The Eternal Priesthood/Chapter 3

by Henry Edward Manning

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CHAPTER III.

 

THE THREE RELATIONS OF THE PRIESTHOOD.

 

A priest stands in three relations, of which each one binds him to interior spiritual perfection.

1. The first binds him to the great High Priest, of whose priesthood he is partaker. He is our fountain of sanctity; but He is also our law of obligation. To those who drew near to Him in the priesthood of the Old Law God said, Sancti estote, quia ego sanctus sum.^[1] The uncreated sanctity of God demands sanctity in all who approach Him. At the burning bush in Horeb God commanded Moses to put off the shoes from his feet; for the ground he stood on was holy.^[2] An unholy man, if he seeks the priesthood, is seeking eternal death; for "who can dwell with everlasting burnings?"^[3] The holiness, the purity, the jealousy, the justice of God, are as the flames of a furnace, in which the pure are still more purified; but the impure are consumed. For God is a consuming fire.^[4] Only those who are configured to the High Priest of their salvation, and by a true will desire to be perfectly sanctified in body, soul, and spirit, can stand before Him. On them His sanctity has a power of assimilation, which perfects the work which He began in them when He first called them. Isaias, when he saw the Lord of Hosts in His glory, was conscious only of his own impurity before Him. But one of the seraphim flew with a live coal from the altar and touched his lips; and his sin was cleansed.^[5] The nearer the pure approach to God, the more they are purified. Of the accessions of sanctity in the soul of our spotless Mother through her earthly life by union with her Divine Son, both before and after His ascension, we will not speak; for she was singular in all things, being without sin and sanctified above the seraphim. But we may meditate on the sanctity of S. John and of S. Peter, after their call to follow our Divine Redeemer. The conscious unfitness of S. Peter made him cry out, "Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord."^[6] The miracle of the fishes opened his eyes to the power of Jesus; but it was His sanctity that made him fear to be in His presence. The three years in which the Apostles followed our Lord were their preparation for the priesthood. They had many imperfections, which, as time wore on, were consumed in the sanctity of their Master's presence. They breathed an atmosphere of purity and of perfection. Slow of heart to believe, tardy to understand, hasty in speech, earthly in thought, seeking to be first, and contending with each other which should be the greatest: nevertheless the majesty of their Lord subdued them, and His love reigned over them; and day by day their old minds died in them, and the mind of Jesus Christ grew in them, until it governed them altogether. The work of their purification was always advancing; for the Divine Presence was the refining fire purifying the sons of Levi, and refining them as gold and as silver, that they might offer sacrifices to the Lord in justice.^[7] But one of them was a devil—not from childhood, it may be, but from the time when an impure soul came into daily contact with divine purity. It grew daily and gradually, and perhaps insensibly, in impurity, by its conscious variance with the sanctity of Jesus. Judas was ordained in mortal sin; and, after his first Communion, Satan entered into him. For three years he had breathed an atmosphere of sanctity without being sanctified. What should have been for his salvation became an occasion of falling; and the life of the world was turned by him into death.

The relation in which a priest stands to his Divine Master is, in everything except sensible presence, the same as theirs. It is as personal, real, and continuous. We have a Master in heaven.^[8] And our loyalty to Him rests on consciousness, not on sight, as in this world our allegiance is paid to a sovereign whom perhaps we have never seen. S. Peter says of this, "Whom having not seen you love: in whom also now, though you see Him not, you believe; and, believing, shall rejoice with joy unspeakable and glorified;"^[9] that is, full of the earnest and the foretaste of eternal bliss. It is no mere imagination in our work, early and late, to believe that He is near us, in the ship or on the shore; nor, when we are in the hospital or in the poor man's home, or by the bed of the dying, or walking through the fields, or in the crowded streets, or in the mountains seeking His scattered sheep, that He is with us at every step and in every moment. It is no illusion to believe that the words He spoke are spoken still to us, or that every word we speak is spoken in His hearing. When He was on earth, and His disciples round Him, their eyes were not always fixed upon Him, still less were their words and thoughts always directed to Him. They saw all that was around them in the streets, or the fields, or upon the sea, and their thoughts multiplied and, as we say, wandered, and they spoke with one another with the freedom of daily fellowship; hut they were always conscious that He was in the midst of them, and that He not only heard their words, hut read their thoughts, and answered them before they spoke. In what, except in sense, does our relation differ from theirs? And are not Nazareth and Bethlehem and Jerusalem and Capharnaum and Bethania as real to us as if we had seen them? To those who have faith and knowledge of the Word of God all these things are as real as the daily world around them; and this conscious relation is a wakeful motive and a perpetual discipline in the life of a faithful priest.

