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Cherish the mystery you hold in your hands
Dear Priests!
1. It is with great joy and affection that I write you this Holy
Thursday Letter, following a tradition which began with my first Easter as the
Bishop of Rome twenty-five years ago. Our annual encounter through this Letter
is a particularly fraternal one, thanks to our common sharing in the Priesthood
of Christ, and it takes place in the liturgical setting of this holy day marked
by its two significant celebrations: the morning Chrism Mass, and the evening
Mass in Cena Domini.
I think of you first as you gather in the cathedrals of your
different Dioceses around your respective Ordinaries for the renewal of your
priestly promises. This eloquent rite takes place following the consecration of
the Holy Oils, especially the Chrism, and is a most fitting part of the Chrism
Mass, which highlights the image of the Church as a priestly people made holy by
the sacraments and sent forth to spread throughout the world the good odour of
Christ the Saviour (2Cor 2:14-16).
At dusk I see you entering the Upper Room for the beginning of the
Easter Triduum. It is precisely to that “large room upstairs” (Lk
22:12) that Jesus invites us to return each Holy Thursday, and it is there above
all that I most cherish meeting you, my dear brothers in the priesthood. At the
Last Supper, we were born as priests: for this reason it is both a
pleasure and a duty to gather once again in the Upper Room and to remind one
another with heartfelt gratitude of the lofty mission which we share.
The Eucharist and Priesthood
2. We were born from the Eucharist. If we can truly say that the
whole Church lives from the Eucharist (“Ecclesia de Eucharistia vivit”),
as I reaffirmed in my
recent Encyclical [Ecclesia de Eucharistia], we can say the same thing about the ministerial
priesthood: it is born, lives, works and bears fruit “de Eucharistia”(cf.
Council of Trent, Sess. XXII, canon 2: DS 1752). “There can be no
Eucharist without the priesthood, just as there can be no priesthood without the
Eucharist” (cf. Gift and Mystery. On the Fiftieth Anniversary of My Priestly
Ordination, New York, 1996, pp.77-78).
The ordained ministry, which may never be reduced to its merely
functional aspect since it belongs on the level of “being”, enables the priest
to act in persona Christi and culminates in the moment when he
consecrates the bread and wine, repeating the actions and words of Jesus during
the Last Supper.
Before this extraordinary reality we find ourselves amazed and
overwhelmed, so deep is the humility by which God “stoops” in order to unite
himself with man! If we feel moved before the Christmas crib, when we
contemplate the Incarnation of the Word, what must we feel before the altar
where, by the poor hands of the priest, Christ makes his Sacrifice present in
time? We can only fall to our knees and silently adore this supreme mystery of
faith.
Priesthood as mystery of faith
3. “Mysterium fidei”, the priest proclaims after the
consecration. The Eucharist is a mystery of faith, yet the priesthood itself, by
reflection, is also a mystery of faith (cf. ibid., p.78). The same
mystery of sanctification and love, the work of the Holy Spirit, which makes the
bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ, is at work in the person of
the minister at the moment of priestly ordination. There is a particular
interplay between the Eucharist and the priesthood, an interplay which goes back
to the Upper Room: these two Sacraments were born together and their destiny is
indissolubly linked until the end of the world.
Here we touch on what I have called the “apostolicity of the
Eucharist” (cf. Encyclical Ecclesia de
Eucharistia, 26-33). The sacrament of the Eucharist—like the sacrament
of Reconciliation—was entrusted by Christ to the Apostles and has been passed
down by them and their successors in every generation. At the beginning of his
public life, the Messiah called the Twelve, appointed them “to be with
him” and sent them out on mission (cf. Mk 3:14-15). At the Last
Supper, this “being with” Jesus on the part of the Apostles reached its
culmination. By celebrating the Passover meal and instituting the Eucharist, the
divine Master brought their vocation to its fulfilment. By saying “Do this in
memory of me”, he put a Eucharistic seal on their mission and, by uniting
them to himself in sacramental communion, he charged them to perpetuate that
most holy act in his memory.
