Nov 18: All are Called to be Priests

Albrecht Durer: The Lamb Who Has Been Slain

Thursday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time
Reading I: Rev 5:1-10

“ ‘You have made them to be a kingdom and priests serving our God, and they will reign on earth (NRSV, Rev 5:10).’ ”

Father Almighty, as great as you are in your infinite and awesome majesty, humankind has always been aware that you are approachable. However, we do not always realize with clarity the one word that you have reveal to each of us from our first moment: that you are so very close to us, that you challenge each and everyone of us at the depth of our being with the offer of divine life. Nevertheless, even though we have often not recognized fully your immediate presence, we have always chosen some among us to represent us to you, to go apart to bring you our gifts in supplication and to return with your favor. These persons we call priest and pontiff (pontifex: bridge-builder).

To one among us, our Lord Jesus Christ, we have given the title high priest in a special sense. We give him this name not because we recognize him as one who, in a super-eminent way, goes apart from the people to represent us to you but because in him we have finally become aware that all of us have direct and immediate access to you, that it is not necessary for some of us to go apart to plead our cause. In Christ we have learned that no pleading is necessary because you, Lord God, initiator of all things, are the first to speak, the first to act, and you offer yourself to us, your forgiveness and your very life. It is for us merely to accept and share it with one another in acts of love and kindness.

Yes, Jesus Christ is the high priest, but in new and different ways: In one sense because Christ has abolished the priesthood in making clear that the priest as bridge-builder is unnecessary; in another sense that we come to understand that with him we are all priests, called to stand in the divine presence not merely on this occasion or that but to live in it forever.

The priest is mediator. We pray sincerely, dear Lord, that we, by accepting the gift of your life into our own, may also mediate it, share it, with one another through deeds of love.

We pray also for bishops, presbyters and deacons among us that they may be faithful to the laying on of hands and that in leading us in divine worship may help us realize more fully that with Christ we are all a royal priesthood.

Alleluia. Amen.