Archbishop Allen VigneronThe right place to begin is to offer a word of congratulations—first, to the ordinandi, soon to be ordinati; very grateful God has given you to the service of the Church of the Archdiocese of Detroit.
Then, I extend my congratulations to your families, who are here today and have supported you; that extends, then, to all who have accompanied you to this hour – people in your home parishes, the priests there, people along the way in formation, to those who are the very latest friends you have made: I’m sure, even people from the very parishes to which I am missioning you.
Congratulations to all of us – so much to be grateful for.
I particularly want to acknowledge the faculties at Sacred Heart Major Seminary and Pope John XXIII Seminary – Fr. (William) Palardy (the seminary’s rector) is here from Boston for that. He had the opportunity to see his team beaten last night at Comerica (Park). I’m sure his joy is in no way impeded by that.
I want to thank Fr. Tim Birney, who works so very hard to help all of us to be recruiters and to give pastoral care to our seminarians.
The Church comes to this hour with the conviction that it is Jesus Christ who makes a man a priest. What we understand a priest to be cannot be a reality produced by any one of us or by all of us together, no matter how powerfully we might combine for such a thing. We, of course, are not mere spectators at what Jesus is about to do. We are His members; we are His Body. And so, as members, we not only join, but – more deeply – participate in Christ’s action. We are here to acclaim – we might say, to accompany – what Christ is doing: to praise Him for the priesthood and the gift of these priests.
And so, in the Pontifical – the ritual book for this ceremony – the bishop is instructed to ask the People of God to consider the nature of the rank in the Church to which these men are about to be raised.
The Scripture, of course, speaks about this: It’s God’s word about the nature of the priesthood. The first reading reminds us it is the work of the Holy Spirit – the imposition of hands is the same gesture by which the Holy Spirit is called down on the bread and wine to transform those; so, likewise, to transform these deacons.
St. Paul speaks of this imposition of hands, and the grace that comes from it.
And in the Gospel, we heard our Lord say that this grace of holy orders is a grace of friendship, a grace of being associated with Him.
The lens through which I would like to make my reflection today is a little more simple. It’s the acclamation we sang from Psalm 110, verse 4 – ‘You are a priest forever, in line of Melchizedek’ – an acclamation that, in the liturgy, principally applies to Jesus Christ. The Letter to the Hebrews makes that clear.
But the Church understands it also to apply to those of us who share in the priestly office as bishops and priests.
What we say about Jesus will be something we say about these men after the imposition of hands and the consecratory prayer. The Letter to the Hebrews, which is a great, long meditation on Psalm 110, verse 4, is a profound recognition, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, that Jesus – Who is the Messiah that fulfills the prophecy that David made in Psalm 110, the Lord to whom God the Lord said, ‘Sit on my right. I will put your enemies beneath your feet’ – that the Messiah, besides the King in the line of David, He is a priest. His glorification, in His rising and being seated at the Father’s right hand, is the entrance of the High Priest of the New Covenant into the Sanctuary not made by human hands, to stand before the Father now for all eternity, to be our Mediator, our Priest.
And so, the task of Jesus, we learn from the Letter to the Hebrews – His Passover, and his rising and glorification – this is His consecration, this is His ordination. And in doing that, God has redefined every kind of consecration in the Church.
When children and adults are baptized, they are consecrated to God our Father in the only way it is possible in the New Covenant to be consecrated, by being united to Jesus in his death and rising. And when the baptized are confirmed, they receive a new consecration – we say a character – because they are united to Christ in His mission, through His death and rising, to spread the Kingdom throughout the world.
And you, deacons, you are being consecrated through the descent of the Holy Spirit – Who, wherever He goes, makes present, shapes, forms the task of Jesus – you are being consecrated in the death and rising of Christ the High Priest so that, in His Person, you can be sacraments of His leadership of the Church, His pastoring of the Church, His being the Bridegroom of the Church.
And so, later, the choir will sing this same acclamation: ‘You are a priest forever in the line of Melchizedek.’ That is true, because you will have offered not only all that you have, but all that you are – all that you are – to this great ministry of serving God’s people for the sake of diffusing, spreading, advancing the Paschal Mystery in the lives of the members of the Church and those whom Christ invites to join Him in the Church.
This is God’s plan, because everything that is not brought into the Household of Faith and marked with the Blood of the Paschal Lamb, Jesus Christ, is lost. And only what is held by Jesus Christ, and carried with Him in His Passover from the Upper Room to Calvary, from Calvary out of the tomb, and out of the tomb up to the Father – only that will endure forever.
And so, the instruction in the Pontifical speaks of the threefold ministry that is given to these men by the imposition hands and the consecratory prayer, by the descent of the Holy Spirit: to be teachers; the ministry of sanctification of the sacraments, and especially, the Most Blessed Sacrament; and the ministry of being guides to all those entrusted to their care. All of that is because you will be a priest forever, like Jesus, in the line of Melchizedek. Priests, after the example of the Messiah – long ago predicted, and in the fullness of time, the Son of God come in the flesh.
All of this is so that the People of God will be no poorer than the first circle of disciples. After all, are we not as precious to Jesus as Martha and Mary, Mary Magdalene, the woman at the well whom He cared for, the woman caught in adultery? Don’t we need that kind of love and care as much as they?
And so there is the priesthood, so that whatever they had, we have. And this is the meaning of you being priests forever in the line of Melchizedek. This is why we can sing these acclamations, and our hearts are filled with prayer and gratitude for the priesthood and for these priests to be.
And for us brothers who are priests, this is an opportunity for us to be renewed in the grace of our priestly ordination. We can, of course, be caught up in so many duties – some of them are duties I’ve put on you, I know that – but these are not distractions, I hope. We see in them meaning, that – whether it was last year or 40 years ago, or beyond – we, too, are priests in the line of Melchizedek after the Lord Jesus’ example.
And so, this is a good moment for me to do, what Fr. Birney is always inviting me to do, to put in a plug – we need to be renewed in our efforts to help young men who are called to the priesthood to hear that call. It would be good to have more priests so that we didn’t have so much work to do, but that is not our principal motive – it’s so that the People of God will have the service they deserve, that Jesus wants them to have, because it’s in the very disposition of the Heart of Jesus the Priest to lose nothing of what the Father has given Him, and to gather it all together. And to save it, to preserve it – to preserve us – and that can only happen in so far as we are gathered into the Passover, the task of Jesus Christ.
Gregg, John, Ryan, Jeff, Bryan, Joe – in a moment I’m going to give you your last examination. Already you’ve been questioned several times about your vocation, about your intention; now, we will do that one more time, publicly. But this is not a mere formality; here’s what it ought to be, I think: one final consummating moment for you to take your whole self, and hold it in your hands as we are able to do as free human beings – all of your past and all of your future – and say, ‘Lord, this is Yours, I am Yours; everything I ever aspire to do and accomplish is now offered so that You can consecrate it to the priestly ministry; so that You can work Your Will, and give Your service, and love Your people through me.’
And you will find us all ready to join with you in thanking God for what He has done, and as Fr. Solanus always reminds us, for what He will do – thanking God ahead of time for your years of priestly service.
Let us rejoice, then. Let us acclaim God’s grace, because He is conquering and all-powerful, invincible in His death and rising. And He shares that with us – Christ our Priest through our priests, so that we can be the priestly people that god intended us to be.
