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The Priest and the Eucharist

  • POPE BENEDICT XVI

What is priestly ordination, really, and what is the priesthood into which it initiates? 


jesus990The Church's liturgy gives  the answer in prayer and significant gesture; it outlines it in advance in the four questions that inquire into the readiness of the candidates and thus pace off the interior space of the demands and the gift of the priesthood.

The last question actually summarizes in itself the essence of all the others, and we should look at it a little so as to understand in greater depth the meaning of this moment.  It reads: "Are you resolved to consecrate your life to God for the salvation of his people, and to unite yourself more closely every day to Christ theHigh Priest, who offered himself for us to the Father as a perfect sacrifice?" Although it is not said explicitly, the Eucharistic commission is behind this as the center of priestly existence.  The priest exists in order to confect the Eucharist, to celebrate God's banquet among men, to be, as it were, the official who invites people to God's wedding to give him joy in this world.  But the way in which the question is formulated in German is important.  It does not say, "Are you ready to do or make this and that?" Rather, it says: "Are you ready to become an offering with Christ?" What is demanded here is not doing but being.  And only in these depth sin which a man allows himself to be touched and is personally ready to come into play can he correspond with the Lord's gift.  Eucharist is more than a party, the priest's coffee klatch, a convivial gathering.  It is the festive gift of God, in which he himself comes to us and, beyond all that we can do or make, touches the true depths of our life. 

It is not something that we ourselves — for instance, the pastor or the bishop — think up and do, but rather in it the Lord gives us more than any of us could give.  In it happens something that none of us can invent or make.In it a gift is entrusted to the priest that is and remains a gift for him, too, in his faithful care.  This, I think, should

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Acknowledgement

Pope Benedict XVI. "The Priest and the Eucharist." from Called to Communion: Understanding the Church Today. (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1996).

Reprinted with permission of Ignatius Press.

The Author

Benedict73smBenedict72Pope Benedict XVI is the author of Jesus of Nazareth, Vol II, Jesus of Nazareth, Vol I, Caritas in Veritate: Charity in Truth, Saved in Hope: Spe Salvi, God Is Love: Deus Caritas Est,The End of Time?: The Provocation of Talking about God, Truth and Tolerance: Christian Belief and World Religions, Without Roots: The West, Relativism, Christianity, Islam, Salt of the Earth: An Exclusive Interview on the State of the Church at the End of the Millennium, God and the World: Believing and Living in Our Time, In the Beginning: A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall, The Spirit of the Liturgy, The Ratzinger Report: An Exclusive Interview on the State of the Church, Introduction to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Introduction to Christianity, Called to Communion: Understanding the Church Today, Milestones: Memoirs 1927-1977, Behold the Pierced One, and God Is Near Us: The Eucharist, the Heart of Life.

Copyright © 1996 Ignatius Press