Here is the Advent reflection delivered today by Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, the preacher of the Pontifical Household, for Benedict XVI and members of the Roman Curia. The talk was titled "Ministers of the New Covenant of the Spirit."
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1. The Service of the Spirit
Last time we commented on the definition that Paul gives
of priests as "servants of Christ." In the Second Letter
to the Corinthians we find an apparently different
affirmation: he writes: "Our qualification comes from
God, who has indeed qualified us as ministers of a new
covenant, not of letter but of spirit; for the letter
brings death, but the Spirit gives life. Now if the
ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, was so
glorious that the Israelites could not look intently at
the face of Moses because of its glory that was going to
fade, how much more will the ministry of the Spirit be
glorious?" (2 Corinthians 3:5-8).
Paul describes himself and his collaborators as
"ministers of a new covenant in the Spirit" and the
apostolic ministry as "service (diakonia) of the
Spirit." The comparison with Moses and the worship of
the ancient covenant leaves no doubt, in fact, that in
this passage, as in many other of the same letter, he
speaks of the role of the leaders in the Christian
community, namely the apostles and their collaborators.
Whoever knows the relationship that there is for Paul
between Christ and the Spirit knows that there is no
contradiction, but rather perfect continuity, between
being servants of Christ and being ministers of the
Spirit. The Spirit being spoken of here is in fact the
Spirit of Christ. Jesus himself explains the role of the
Paraclete in relations to him, when he says to the
apostles: He will take it from me and will proclaim it
to you, he will make you recall what I have told you, he
will witness to me.
The complete definition of the apostolic and priestly
ministry is: servants of Christ in the Holy Spirit. The
Spirit indicates the quality or nature of our service
which is a "spiritual" service in the strong sense of
the term; not only, that is, in the sense that it has
the spirit of man and his soul as its object, but also
in the sense that it has as its subject and "principal
agent" the Holy Spirit. St. Irenaeus says that the Holy
Spirit is "our very communion with Christ."[1]
Just above, in the same Second Letter to the
Corinthians, the apostle illustrated the action of the
Holy Spirit in the ministers of the New Covenant with
the symbol of anointing: "But it is God who establishes
us with you in Christ, and has anointed us; he has put
his seal upon us and given us his Spirit in our hearts
as a guarantee."
St. Athanasius comments this text thus: "The Spirit is
called and is anointing and seal. [...] The anointing is
the breath of the Son, so that he who possesses the
Spirit can say: 'We are the perfume of Christ.' The seal
represents Christ, so that he who is marked by the seal
is able to have the form of Christ."[2] As anointing,
the Spirit transmits to us the perfume of Christ; as
seal, his form or image. Hence, there is no dichotomy
between service of Christ and service of the Spirit, but
rather profound unity.
All Christians are "anointed"; their name itself means
nothing other than this: "anointed," in the likeness of
Christ, who is the Anointed par excellence (cf. 1 John
2:20.27). However, Paul is speaking here of his work and
Timothy's ("we") as opposed to the community ("you"); it
is evident therefore that he is referring in particular
to the anointing and seal of the Spirit, received at the
moment of being consecrated to the apostolic ministry,
for Timothy through the imposition of the hands of the
Apostle (cf. 2 Timothy 1:6).
We must absolutely rediscover the importance of the
anointing of the Spirit because in it, I am convinced,
is enclosed the secret of the efficacy of the episcopal
and presbyterial ministry. Priests are essentially the
consecrated ones, namely, the anointed. "Our Lord Jesus
— one reads in the 'Presbyterorum ordinis'
— whom the Father consecrated and sent into the
world (John 10:36), has made all his Mystical Body
participate in that anointing of the Spirit that he has
received." The same conciliar decree, however, hastens
to put immediately in the light the specificity of the
anointing conferred by the sacrament of Holy Orders.
