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1
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- The Gospel Renewal and Priestly Communion
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2
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- Purity of Heart and Piety
- Equality of Husband and Wife
- Celibacy for the Sake of the Kingdom
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3
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- The desires of the flesh are against the Spirit and the desires of the
Spirit are against the flesh. Gal 5:17
- When Paul speaks of putting to death the deeds of the body with the help
of the Spirit he is referring precisely to the appeal to the heart in
the Sermon on the Mount
- You were called to freedom; do not use your freedom as an opportunity
for the flesh. Gal 5:13
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4
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- This is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from
unchastity, that each of you know how to control his own body in
holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like heathens who do not
know God (1Th 4:3-5)
- Virtue of purity consists in mastery and overcoming of the passion of
lust.
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5
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- Purity is a capacity and task
- Abstention from unchastity
- Control of one’s own body in holiness and honor
- Centered on the dignity of the human person
- The expression and fruit of life in the Spirit
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6
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- Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. You are not your own. You were bought with a price. 1 Cor
6:19-20
- Your bodies are members of Christ 1 Cor 6:15
- The mystery of the redemption of the body, carried out by Christ, is the
source of a special moral duty which commits the Christian to purity
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7
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- Not simply the restraint of temperance
- But the Sermon on the Mount and Paul shift the focus to the more
positive function of purity of heart
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8
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- In mature purity, the person enjoys the fruits of victory over lust
- Piety-If purity prepares man to control his own body in holiness and
honor, piety, a gift of the Holy Spirit, makes the human subject
sensitive to that dignity which is characteristic of the human body by
virtue of the mystery of creation and redemption
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9
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10
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- Some Pharisees approached him, and tested him, 4 saying, "Is it
lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause whatever?"
- 4
- 5 He said in reply, "Have you not read that from the beginning the
Creator 'made them male and female'
- 5
- and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and
be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'?
- 6
- So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has
joined together, no human being must separate."
- 7
- 6 They said to him, "Then why did Moses command that the man give
the woman a bill of divorce and dismiss (her)?"
- 8
- He said to them, "Because of the hardness of your hearts Moses
allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not
so.
- 9
- I say to you, 7 whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is
unlawful) and marries another commits adultery."
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11
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- Mt 19: 10 If that is the case of
a man with his wife it is better not to marry.
- Not all can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been granted
- Some are incapable of marriage because they were born so; some because
they were made so by others; some because they have renounced marriage
for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.
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12
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- Those who have renounced marriage (made themselves eunuchs) for the sake
of the sake of the kingdom. Mt. 19:11-12
- He who is able to receive this, let him receive it.
- It is a personal choice
- And a grace
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13
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- Continence for the Kingdom is an exception with respect to the other
state (from the beginning)
- There is no place in the Old Testament for this significance of the body
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14
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- Mk 12:20-27 Seven brothers
- Who will be her husband in the Resurrection?
- “Are you not misled because you do not know the scriptures or the power
of God?
- When they rise from the dead they neither marry nor are given in
marriage, but they are like the angels in heaven.
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15
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- The communion of the priest is fulfilled above all with the Father, the
ultimate origin of all his power; with the Son, in whose redemptive
mission he participates; with the Holy Spirit, who gives him the power
for living and fulfilling that pastoral charity which qualifies him in a
priestly way.
- In fact, "the nature and the mission of the ministerial priesthood
cannot be defined except in this multiple and rich network of relations
which spring from the Blessed Trinity and is prolonged in the communion
of the Church as a sign, in Christ, of the union with God and the unity
of the whole human race".(PDV)
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16
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- The priest's communion-relation with the Church in its aspect of mystery
and ecclesial community comes from this fundamental union-communion with
Christ and the Trinity
- In fact, through sacramental Ordination, he develops special bonds with the
Pope, the Episcopal Body, his own Bishop, other priests and the lay
faithful.