2. The second relation is still to our Divine Master, but under a special condition. Jesus is always present in the midst of His pastors unto the consummation of the world—that is, until He shall have gathered out His elect and fulfilled His eternal predestination, and shall wind up the time of grace and the probation of man. As Head of the Church He is in every living member of His mystical Body. But as Head of the Church He is in the glory of the Father, and from the right hand of the Father He never departs till He shall come again to judge the living and the dead. Our relation to Him in heaven is nevertheless a divine and real dependence. But this is common to all alike. The priesthood has another relation, as we have seen, in the custody of His sacramental Presence. Mundamini qui fertis vasa Domini. If they who bore the vessels of the Lord were bound to purity, what is the obligation of the priest, who bears the Lord Himself? A trust is a sign of confidence; to be trusted by God, who knows our hearts, is a pledge of an especial confidence; to be intrusted with the presence of the Incarnate Word is the highest pledge of the most absolute confidence. What a vocation is the call to be a priest. What an integrity and sincerity of heart does it demand. Happy for us if we could think that our Master saw in us what He saw in Nathaniel—a heart in which there is no guile. When He was on earth He did not trust Himself to men, because He knew what was in men.^[10] Can it be that He knew what was in us when He committed Himself to us in His sacramental Presence? A token of confidence, even in earthly things, will win the whole heart of a servant to his master. What ought to be the fidelity, loyalty, joy, devotion of our hearts for the custody of His Presence, His Person, and His dignity before men? The Blessed Sacrament consecrates the tabernacle, the altar, the sanctuary, the home of the priest. The bush in Horeb burned; but the priest and all about him are enveloped in the radiance and in the influence of the Blessed Sacrament intrusted to his charge. How can he lose the consciousness of this relation even for a moment? He may not be always in actual advertence to it. Even the disciples, when they picked the ears of wheat, or wondered at the stones of the Temple, or at the withering of the fig-tree, had other thoughts; but they were still conscious of one chief dominant thought which governed all, and continually recalled them to His presence. So it may be—so it ought to be—with us. A priest ought to be in no place where His Master would not go, nor employed in anything which His Master would not do. In the morning the priest spoke the words of almighty power, and for awhile he was in contact with the Incarnate Word. Such a consciousness—for it must not be called a memory as of a thing that is past, but a sustained sense as of a thing that cannot pass away—ought to control his whole life through the whole day. The thought that at night he will return, before he lies down to rest, to the Presence of His Master to give account of the hours and actions of the day ought to be a rule and a restraint upon the senses, the heart, and the lips. The love of a human friend, even in his absence, will govern and guide us: how much more the Presence of a Divine Friend ought to control and elevate our life! S. Gregory says, "O, wonderful condescension of the Divine Goodness! We are not worthy to be servants, and we are called friends. What a dignity for men to be friends of God."^[11]

