Homily of Manila Archbishop Gaudencio B. Rosales during the Mass of the Chrism on Holy Thursday
at the Manila Cathedral

CELEBRATION OF THE PRIESTHOOD

Every year the Priesthood is celebrated in the Church on Holy Thursday the day the Eucharist was established. The Priest and the Eucharist are not just closely linked even as the consecratory words say “do this in memory of me”; but the very identity of the Priest is Eucharist. In the daily life of the Christian it is unthinkable to separate the Priest from the Eucharist at its offering and celebration. People in every parish know that it is not possible to celebrate Mass without the duly ordained Priest. You simply have to look for a catholic priest in order to celebrate and offer the Eucharist.

But in the Mass the Word is preached, the bread and wine are offered, they are consecrated and later broken to be shared. Jesus offers, and only He offers Himself in every Eucharist, because He alone is priest and victim. However, in every Eucharist the Lord Jesus is represented by the priest who, by the power of the Holy Spirit, is so configured with Jesus and is able to act in His person. Every act of the priest in the Eucharist is for Jesus and in His name.

Things happen very fast in the Eucharist, so quickly that without reflection the great wealth of its mystery can easily escape from the congregation and, alas, even from the celebrating priest himself. The priest is more than just an image or icon of Jesus, because as celebrant he slowly becomes part of what he does in the Eucharist. We can say that in every Mass the priest-celebrant daily grows in Christ. He is less before, and more Christ-like in the next Eucharist.

The celebrant preaches the Word of God, but as he reads, reflects and prays over the Word preached, the Word begins to resound not only in the Churches or chapels, not through the public address system to the listening congregation but also in the very life of the faithful preacher, in the priest himself. When the priest becomes intimately familiar with the Word of he preaches and prays over it that he may reverently share it with others, he makes it easier for the people to accept the word and allows conversion easy and acceptable.

He offers the bread and wine and later consecrates them to the Father for all, but in the holiness Jesus takes the celebrating priest with Him, offer the priest and the people to the Father. Only in the Eucharist does it happen that the offerer becomes the offered and the priest, a victim. No wonder that the priest faces daily some trials, repeated disappointments and even faces enemies who nearly curse him, and even seek his failure and sometimes also his destruction.

No matter what giftedness there is in the Christian, there are still rare moment when the believer must suffer, be misunderstood, allowed to fall and to fail. It is fatal for the priest to be allowed always to succeed. One spiritual writer said “Unhappy the rich man for whom everything is successful. God has abandoned him to prosperity. Happy the man whom God visits in events. As long as it is necessary, God invites us to go beyond self and come to our senses.” (Jean Laplace, SJ, PRAYER, P.20)

In the sacerdotal Eucharistic spirituality the priest “must know brokenness” in order that like bread he could be shared with others. This is the meaning of the Paschal Mystery sitting at the very heart of priestly spirituality. The priests are not just “treasure in the earthen vessels” showing that the immensity of the power is God’s and not their own. (II Cor. 4:7). The priests are not just delicate earthenware, fragile and weak; they are about ready to break and many times broken but, through the Paschal Mystery that is ours in Jesus Christ, (they) are able to cross over from death to life, from mediocrity to heroic love and can pass over from indifference to holiness.

Where will the Eucharist end? Or perhaps we may rephrase it and ask, “Where will the Eucharist bring us, priests and people of God?”

The synoptic writers all said that in the institution of the Eucharist Jesus said that “I shall not drink of wine any more until the day I drink the new wine in the Kingdom of my Father.” The Kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of His Father, that reign phrased differently referred to one and only true reign of God, mentioned and taught as the only absolute in the teaching of Jesus. It is in heaven where the true and perfect thanksgiving and Eucharist will be.

What could be the new wine that the Lord Jesus said He would not taste again until he the new wine is had in the Kingdom? Will there be a banquet in heaven, will there be meals and drink in Heaven? If ever there will sharing with angels, the spirits and the saved in heaven it will be the praise and worship of the Triune God who showed us His face, in Jesus on earth. Will there be drinks we share with God? It will certainly be the love that is God and God who is love that we will drink in the eternity that is without limit and without end.

But where would the priest be, where would they pass, what shall they indicate and show, when all the time on earth they repeat what Jesus said in answer to questions how to reach the Kingdom “I am the way, the truth and the life.” Jesus is the way, but the way He showed us is the way of the poor and the needy.

The Eucharist is for the poor and humble. It is not only because Jesus was poor, simple and humble that we attend to and seek the poor to serve and help them. The key to the Eucharistic banquet of the Kingdom in heaven is the poor. “I was hungry, thirsty, homeless, naked, a stranger and a prisoner and you did feed, gave me to drink and took me in…Amen, for as long as you did this to the least of your brethren you did it for me…come enter the Kingdom prepared for you…join the eternal banquet.”

The way to the Kingdom is by conversion to the poor. The Eucharist we priests celebrate daily reminds us of this commitment. Our commitment tot the Eucharist is by way of the poor.

We ask ourselves to the daily turn to the poor that they may lead us to Jesus and the gates of the Kingdom.

Our people and our parishioners, please pray for us, your priests that we may daily grow in Eucharist and becoming holy through the Eucharist we may take you daily with us in our Eucharistic celebration.

+GBRosales
Chrism Mass
Holy Thursday
Manila Cathedral
20 MARCH 2008