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First of all, thank you all for coming, it is wonderful to see so many of you. It’s a great blessing that so many have come. And I hope this evening is a real fruitful reflection for us on the priesthood. This evening I’d like to speak about "Why the priesthood?" About the priesthood life as a living instrument of Christ Jesus the Lord; and then preparing for this evening discussion for us to talk tomorrow about what can we do, what can you and I do to foster the priesthood; to allow the Lord to use us to build up His priesthood in the Church in our own day and age. I’m going to invite you to be a part of a group called the Saint John Vianney Society. So we’ll discuss that more tomorrow.
This evening we learn more about the priesthood, tomorrow I invite you to pray for the priesthood and for an increase of vocation.
I think some of you know the story of my own vocation which was really very unusual. Maybe you know that I grew up being one of nine children, very large family, and I was in the Church from the time I can remember, but never interested in the Church. I remember as a child being very bored by the Sacraments. Grew up in Boulder during the sixties and seventies. Grew up studying science in High School, convinced that if the Lord existed, it didn’t really matter either way. If He existed...fine, if He didn’t, it really didn’t matter. And so for me going to Mass it was very boring. And I say that with great sorrow, but that was the case.  And then you’ve heard the story when I was a senior in High School, I was not going to Mass; my parents did the best to make me go, but at eighteen it was pretty hard for them to do so. And one day just simply remember thinking that I had lost something very very important by having separated myself from the Church. It was just a feeling of loss. Something very important that I had lost touch with. And with that very same thought of having lost something of great value, came the second thought... "Well if this is important, then you need to be a priest." And really never stopped (to think) twice about this priesthood from there on. I knew nothing about the priesthood. I knew not how to become a priest, I didn’t know how long it took, I didn’t even know that there was a seminary in Denver. And you heard the story again, but when I told my mom that I wanted to be a priest, she said "Well that’s very good, but don’t you think you better start going to Mass?" A good Catholic mother’s response. And so I did. And that Sunday when I went to Mass it made all the difference in the world. For the very first time the Mass was beautiful; and all the sudden it made perfect sense. "Our Lord Jesus is here! Through the actions of the priest He is coming to me, and I can receive the Lord!" For the very first time the Mass made sense. And that the priest stood at the altar made perfect sense, and I desired to be a priest myself. So from absolutely no faith to a hunger for the priesthood. That had to come from Our Good Lord. I certainly had very little to do with that. The only thing that came from me was at least the willingness to say yes when Our Lord asked of me to be a priest. The only time I ever thought twice was going to the vocation director. And he was a gruff old navy chaplain, unlike our very kind vocation director father Michael Glenn, and he told me about all I had to do and he handed me all these papers to fill out and he quickly ushered me out of his office and sent me on my way.
I remember walking out of the office, and for some reason very angry that he treated me rather roughly. And I took the papers and threw them on the back seat of my car and said "Well forget that!" And fortunately a couple of days later I dug out all the papers and began to fill them in and by next September I was in the Seminary. Where I spent eight years of study towards the priesthood. So Our Lord, even with that real unpleasant experience with the vocations director and just not feeling very welcomed, the Lord was able to say "Just stay with it, just stay with it because I need you to be one of My priests."
Again once I began there was really a great conviction that this is what the Lord wanted of me.
And so I really ask you the very first question; I think the most important one for us, and that is: "Why the priesthood? Why does the Lord raise up in the Church priests? What is the use of the priesthood? What is the purpose of the priesthood? Why do we have this need for priesthood in the Church?" Many Christian communions do not have a priesthood. If you go to the Mormon church there is no priesthood, every man serves as a priest, if you go to many of the non-sacramental churches there is no notion of the priesthood; so, why the priesthood? And what are the origins of the priesthood?
I love the one phrase from Sacred Scripture: "What return can I make to the Lord for all the good that He has done for me? The cup of salvation I will take up and I will call upon the name of the Lord." In other words, the priesthood comes from the desire to return to the Father for all the good that He has done for us. The Lord Jesus desires to return to the Father for all that the Father has done for Him. And the Church in imitation of Jesus desires to make a gift to the Lord for all the good He has done for us. In response to God’s goodness to us, we desire to give to Him the very best that we have, we desire to give to Him all that we have. And so from the very beginning of time; from the very beginning of the Old Testament God has raised up in a sense household priests to return to the Lord for all of the good that has been given to their family. Adam makes sacrifice to God on behalf of Eve and his children. Noah after leaving the Ark as the father of the family makes an act of sacrifice and thanksgiving to God really as that family’s priest as the priest of the household, he makes a return to God for the blessing that God has given to his family. Abraham serves as his family’s priest in a sense, attempting to offer to God a sacrifice worthy of all that God has given to Him. He attempts to offer his son Isaac. Then God said "Take your son Isaac, your only one, whom you love and go to the land of Morriah where you shall offer him up as a holocaust on a height that I shall point out to you." So in the very first centuries of the Old Testament, the priesthood is really the father of the household, the one who offers sacrifice to God on behalf of that household, that family of that clan. Through Moses, God changes this, and God appointed priests from the family of Aaron of the tribe of Levy. Of all of the twelve tribes of Israel, one is set aside to offer sacrifice on behalf of the people of Israel for God. The sons of the tribe of Levy are the ones who offer sacrifice; therefore, the priesthood in the Church that we have is rooted in the Old Testament.