3. There is still a third relation which is of divine ordinance, and, when once constituted, will be found again in eternity: that is to say, the relation between a priest and the souls committed to his charge. This relation may be created in two ways: either by the assignment of a flock by which a priest becomes also a pastor, or by the voluntary choice of those who subject themselves to the guidance of any confessor. In either case, a true relation of eternal consequence at once arises. In speaking of the pastoral relation, the other will, in its proportion, be included, and need not be further treated. That any man should be charged with the salvation of another is a relation of the divine order. By the law of nature, fathers have such a charge of their children while under age and unable to care for themselves. In a few years the father's authority is outgrown, and comes to an end. It is also at all times limited, for over the conscience of children parents have no authority. But in the supernatural order it is the will of God that the fraternal hatred of Cain should be replaced by the fraternal love of pastors. "Am I my brother's keeper?"^[12] is the voice of the world. "I am the Good Shepherd"^[13] is the voice of our Master laying down for His pastors the law of their life. Under the Old Law, God commanded that a watchman should be set over the people in time of war. If the watchman, seeing the sword coming, gave warning by the trumpet, then, if any man did not look to himself and so should perish his blood was upon his own head, and the watchman was free. But if the watchman should see the sword coming and should give no warning, then the divine sentence was, "I will require his blood at the hands of the watchman."^[14] No man could be made answerable for another's life except by the Lord and Giver of life. An office is laid upon the watchman, and a necessity to discharge it, or to answer with his own life for his neglect. He is not answerable for the results of his warning, but only for his own fidelity. Such also is the pastor's charge. The Lord of the flock puts it into his trust, and he must answer for it with his life. S. Gregory says that a pastor has as many souls of his own as he has sheep in his flock. Who could so charge him but God only, who alone can say, "All souls are mine"?^[15] There is, then, a mutual relation of authority and of submission, by divine institution. But what man has authority over another by the law of nature, or unless by direct commission by the supernatural law of grace? Where no authority is, there can be no duty to submit. "Every man shall bear his own burden;"^[16] but the burdens of many are laid, by divine command, upon the shepherd of souls. He also is not answerable for the effects of his care, but only for its faithful discharge. When he has given his heart and strength and time, his life, and, if so be, his death, to serve and to save his flock, he may rest in hope. The blood of those that perish will not be required of him. But what zeal, abnegation of self, what generosity and patience, what humility and charity, are needful to bear with the wickedness of the sinful, and the waywardness of the good. The shepherd must go in all things before the flock, or they cannot follow him. He must first have acquired what he is to teach them, and he will teach them less by what he says than by what he is. It is the living word that converts, sustains, and sanctifies the hearts of men. Summa dicere et ima facere is a provocation of God and man. The parable of the beam and the mote should be inscribed on the wall in every seminary, and in the conscience of every priest. S. Paul's words are terrible to the priest who is a priest by ordination, but not by sanctity, "Thou makest thy boast of God, and knowest His will, and approvest the more profitable things, being instructed by the law: art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light to them that are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of infants, having the form of knowledge and of truth in the law. Thou, therefore, that teachest another, teachest not thyself: thou that preachest that man should not steal and (thou) stealest: thou, that sayest man should not commit adultery, (thou) committest adultery."^[17] Physician, heal thyself. How, as S. Gregory says, can a priest heal others, "with an ulcer in his own face"?^[18] A priest will be aut forma gregis aut fabula: either the pattern or the by-word. Ira est non gratia cum quis ponitur supra ventum nullas habens radices in soliditate virtutum.^[19] What measure of spiritual perfection, what measure of sanctity, is proportioned to such an office, to such a charge, to such a responsibility? "Therefore the sanctity of the priest ought to be a sanctity not common to all, but singular in degree: a sanctity which seeks only the things of Christ: a sanctity which has its conversation in heaven: a sanctity which offers itself as an oblation and sacrifice to God in the odour of sweetness: a sanctity by which the priest becomes a fountain of light, of benediction, of merit, and of eternal life to souls: a sanctity which is an example to the faithful in word, in conversation, in charity, in faith, in chastity."^[20]

These three relations of the priest are motives to aspire towards the highest conformity to our Divine Master, and to the closest union with Him. And these motives are not only prompted by generosity, gratitude, and love—that is, by the law of liberty—but they contain in themselves, and they impose upon the priest, duties of obligation to which we will now go on.

 

1. Levit. xi. 44, 46.
2. Exod. iii. 5.
3. Isaias xxxiii. 14.
4. Heb. xii. 29.
5. Isaias vi. 6, 7.
6. S. Luke v. 8.
7. Malachias iii. 3.
8. Ephes. vi. 9.
9. 1 S. Pet. i. 8.
10. S. John ii. 24, 25.
11. In S. Joan. xv. 14, 15, tom. i. p. 1445.
12. Gen. iv. 9.
13. S. John x. 14.
14. Ezech. xxxiii. 2-6.
15. Ezech. xviii 4.
16. Gal. vi. 5.
17. Rom. ii. 17-22.
18. Reg. Past. P. i. c. ix.
19. Petri Bles. Canon Episcopalis, Opp. p. 450, 2.
20. Parvum Speculum Sacerdotis, cap. vii. p. 250.