Word to the Wise
Thursday, May 27, 2010 - Thursday in the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time
[1 Peter 2:2-5, 9-12 and Mark 10:46-52]Come to him, a living stone, rejected by human beings but chosen and precious in the sight of God, and, like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. You are a holy race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that you may announce the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. [1 Peter]
These are wonderful words from the First Letter of Peter, but I fear they go unnoticed by many of us. We just don't think of ourselves as "priests." Priests are men who are ordained for service in a hierarchically organized Church along with bishops and deacons. The rest, so this thinking goes, are the pew folk whose role is to "pray, pay and obey." Often this way of thinking prevails in fact, but it is not the vision of the scriptures, or even the vision of the Sacrament of Baptism! During that important rite, the person being baptized is anointed with sacred chrism with these words, "As Christ was anointed Priest, Prophet, and King, so may you live always as members of his body, sharing everlasting life." When I preach a parish mission, I always begin with a service that recalls the baptismal commitment - the priesthood of the baptized. The Church will be truly a "living" reality when we take seriously the fact that we are members of the body of Christ, and not simply spectators of that reality. This does nothing to harm the role of ordained persons, although it might bring a healthy and necessary perspective to the way these ordained persons use the power of which they are stewards and not owners. The vast majority of Catholics are non-ordained persons, but we are all called to the exercise of Christ's three-fold ministry in preaching the gospel. The dignity which is ours by virtue of baptism is not lessened by the dignity of Holy Orders. It is when the latter is viewed as more important than the former that we lose sight of the scriptural vision. AMEN
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