman 12:1, "by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship." And in Ephesians 5:1-2, he says, "Therefore be imitators of God . . . and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God." Homily points When you build, it makes a difference what materials you use. The spiritual house of God is made with the finest masonry available. The people of God are chosen, royal, priestly, and holy--both by call and by cooperation. Jesus asks us to consider the spiritual house, not only internally but expansively, as an endless landscape of invitation and possibility.

priesthood imitation of christ people of god

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Homily stories

07 Nov 2010 - Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C

In my first year of priesthood, I was privileged to bring Holy Communion monthly to a 95-year-old woman who was being cared for by her only surviving child, a 75-year-old man. There were some months when her health was better than his, and she found herself taking care of him. She was a remarkable person. One day the three of us started talking about heaven. To my surprise, she was excited about the prospect of dying, of shedding her aged body like a cocoon, and then with God's mercy, as she put it, going to heaven. With great assurance in her voice she stated that when she got to heaven she planned on being the young girl she was at 18. This upset her son greatly. He was afraid he wouldn't recognize her, because he hadn't known her at 18. And what if he was older than she was in heaven? How would that look with her being his mother and all? I listened to this remarkable discussion about the afterlife. Eventually they must have noticed the smile on my face, because they both stopped abruptly. He turned to me and said they discussed these kind of things all the time, but usually when no one else was around. And then they grew quiet. They didn't ask for my advice, so I didn't say anything. Scripture today reminds us that the same issues have been discussed forever. Those with incredible faith accept death. Some martyrs even embrace it. Whatever follows it, our loving God will reveal to us when the time comes.

Authors Father Dominic Grassi

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The inner word

29 Mar 2009 - Fifth Sunday of Lent, Cycle B

God has written God’s law on our hearts. In a way, this message brings great comfort: The ways of God already dwell within. In the comfort and confidence this awareness gives you, consider the following: The Letter to the Hebrews speaks of Jesus as our high priest. How do I see my priesthood—ordained or through Baptism—in relation to Jesus’? How can I lead others to embrace their baptismal priesthood? The gospel today presents a “negative way” of discipleship—“hating” life to gain it, dying to live. When do I love my life too much? Do I ever try too hard to preserve it? To what must I die in order to bear fruit? Where do I follow and serve Jesus? Christ learned obedience through suffering. In what ways do I do the same? What “obedience” do I learn?

god's law priesthood discipleship

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Who's listening?

01 Feb 2009 - Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

In baptism, all of us enter into Christ’s priesthood, prophethood, and kingship. God raises prophets, and these real prophets are worth listening to. In fact, our hearts thirst for the living Word of God. How can words help quench the thirst of those assembled today for a real, true, and good word spoken to their lives and deepest yearnings?

prophets word of god priesthood

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