That is why it states that "priests, in virtue of the
anointing of the Holy Spirit, are marked by a special
character that configures them to Christ the priest, so
that they can act in the name of Christ, the Head."[3]
2. Anointing: figure, event and sacrament
The anointing, as the Eucharist and Easter, is one of
those realities that are present in all the three phases
of the history of salvation. It is present, in fact, in
the Old Testament as figure, in the New Testament as
event and in the time of the Church as sacrament. In our
case, the figure is given by the various anointings
practiced in the Old Testament; the event is constituted
by the anointing of Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed
One, to whom all the figures tended as to their
fulfillment; the sacrament, is represented by that
ensemble of sacramental signs that include an anointing
as principal and complementary rite.
The Old Testament speaks of three types of anointing:
royal, priestly and prophetic anointing. That is,
anointing of kings, of priests and of prophets, even
though in the case of prophets it is in general a
spiritual and metaphoric anointing, namely, without a
material oil. In every one of these anointings, a
messianic horizon is delineated, namely, the expectation
of a king, of a priest and of a prophet who will be the
Anointed One par excellence, the Messiah.
Together with the official and juridical investiture, by
which the king becomes the Anointed of the Lord, the
anointing also confers, according to the Bible, a real
interior power, it entails a transformation that comes
from God and this power, this reality is ever more
clearly identified with the Holy Spirit. In anointing
Saul as king, Samuel says: "Has not the Lord anointed
you to be prince over his people Israel? [...] Then the
spirit of the Lord will come mightily upon you, and you
shall prophesy with them and be turned into another man"
(1 Samuel 10:1.6). The link between the anointing and
the Spirit is above all brought into light in the
well-known text of Isaiah: "The Spirit of the Lord God
is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me" (Isaiah
61:1).
The New Testament does not hesitate to present Jesus as
the Anointed One of God, in whom all ancient anointings
have found their fulfillment. The title of Messiah, or
Christ, which means in fact Anointed, is the clearest
proof of that.
The moment of historical event to which this fulfillment
refers is the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan. The effect
of this anointing is the Holy Spirit: "God anointed
Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power
(Acts 10:38); Jesus himself, immediately after his
baptism, would declare in the synagogue of Nazareth:
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has
anointed me" (Luke 4:18). Jesus was certainly full of
the Holy Spirit from the moment of the Incarnation, but
it was a personal grace, linked to the hypostatic union,
and because of this, incommunicable. Now, in the
anointing, he received that fullness of the Holy Spirit
that, as head, he will be able to transmit to his body.
The Church lives from this capital grace (gratia capitis).
The effects of the triple anointing
— royal, prophetic and priestly
— are grandiose and immediate in the ministry of
Jesus. In the strength of the royal anointing, he brings
down the kingdom of Satan and establishes the kingdom of
God: "But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out
demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you"
(Matthew 12:28); in the strength of the prophetic
anointing, he "proclaims the good news to the poor"; in
the strength of the priestly anointing, he offers
prayers and tears during his earthly life and in the end
offers himself on the cross.
After being present in the Old Testament as figure and
in the New Testament as event, the anointing is now
present in the Church as sacrament. The sacrament takes
from the figure the sign and from the event the meaning:
it takes from the anointings of the Old Testament the
element
— the oil, the chrism or perfumed unguent
— and from Christ the salvific efficacy. Christ
was never anointed with physical oil (apart from the
anointing of Bethany), and he never anointed anyone with
physical oil. In him the symbol was replaced by the
reality, by the "oil of gladness" that is the Holy
Spirit.
More than a unique sacrament, the anointing is present
in the Church as an ensemble of sacramental rites. As
separate sacraments, we have the chrismation (which
through all the transformations undergone, refers, as
the name attests, to the ancient rite of anointing with
chrism) and the anointing of the sick; as part of other
sacraments we have: the baptismal anointing and the
anointing in the sacrament of Holy Orders. In the chrism
anointing that follows baptism, explicit reference is
made to the triple anointing of Christ: "He himself
consecrates you with the chrism of salvation; inserted
in Christ priest, king and prophet, be always members of
his body for eternal life."
Of all these anointings, of interest to us at this
moment is that which accompanies the conferring of Holy
Orders. In the moment in which the bishop anoints the
palms of each of the ordained kneeling before him, he
pronounces these words: "May the Lord Jesus Christ, whom
the Father consecrated in the Holy Spirit and power,
keep you for the sanctification of his people and for
the offering of the sacrifice."