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17
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- Incardination in a particular Church (68) constitutes an authentic
juridical bond (69) which also has a spiritual value, since from it
springs "the rapport with the Bishop in the sole presbyterate,
sharing in the ecclesial solicitude, in dedication to the evangelical
care of the People of God in specific historical conditions and
settings".(70)
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18
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- avoid living priesthood in an isolated and subjectivistic way,
- try to enhance fraternal communion in the giving and receiving — from
priest to priest — of the warmth of friendship, of affectionate help, of
acceptance, of fraternal correction
- Mass In Coena Domini of Holy Thursday which shows how through
Eucharistic communion — born in the Last Supper — the priests receive
the capacity to love one another, as the Master loves them.
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19
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- The capacity to develop and profoundly live priestly friendship is a
source of serenity and joy in the exercise of the ministry, a decisive
support in difficulties and a valuable help in the growth of pastoral
charity. Priests must exercise this friendship in a particular way
precisely towards those brothers most in need of understanding, help and
support. (LG, PO)
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20
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- A manifestation of this communion is also the common life
- Among the diverse forms of this (communal house, community of table,
etc.) one must look highly upon the communal participation in liturgical
prayer.
- Associations which support priestly fraternity, sanctity in the exercise
of the ministry, and communion with the Bishop and with the entire
Church.
- Pastors encourage common life in the parochial house with their vicars
- And the vicars, in order to build priestly communion, must recognise and
respect the authority of the parish priest
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21
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- a real and unconditional love for all Christians
- a positive and encouraging rapport with the lay faithful
- the priest will make every effort "to awaken and deepen
co-responsibility in the one common mission of salvation
- will encourage associations of the faithful and movements
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22
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- Insofar as he unites the family of God and brings about the Church as
communion, the priest becomes the bridge between man and God, making
himself a brother of men who wants to be their pastor, father and a
spiritual master.
- Guide to a personal encounter with Christ in the Church.
- Will present himself as an expert in humanity, a man of truth and of
communion, a witness of the solicitude of the Only Shepherd for each and
every member of his flock.
- The community will be able to count on his dedication, availability,
untiring work of evangelization and, above all, his devoted and
unconditional love.
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23
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- Exercise his spiritual mission with kindness and firmness, with humility
and service, opening himself to compassion, participating in the
sufferings which arise from the various forms of poverty, spiritual and
material, old and new.
- Act with humility and with mercy for conversion of sinners, in truth and
patience and the encouraging benevolence of the Good Shepherd, who does
not reprove the lost sheep, but carries it on his shoulders and
celebrates for its return to the fold (cf Lk 15:4-7).(95)
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24
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- This is my body, given for you
- This is the cup of my blood, for you
- They receive the sacramental charge: Do this in remembrance of me. Lk 22:19
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25
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- Christ Jesus considered this sacrifice of Himself so decisive for the
salvation of the human race that He offered it “only after he had left
us a means of sharing in it as if we had been present there” (John Paul II, Ecclesia de
Eucharistia, 11).
- A “mystery of mercy.” “What more
could Christ have done for us?”
- “Truly, in the Eucharist, he shows us a love which goes ‘to the end’ (cf
Jn 13:1), a love which knows no measure”
(Ecclesia de Eucharistia, 11).
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26
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- On Easter the Apostles receive the Holy Spirit for the forgiveness of
sins (for her).
- The sincere gift contained in the sacrifice of the Cross gives
definitive prominence to the spousal meaning of God’s love.
- The Eucharist makes present in a sacramental manner the redemptive act
of Christ who “creates” the Church, his body.
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27
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- Christ is united with his body as the bridegroom with the bride.
- The perennial “unity of the two” that exists between man and woman from
the beginning is introduced into this great mystery of Christ and the
Church.