As he pronounced the words “Do this...” Jesus' thoughts
extended to the successors of the Apostles, to those who would continue their
mission by distributing the food of life to the very ends of the earth. In some
way, then, dear brother priests, in the Upper Room we too were called
personally, each one of us, “with brotherly love” (Preface of the Chrism
Mass), to receive from the Lord's sacred hands the Eucharistic Bread and to
break it as food for the People of God on their pilgrim way through time towards
our heavenly homeland.
Pastoral work for vocations
4. The Eucharist, like the priesthood, is a gift from God “which
radically transcends the power of the assembly” and which the assembly “receives
through episcopal succession going back to the Apostles” (Encyclical Ecclesia de
Eucharistia, 29). The Second Vatican Council teaches that “the
ministerial priest, by the sacred power that he enjoys ... effects the
Eucharistic Sacrifice in the person of Christ and offers it to God in the name
of all the people” (Dogmatic Constitution Lumen
Gentium, 10). The assembly of the faithful, united in faith and in the
Spirit and enriched by a variety of gifts, even though it is the place where
Christ “is present in his Church, especially in her liturgical celebrations
(Constitution Sacrosanctum
Concilium, 7), is not by itself able to celebrate the Eucharist or to
provide the ordained minister.
Quite rightly, then, the Christian people gives thanks to God for
the gift of the Eucharist and the priesthood, while praying unceasingly that
priests will never be lacking in the Church. The number of priests is never
sufficient to meet the constantly increasing demands of evangelization and the
pastoral care of the faithful. In some places of the world the shortage of
priests is all the more urgently felt since today the number of priests is
dwindling without sufficient replacements from the younger generation. In other
places, thank God, we see a promising spring-time of vocations. There is also a
growing awareness among the People of God of the need to pray and work actively
to promote vocations to the priesthood and to the consecrated life.
Need for 'Eucharistic amazement'
5. Vocations are indeed a gift from God for which we must pray
unceasingly. Following the invitation of Jesus, we need to pray the Lord of the
harvest to send out labourers into his harvest (cf. Mt 9:37). Prayer,
enriched by the silent offering of suffering, remains the first and most
effective means of pastoral work for vocations. To pray means to keep our
gaze fixed on Christ, confident that from him, the one High Priest, and from his
divine oblation, there will be an abundant growth, by the work of the Holy
Spirit, of the seeds of those vocations needed in every age for the Church's
life and mission.
Let us pause in the Upper Room and contemplate the Redeemer who
instituted the Eucharist and the priesthood at the Last Supper. On that holy
night he called by name each and every priest in every time. He looked at
each one of them with the same look of loving encouragement with which he looked
at Simon and Andrew, at James and John, at Nathanael beneath the fig tree, and
at Matthew sitting at the tax office. Jesus has called us and, along a variety
of paths, he continues to call many others to be his ministers.
From the Upper Room Christ tirelessly seeks and calls. Here we
find the origin and the perennial source of an authentic pastoral promotion of
priestly vocations. Let us consider ourselves, my brothers, the first ones
responsible in this area, ready to help all those whom Christ wishes to
associate to his priesthood to respond generously to his call.
First, however, and more than any other effort on behalf of
vocations, our personal fidelity is indispensable. What counts is our personal
commitment to Christ, our love for the Eucharist, our fervour in celebrating it,
our devotion in adoring it and our zeal in offering it to our brothers and
sisters, especially to the sick. Jesus the High Priest continues personally to
call new workers for his vineyard, but he wishes from the first to count on our
active cooperation. Priests in love with the Eucharist are capable of
communicating to children and young people that “Eucharistic amazement”
which I have sought to rekindle with my Encyclical Ecclesia de
Eucharistia (cf. No. 6). Generally these are the priests who lead them
to the path of the priesthood, as the history of our own vocations might easily
show.