Melchizedek is called a priest of God most high; and prefigures the priesthood of Jesus Christ. In the first Canon of the Mass we refer to the priesthood of Melchizedek. That is a prefiguring, a foreshadowing of the priesthood that will be established in the Church of Christ Jesus Our Lord.
This priesthood (from the Old Testament), though, cannot bring about salvation. The priesthood of the Old Testament, the offering of the sacrifices in the temple in Jerusalem every day, cannot bring about salvation. In other words, as Saint Paul himself says: "It is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins." It is impossible for the Old Testament sacrifices to save God’s people. So there is this priesthood in the Old Testament, but it is a prefiguring, a foreshadowing of the priesthood that would follow. And the priesthood of the old covenant, of the Old Testament finds its fulfillment where? In Jesus Our Lord . Who is the One mediator between God and man, as first Timothy says, chapter two, verse five: "Our Lord is the one mediator between God and man. Before the coming of Christ Jesus our Lord, there were sacrifices that took place in the Temple but the distance between God and the people was so great; the sin of Adam and Eve, the death which came from sin created this gulf between God and mankind that no sacrifice of bulls or goats, no serial offering could ever bridge." There was this gulf, this great canyon  between God and man. The prophets, the priests of the Old Testament, cry out to God, the Sacrifice of the Old Testament is a crying out to God, but the gulf between God and man remains. And there is no salvation. No priest in the Old Testament is saved; no prophet sees heaven, no one of the heroic women or men of the Old Testament can see the gift of eternal life; because there is no mediator between God and man. There is a hunger in the Old Testament expressed by the priesthood of the Old Testament to offer a gift worthy to God. But no gift is worthy of God in the Old Testament, nothing can be offered that offers a union between God and man. And so in the Old Testament there is the hunger, there is the crying out for God; but there is no union with God. There has to be a perfect priest in order for that union between God and man to come about. It is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. Instead there must come one mediator between God and man, and that mediator is who? Jesus Christ our Lord. Who stands in the breach between God and man, He is the one who offers a sacrifice which reconciles us to the Father.
And so with Christ, the Old Testament priesthood comes to an end. With Christ, the priesthood of the Old Testament, offering sacrifice in the Temple in Jerusalem comes to a definitive end. With the Temple destroyed in the year seventy by the Romans, this sacrifice of the Old Testament comes utterly and completely to an end, and has never, ever been reestablished.
What will take its place is a new law of love which will have a new sacrifice, and which will have a new priesthood. With the coming of Christ Jesus everything is new. The language of love, the language of sacrifice and the priesthood itself become new with the coming of Christ Jesus our Lord.
In the Old Testament the gifts that were offered of animals, wheat and grain was not worthy of God, it was the best the people had to offer, but it was not a sacrifice worthy of God that could take away sins. The gift to be offered must be worthy of God. And what is the gift that is offered in the New Testament, in the New Covenant? What is the One gift that mankind can offer that is worthy of God the Father? Jesus Christ Himself is the One Gift that can be offered by mankind that is worthy of God the Father. It is Jesus offered at the last supper that will be the new language of love, the new sacrifice. And with it will come a new priesthood born at the last supper on Holy Thursday.
And just as the Jewish people offered a daily sacrifice to God in the Temple in Jerusalem, so does the new people of God offer a daily sacrifice to God. And what is the daily sacrifice we offer? The Mass, of course. You knew the answer all along. The daily sacrifice offered is the Mass itself. The sacrifice offered everyday to God the Father is Jesus Christ the Son of the living God. And now unlike the Old Testament, now the Church offers to God the Father a gift of infinite value; the gift of the body and blood of Jesus Christ sacrificed upon the cross. And this is to be the reason for the priesthood. The priesthood is to exist in order that the Church throughout the world, no matter how long until Christ comes again, the Church can offer to God the Father a sacrifice worthy of Him, Jesus Christ the Lord. And it happens within the sacrifice of the Mass.
In Romans, Saint Paul says: "We know that Christ, raised from the dead dies no more. Death no longer has any power over Him. As to His death, He died to sin, once and for all. As to His life, He lives for God." So Christ is not offered in sacrifice again and again, day after day with every Mass because Christ has been offered to the Father once and for all upon the cross of Calvary. That sacrifice took place once. Every time we offer the Mass we don’t sacrifice Jesus again and again. His death is once, He dies no more, death no longer has power over Him, He’s not sacrificed again and again. The one sacrifice of Jesus on the cross is renewed every time the Mass is offered. The one sacrifice of Jesus is made present again and again every time the Mass is offered until the end of time.