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28
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- A new anthropology that points to the Kingdom of Heaven
- The Priest has the privilege of imaging Christ at the wedding feast of
the bridegroom and bride, the Liturgy
- His celibate state specifically points to the Resurrected life of
Christ’s body
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29
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- The Eucharist is thus a sacrifice because it re-presents (makes present)
the sacrifice of the cross, because it is its memorial and because it applies
its fruit:
- [Christ], our Lord and God, was once and for all to offer himself to God
the Father by his death on the altar of the cross, to accomplish there
an everlasting redemption. But because his priesthood was not to end
with his death, at the Last Supper "on the night when he was
betrayed," [he wanted] to leave to his beloved spouse the Church a
visible sacrifice (as the nature of man demands) by which the bloody
sacrifice which he was to accomplish once for all on the cross would be
re-presented, its memory perpetuated until the end of the world, and its
salutary power be applied to the forgiveness of the sins we daily
commit.
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30
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- The renewal of the original equality between man and woman, a
restoration of dignity and call for the rightful respect in marriage and
beyond
- A reversal of the three fold structure of sin, the lust of the flesh,
the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.
- The grace to live out the original calling in a new Christ-like way
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31
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- In the ecclesial service of the ordained minister, it is Christ himself
who is present to his Church as Head of his Body, Shepherd of his flock,
high priest of the redemptive sacrifice, Teacher of Truth. This is what
the Church means by saying that the priest, by virtue of the sacrament
of Holy Orders, acts in persona Christi Capitis:23
- It is the same priest, Christ Jesus, whose sacred person his minister
truly represents. Now the minister, by reason of the sacerdotal
consecration which he has received, is truly made like to the high
priest and possesses the authority to act in the power and place of the
person of Christ himself (virtute ac persona ipsius Christi).24
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32
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- 31. If the Eucharist is the centre and summit of the Church's life, it
is likewise the centre and summit of priestly ministry. For this reason,
with a heart filled with gratitude to our Lord Jesus Christ, I repeat
that the Eucharist “is the principal and central raison d'ętre of the
sacrament of priesthood, which effectively came into being at the moment
of the institution of the Eucharist”
Eccl. De Eucharistia
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33
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- Through our ordination-the celebration of which is linked to the holy
Mass from the very first liturgical evidence(4)-we are united in a
singular and exceptional way to the Eucharist. In a certain way we
derive from it and exist for it. We are also, and in a special way,
responsible for it-each priest in his own community and each bishop by
virtue of the care of all the communities entrusted to him, on the basis
of the sollicitudo omnium ecclesiarum that St. Paul speaks of.(5) Thus
we bishops and priests are entrusted with the great "mystery of
Faith," and while it is also given to the whole People of God, to
all believers in Christ, yet to us has been entrusted the Eucharist also
"for" others, who expect from us a particular witness of
veneration and love towards this sacrament, so that they too may be able
to be built up and vivified "to offer spiritual
sacrifices."(6)
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34
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- The whole Church is united with the offering and intercession of Christ.
- Through the ministry of priests the spiritual sacrifice of the faithful
is completed in union with the sacrifice of Christ the only Mediator,
which in the Eucharist is offered through the priests' hands in the name
of the whole Church in an unbloody and sacramental manner until the Lord
himself comes.
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35
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- So the Lord Jesus Christ offers all of his followers in love no matter
what their state in life—the children, the poor, the sick, the high and
the low, those who govern and those subject to the most unfortunate of
conditions. He offers those
specially consecrated to his service.
Everyone is offered to God but especially the minister of Christ
when he says, “This is my body.”
Therefore every priest has a special and individual vocation to
be a victim in order to be like the figure of Christ.. Fr. GL says, A priest is not merely an
orator, an eloquent exponent of doctrine or history, or a canonist, (an
to this we can add teacher, counselor, administrator, etc,) but first
and foremost he is meant to be a genuine priest.”
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36
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- The institution of a “Great Mystery,”
the sacrament of the Bride and the Bridegroom
- The sign the points to the future (and fulfillment) of this mystery tied
to marriage, Celibacy for the Sake of the Kingdom
- A Celibate priesthood that dispenses in the Church the graces He won
“for her”
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Notes