Special care for altar servers
6. In the light of this, dear brother priests, I would ask you,
among other initiatives, to show special care for altar servers, who
represent a kind of “garden” of priestly vocations. The group of altar servers,
under your guidance as part of the parish community, can be given a valuable
experience of Christian education and become a kind of pre-seminary. Help the
parish, as a family made up of families, to look upon the altar servers as their
own children, like “olive shoots around the table” of Jesus Christ, the
Bread of Life (cf. Ps. 127:3).
With the help of the families most involved and catechists, be
particularly concerned for the group of servers so that, through their service
at the altar, each of them will learn to grow in love for the Lord Jesus, to
recognize him truly present in the Eucharist and to experience the beauty of the
liturgy. Initiatives for altar servers on the diocesan or local level should be
promoted and encouraged, with attention to the different age groups. During my
years of episcopal ministry in Krakow I was able to see the great benefits which
can accrue from a concern for their human, spiritual and liturgical training.
When children and young people serve at the altar with joy and enthusiasm, they
offer their peers an eloquent witness to the importance and beauty of the
Eucharist. Thanks to their own lively imagination and the explanations and
example given by priests and their older friends, even very young children can
grow in faith and develop a love for spiritual realities.
Finally, never forget that you yourselves are the first “Apostles”
of Jesus the High Priest. Your own witness counts more than anything else. Altar
servers see you at the regular Sunday and weekday celebrations; in your hands
they see the Eucharist “take place”, on your face they see its mystery
reflected, and in your heart they sense the summons of a greater love. May you
be for them fathers, teachers and witnesses of Eucharistic piety and holiness of
life!
The sanctification of priests
7. Dear brother priests, your particular mission in the Church
requires that you be “friends” of Christ, constantly contemplating his face with
docility at the school of Mary Most Holy. Pray unceasingly, as the Apostle
exhorts (cf. 1Th 5:17), and encourage the faithful to pray for vocations,
for the perseverance of those called to the priestly life and for the
sanctification of all priests. Help your communities to love ever more fully
that unique “gift and mystery” which is the ministerial priesthood.
In the prayerful setting of Holy Thursday, I would recall once
again some invocations of the Litany of Jesus Christ Priest and Victim (cf.
Gift and Mystery, pp.108-114), which I have recited for many years with
great spiritual profit:
Iesu, Sacerdos et Victima,
Iesu, Sacerdos qui in novissima
Cena formam sacrificii perennis instituisti,
Iesu, Pontifex ex hominibus
assumpte,
Iesu, Pontifex pro hominibus constitute,
Iesus, Pontifex qui
tradidisti temetipsum Deo oblationem et hostiam,
miserere nobis!
Ut pastores secundum cor tuum populo tuo providere
digneris,
ut in messem tuam operarios fideles mittere digneris,
ut fideles
mysteriorum tuorum dispensatores multiplicare digneris,
Te rogamus, audi
nos!
8. I entrust each of you and your daily ministry to Mary, Mother
of Priests. During the recitation of the Rosary, the fifth mystery
of light leads us to contemplate with Mary's eyes the gift of the
Eucharist, to marvel at the love that Jesus showed “to the end” (Jn 13:1)
in the Upper Room, and at his humble presence in every tabernacle. May the
Blessed Virgin obtain for you the grace never to take for granted the mystery
put in your hands. With endless gratitude to the Lord for the amazing gift of
his Body and Blood, may you persevere faithfully in your priestly ministry.
Mary, Mother of Christ our High Priest, pray that the Church will
always have numerous and holy vocations, faithful and generous ministers of the
altar!
Dear brother priests, I wish you and your communities a Holy
Easter and to all of you I affectionately impart my blessing.
From the Vatican, on 28 March, the Fifth Sunday of Lent, in the
year 2004, the twenty- sixth of my Pontificate.
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