Yet more explicit is the reference to the anointing in
Christ in the episcopal consecration. Anointing with
perfumed oil the head of the new bishop, the ordaining
bishop says: "May God, who has made you share in the
high priesthood of Christ, shed upon you his mystical
anointing and with the abundance of his blessing give
fruitfulness to your ministry."
3. Spiritual Anointing
There is however a risk, which is common to all the
sacraments: that of staying with the ritual or canonical
aspect of ordination, with its validity and lawfulness,
and not giving enough importance to the "res sacramenti,"
to the spiritual effect, to the grace itself of the
sacrament, in this case the fruit of the anointing in
the life of the priest. The sacramental anointing,
enables us to carry out certain sacred actions, such as
govern, preach, instruct; we are given, so to speak, the
authorization to do certain things, not necessarily the
authority and a real power in doing it; it ensures the
apostolic succession, not necessarily apostolic success!
The sacramental anointing, with the indelible character
(the "seal"!) which it imprints in the priest, is a
resource for which we can reach every time we feel the
need, that we can, so to speak, activate in every moment
of our ministry. We know from our theology the idea of
the “reviviscence” of a sacrament. A sacrament, received
in the past, comes anew to life (reviviscit) and emit
its grace, in some cases because the obstacle of sin
(the obex) is removed, in other cases because the patina
of habit is taken away and faith is intensified. It
happens as with a bottle of perfume. We can keep it in
our pocket or clutch it in our hand as long as we want
but if we do not open it the perfume is not spread, it
is as if it was not.
When and how did this idea of an actual anointing
appear? An important stage is constituted, once again,
by Augustine. He interprets the text of the First Letter
of John: "The anointing which you received teaches you
everything" (cf. 1 John 2:27), in the sense of a
continuous anointing, thanks to which the Holy Spirit,
as an interior teacher, enables us to understand within
what we hear from without. From Augustine comes the
expression "spiritual anointing," spiritalis unctio,
contained in the hymn Veni creator.[4] As in many other
things, Saint Gregory the Great, contributed to
rendering popular, for the whole of the Middle Ages,
this Augustinian intuition.[5]
A new phase in the development of the subject of
anointing opens with Saint Bernard and Saint
Bonaventure. Affirmed with them is the new meaning,
spiritual and modern of anointing, not linked so much to
the topic of knowledge of the truth, but to that of the
experience of the divine reality. Beginning to comment
on the Canticle of Canticles, Saint Bernard says: "Only
anointing teaches such a canticle, only experience makes
it understood."[6] St. Bonaventure identifies anointing
with devotion, conceived by him as "a gentle feeling of
love towards God awakened by the memory of the benefits
of Christ."[7] It does not depend on nature, or on
science, or on words or books, but "on the gift of God
who is the Holy Spirit."[8]
Used ever more often in our days are the terms anointed
and anointing to describe the behavior of a person, the
quality of an address, of a homily, but with a
difference of accent. In traditional language, anointing
suggests, as we have seen, above all the idea of
gentleness and sweetness, so much so as to give place,
in the profane use, to the negative accession of speech
or a mellifluous and insinuating attitude, often
hypocritical, and to the adjective "unctuous," in the
sense of "person or attitude unpleasantly ceremonious
and servile."
In the modern use, closer to the biblical one, the
anointing suggests rather the idea of power and force of
persuasion. A speech full of unction is a speech in
which is perceived, so to speak, the throb of the
Spirit; a proclamation that reaches people's heart and
convinces one of sin. It is an exquisitely biblical
component of the term, present for example in the text
of Acts in which it is said that Jesus "was anointed
with the Holy Spirit and with power" (Acts 10:38).
The anointing, in this sense, seems more like an act
than a state. It is something that the person does not
possess permanently, but that comes on the person,
"invests" him at the moment, in the exercise of a
certain ministry or in prayer.
