Holy Orders

Note: This is only a sketchy outline needing to be fleshed out. I certainly do not represent this as anything at all complete. It is simply an aid to be used in exploring more deeply the subjects and ideas put forth. Hopefully it will provide the user with a contextual framework from in which to develop further the ideas I have set forth here for discussion.

• 1. priesthood of a priest is, therefore, a derivative one; he derives it from the bishop who ordained him. All of this powers are delegated powers in terms of their licit use. (Likewise, this is necessarily true for the validity of their use!)
     
     
  
  
• THE LETTER TO THE HEBREWS:
  
  This is a complete tract on the Priesthood of Jesus Christ.
  
  It distinguishes between a priesthood based on the Law of Moses and the Priesthood of Jesus Christ which is based on the Anointing of the Holy Spirit.
  
  Theological Note: A man is called by God to accept and enter the priesthood, he never takes it upon himself. The decision to become a priest is a joint decision, God's and the individual's. The ordination by a bishop is an act of the Faith Community, hence it is likewise an act of Jesus Christ present and acting upon us in His Body, the Church.
  
  Jesus said: "I have a baptism to be baptized with, and I long for it to be completed." Christ enters into the Genesis waters of chaos and is submerged into the destructive waters upon which Noah's ark floated (the ark later becomes a symbol of the Church). Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, and Pentecost Sunday are the culminating acts of Christ the Priest, Christ the Prophet, and Christ the King (the Old Testament marks of the Messiah).
  
  
• THE ORDER OF MELCHIZEDEK: (See Genesis 14:18; Psalm 110:4; Hebrews 5,6 & 7)
  
  The Prophet Melchizedek is totally unique in the Old Testament. He is the only one to use bread and wine as the elements of sacrifice. His parentage and origins are mysterious (just as Christ's).
  
  Melchizedek is King of Salem. Salem=Shalom, or "Peace". Perhaps he was king of Jerusalem.
  
  A king had a divine mission, an ordination. He was to bring peace to the kingdom through unity (the task of a priest).
  
  
• THE WINEPRESS:
  
  This Old Testament image/theme, always associated with the coming of the Messiah, is carried over into Christ. His life, because of the weight of sin, is crushed out and becomes the wine in the Cup of Salvation. Thus Jesus says: "This is the chalice of My Blood, which is shed for you and for all for the remission of sin."
  
  
• PRIESTHOOD AND THE MINISTRY OF RECONCILIATION:
  
  
  
  
  1. God's People, once scattered, are taken from many occupations, many concerns and interests, many parts of the world and races and nations and ages and cultures. Through the Priesthood of Jesus Christ they are formed into one, unified Ecclesia - a royal nation, a holy priesthood, a people set up on a mountaintop. They are, in their unity and their communion, a Sacrament of the One Sacrament, namely Christ Jesus ministering God's love, compassion, forgiveness, truth, goodness, beauty and grace to us. Indeed it is Christ ministering God's very own inner life to us, God's Spirit to us.
     
     
  2. The Church exists as a "little mustard seed", the "little bit of leaven" in the greater surrounding world. The Church is a sign of hope because the Spirit cries out from within her "Abba", "Papa", "Father", and thus forms the called and assembled into the Body of Christ, the continuation of the Incarnation of God on earth.
     
     
  3. Jesus, acting and working through the Church, offers:
     
     
     
     

     Light in Darkness	Truth in Confusion	Hope in Despair
     Peace in Violence	Love in Hatred	Faith in Indifference
     Sanctuary in Despair	Power in Weakness	Forgiveness in Denial

     
     Read: Documents of Vatican II, Lumen Gentium
     
     
  4. The Mystical Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27), the Church, is the Priesthood of Christ made actual for us in our world, in our history, in our time and place.
     
     By Baptism and Confirmation we are ordained into Christ's Priesthood; the community's varied ministries makes us Christ's total ministry. (See Paul's Epistles to the Corinthians).
     
     In Baptism we say "yes" to God in Christ and are baptized into His death (consequently priests wears black) and into His Priesthood (consequently priests wear celebratory vestments). See 1 Peter 2:1-10.
     
     
  
  
• SOME HISTORICAL NOTES:
  
  
  
  1. Because of the history of social structures and institutions in Western Europe those in Holy Orders have been in the past "over delegated" with all of the ministries in the Church. That is to say, only the ordained clergy were allowed active roles in ministry and the laity were kept in a state of passive dependency. Obviously this is changing in our day! Lay men and lay women are taking on more and more ministerial roles in the Church. And this is so not out of practical necessity, but because of the work of the Spirit in renewing the Church.
     
     
  2. In the Church of the Apostles until the Dark Ages the local assembly exercised the charism of discernment and chose men to be priests and bishops. These local faith communities then presented the chosen to the bishops for ordination. (Note St. Ambrose of Milan).
     
     The concern of the Early Church was to call men who had a discerned ability of leadership in the local community, a leadership in worship, prayer, and faith, "viri probati" (proven men) who led lives in the pattern of Christ, and who because they were filled with the Holy Spirit had the power to bring men and women into contact with the Risen Christ. This is what was really meant by "the power to consecrate unto the Lord".
     
     Theological Note: No one takes the Priesthood on himself, by himself. One is called by God. But "where" is God to be found? In the place where He said He would be, where two or three are gathered in His name, in the Church. Hence, the Holy Spirit speaking through the people who constitute the Ecclesia, the Assembled, discerned who is called and calls upon the Successors of the Apostles, namely the Bishops, to ordain the chosen to be priests, presiders over the local assemblies (parishes).
     
     Thus in the Mass of Ordination, a representative of the community stands and faces the bishop and says: "Holy Mother Church requests you, Bishop, to ordain ___(name)___ to the Order of (Deacon), (Priest), (Bishop)."
     
     
  3. In the Dark Ages the laity were passive. As a result of the Dark Ages, following the Barbarian Invasion of Rome, bishops became secular and political functionaries as well as exercising their religious roles. Civil Law gave the clergy special privileges such that thy because a separate class in the Medieval social order. The notions of St. Paul and the Early Church about shared ministry and the variety of ministries became totally lost... until our day, and the Second Vatican Council.
     
     Theological Note: Those "in Orders" are initiated into the College of Apostles and their successors in order to discharge the mission given to the Apostles by Christ. Ordination is an orientation, a directedness, a way of life given to the discipline of discipleship. Because Christ commanded and empowered the Apostles to teach, govern and sanctify all nations, those who are Christ's disciples go and do likewise.
     
     
     
     
     1. Thus they stand at the altar to bring human life to the Father and bring the Father's life to humanity.
        
        
     2. At the Offertory of the Mass the priest takes the offerings of the people and raises them as gifts to the Father in order that they might be, in the Spirit of Christ, sacralized, consecrated, made "whole" with the givers and with God. Hence they are made whole and are "wholly unto God". What is US, then, is set aside and dedicated unto God and make into His possession. We choose, freely choose, to acknowledge His dominion, His Lordship, over what and who we are.
        
        
     3. The most vital function of a priest is to transform the offerings of the Assembled, of God's People; to transform the people themselves; to (in Christ) call down the Spirit who can change what is secular into what is sacred.
        
        
     4. A priest gives Life in Baptism, restores Life in Reconciliation, sustains Life in Holy Communion; he teaches, governs, and sanctifies. This is why the pious custom has developed in which we call the priest "Father".