If the anointing is given by the presence of the Spirit
and is his gift, what can we do to have it? Above all
pray. It is an explicit promise of Jesus: "the heavenly
Father will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"
(Luke 11:13). Then we also should break the alabaster
jar as the sinful woman in Simon's house. The jar is our
I, at times our arid intellectualism. To break it means
to deny oneself, to give over to God, with an explicit
act, the reins of our life. God cannot give his Spirit
to one who does not give himself wholly to Him.
4. How to obtain the anointing of the Spirit
Let us apply to the life of the priest this very rich
biblical and theological content linked to the subject
of anointing. Saint Basil says that the Holy Spirit "was
always present in the life of the Lord, becoming his
anointing and inseparable companion," so much so that
"all of Christ's activity unfolded in the Spirit."[9] To
have the anointing therefore means to have the Holy
Spirit as "inseparable companion" in life, to do
everything "in the Spirit," in his presence, with his
guidance. This entails a certain passivity, a being
activated, moved or as Paul says, a letting oneself to
be "led by the Spirit" (cf. Galatians 5:18).
All this is translated, on the outside, now in softness,
calm, peace, sweetness, devotion, emotion, now in
authority, force, power, authoritativeness, according to
the circumstances, the character of each one and also
the office held. The living example is Jesus who, moved
by the Spirit, manifests himself gentle and humble of
heart, but also, according to the moment, full of divine
authority. It is a condition characterized by a certain
interior luminosity which gives facility and mastery in
doing things. Somewhat as "form" is for the athlete and
inspiration for the poet: a state in which one succeeds
in giving the best of oneself.
We priests should make it a habit to request the
anointing of the Spirit before setting about an
important action at the service of the kingdom: a
decision to be taken, an appointment to be made, a
document to write, a commission to preside over, a
homily to prepare. I came to it at my expense. At times,
I have found myself having to speak to a large
auditorium, in a foreign language, often just having
arrived from a long trip. Total darkness. The language
in which I had to speak it seemed to me I had never
known, I was unable to concentrate on a scheme, a topic.
And the initial hymn was about to end ... Then I
remembered the anointing and in haste I made a brief
prayer: "Father, in the name of Christ, I ask you for
the anointing of the Spirit!"
At times, the effect is immediate. One feels almost
physically the coming on oneself of the anointing. A
certain emotion goes through the body, clarity of mind,
serenity of soul, exhaustion, nervousness disappear, as
do every fear and every timidity; one experiences
something of the calm and the authority itself of God.
I think that many of my prayers, as those of every
Christian, remain unheard, except for this one for
anointing. It seems that before God we have a sort of
right to claim it. At times I even take advantage of
this possibility. For example, if I must speak of Jesus
Christ, I make a secret covenant with God the Father,
without letting Jesus know, and I say: "Father, I must
speak of your Son Jesus that you so love: give me the
anointing of your Spirit to reach the heart of the
people." If I must speak of God the Father, I do the
contrary: I make a secret agreement with Jesus ... The
doctrine of the Trinity is wonderful also for this.
5. Anointed to spread in the world the good odor of
Christ
In the same context of 2 Corinthians, the Apostle,
always referring to the apostolic ministry, develops the
metaphor of anointing with that of the perfume which is
its effect; he writes: "But thanks be to God, who in
Christ always leads us in triumph, and through us
spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him
everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God" (2
Corinthians 14:15).
This is what the priest should be: the good perfume of
Christ in the world! But the Apostle puts us on guard,
adding immediately after: "But we have this treasure in
earthen vessels" (2 Corinthians 4:7). In the end we know
too well, from the recent painful and humiliating
experience, what all this means. Jesus said to the
Apostles: "You are the salt of the earth; But if salt
loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned? t is no
longer good for anything but to be thrown out and
trampled underfoot" (Matthew 5:13). The truth of this
word of Christ is painfully before our eyes. Also the
anointing, if it loses its odor and is spoiled,
transforms itself into its contrary, into stench and,
instead of attracting to Christ, it alienates from him.
Also to respond to this situation the Holy Father has
proclaimed the present Year of Priests. He says so
openly in the letter written for the occasion: "There
are also, sad to say, situations which can never be
sufficiently deplored where the Church herself suffers
as a consequence of infidelity on the part of some of
her ministers. Then it is the world which finds grounds
for scandal and rejection."
The Pope's letter does not stop with this observation; it adds in fact: "What is most helpful to the Church in such cases is not only a frank and complete acknowledgment of the weaknesses of her ministers, but also a joyful and renewed realization of the greatness of God’s gift, embodied in the splendid example of generous pastors, religious afire with love for God and for souls, and insightful, patient spiritual guides."
The revelation of the weaknesses is also necessary,
to render justice to the victims, and the Church now
recognizes it and acts as best she can, but it must be
done in other moment; in every case, it is not from it
that the impulse will come for a renewal of the priestly
ministry. I have thought of this series of meditations
on the priesthood precisely as a small contribution in
the sense desired by the Holy Father. I would like to
make my Seraphic Father Saint Francis speak in my place.
At a time in which the moral situation of the clergy was
without a doubt sadder than today's, he wrote in his
Testament:
"The Lord gave me and gives me so much faith in priests
who live according to the way of the Holy Roman Church,
because of their ordination, that if they were to
persecute me I would take recourse to them. And if I had
so much wisdom, as Solomon had, and I found myself a
poor priest in this world, in the parishes where they
live, I would not wish to preach against their will. And
these and all the others I wish to fear, love and honor
as my lords. And I do this because, from the most High
Son of God I see nothing else physically in this world
other than his most holy Body and blood which they alone
consecrate and they alone administer to others."
In the text quoted in the beginning, Paul speaks of the
"glory" of the ministers of the New Covenant of the
Spirit, immensely higher than the ancient one. This
glory does not come from men and cannot be destroyed by
men. St. John-Mary Vianney certainly spread around him
the good odor of Christ and it was because of this that
the crowds ran to Ars; closer to us, Padre Pio of
Pietrelcina spread the perfume of Christ, at times even
a physical perfume, as was attested by innumerable
persons worthy of faith. So many priests, unknown by the
world, are in their environment the good odor of Christ
and of the Gospel. The "Country Priest" of Bernanos has
innumerable companions spread around the world, in the
city no less than in the country.
Father Lacordaire sketched a profile of the Catholic
priest, which today might seem a bit too optimistic and
idealized, but to rediscover the ideal and the
enthusiasm for the priestly ministry is precisely the
thing that is most needed at this moment. Let us listen
therefore to him again at the conclusion of the present
meditation:
"To live in the midst of the world without any desire
for its pleasures; to be a member of every family,
without belonging to any of them; to share every
suffering, to be made a part of every secret, heal every
wound; to go every day from men to God to offer Him
their devotion and their prayers, and to turn from God
to men to take to them his forgiveness and his hope; to
have a heart of steel for chastity and a heart of flesh
for charity; to teach and forgive, console and bless and
to be blessed forever. O God, what kind of life is ever
like this? It is your life, o priest of Jesus
Christ!"[10]
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Notes
[1] Saint Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. III, 24, 1.
[2] Saint Athanasius, Letter to Serapion, III, 3 )PG 26,
628 f.).
[3] PO, 1, 2.
[4] Saint Augustine, On the First Letter of John, 3, 5
(PL 35, 2000); cf. 3, 12 (PL 35, 2004).
[5] Cf. Saint Augustine, On the First Letter of John, 3,
13 (PL 35, 2004 f.); cf. Saint Gregory the Great,
Homilies on the Gospel, 30, 3 (PL 76, 1222).
[6] Saint Bernard, On the Canticle, I, 6, 11 (Cistercian
publications, I, Rome, 1957, p. 7).
[7] Saint Bonaventure, IV, d. 23, a. 1, q. 1 (ed.
Quaracchi, IV, p. 589); Sermon III on Saint Mary
Magdalen (ed. Quaracchi, IX, p. 561).
[8] Ibidem, VII, 5.
[9] Saint Basil, On the Holy Spirit, XVI, 39 (PG 32,
140C).
[10] H. Lacordaire, quoted by D. Rice, Shattered Vows,
The Blackstaff Press, Belfast, 1990, p. 137.