So, you and I, we can kneel before the altar and we can look at Christ Jesus crucified. And as we see the body and blood of Christ Jesus lifted up, we know that once again, once more the one sacrifice of Jesus has been renewed again, and we are at Calvary and we are at the altar of heaven. Every time the priest lifts up the body and blood of Christ all of mankind makes a worthy offering to God the Father. And we are at Calvary and all of mankind is lifted up to the glory of the Father. Every time the priest lifts up the body of Christ, all of mankind is lifting up Christ as a worthy offering and we are saying: "Father, look upon the Gift we offer You. Look upon Jesus whom we offer You, whose blood paves the way for us to Heaven. Look Father at the worthy Gift we offer You." You and I, as we see the body and blood of Christ lifted up by the priest we say: "Dear Lord, I take my poor unworthy life and I unite it to Jesus lifted up to You right now, that my offering might be worthy." Isn’t that remarkable? By ourselves, we become discouraged and we think: "Dear Lord what do I have to offer You, every day I sin, every day I fail you, I am so ignorant on your ways, I’m so filled with darkness. If I offer myself to you,, would you even accept my gift?" Have you ever found yourself thinking that way? But we need not be afraid, because if we attach our sins to the body and blood of Jesus as the priest offers it to the Father, that sacrifice becomes worthy. And God takes the offering of our sins and He delights on that gift because it’s been united to Jesus.
When we offer up our lukewarmness and we offer up our fears and our lack of heroism, those gifts by themselves are unworthy to give to Jesus, but when we place them at the body and blood of Jesus held up to the Father by the priest, even those things become a worthy offering. We don’t have to be perfect to become a worthy offering to the Father. All we have to do is unite ourselves through the action of the priest to the sacrifice of Jesus. And that makes us worthy. Have you ever thought about that before? Is that something new? I don’t know if there is any reflections as I’m talking about that or any questions.
But that is so important for us. Jesus becomes the One worthy sacrifice, the One worthy offering that mankind offers to the Father. We don’t offer the blood of bulls and goats or corn and wheat. We offer Jesus pure and simply, and we need not worry if our life is a worthy thing to give to God. All we need to do is unite it to Jesus on the cross and say "Jesus I put my life in Your chalice, as You are lifted up by the priest, You accept my life, sins, weakness, warts and all."
So often people will say to me: "You know, there is nothing in my life that is pure enough to offer to God. You know I can’t be a priest, I can’t do whatever the Lord asks of me, it’s already too late for me. I’ve already sinned too much, my life is no longer worthy." Isn’t that a foolish thing to say though when we think that all we need to do is unite our life to Jesus, body and blood. And He makes those sins, He makes the weakness, He makes our half parted offering worthy of the Father; and we need not to be afraid.
So why the priesthood? For one reason, the priest exists in order that as he offers of the body and the blood of Christ Jesus, the people of God throughout the world can offer their lives also, and this one sacrifice, the body of Christ, and all of the people in the body of Christ, united to that Sacrament become a worthy sacrifice which God delights in and is our sure course to the eternal life of heaven.
How are we to be sure about being worthy of God at the hour of our death? If we spend our life offering our lives to the Father in union with the body and blood of Jesus, that offering is a sure confidence for us. We need not be afraid of the hour of death if we’ve been offering ourselves throughout our lives to the Father. And again our prayer doesn’t have to be perfect. Some times people will say: "God will not answer my prayer if it is not made perfectly. If there is any selfishness in my prayer, God is not going to answer it." Isn’t that foolish! All we have to do is unite that imperfect prayer of ours to the perfect sacrifice of Jesus, and that prayer becomes perfect, it becomes worthy of the Father’s answer.
So we don’t have to be perfect in our prayer, all we have to do is unite it to the perfect sacrifice. We don’t have to be perfect in our actions, all we have to do is offer it to the perfect sacrifice lifted up by the priest to the glory of God the Father.
(answering to a question)
There is the word "renewal" of the one sacrifice of Jesus. It would be incorrect for us to say, ‘every time the Mass is offered, Jesus is sacrificed again’. We don’t say that because it’s not true. Because the Mass really exists, yes it is in time, but it also takes place at the altar in heaven. So, every time the Mass is offered, the one sacrifice of Jesus is made present. Is almost as we are on a time machine, and as we kneel before the altar we are at Calvary, and Jesus, His one sacrifice is made present sacramentally to us. So, if a protestant says to you ‘you Catholics believe that you sacrifice Jesus over and over again and he dies upon the cross every time you offer Mass’, we say ‘of course not!’ That’s sillyness. Jesus died once and for all as Saint Paul tells us. He tells us that there is one sacrifice and we know that Christ raised from the dead dies no more, He died for sins once and for all, and to His life He lives for ever." So every time we offer the Mass, we simply say ‘The sacrifice of Jesus is made present most powerfully’. And if the Mass is offered a million times, the sacrifice is in no way diluted. It remains as powerful as it is at Calvary. Why? Because it is the same sacrifice, it is one and the same. Two thousand years distance does not separate the sacrifice. And if the Mass is offered a million years from now, and it’s the trillionth Mass offered, it would be as powerful as the one sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, because it is the same sacrifice made present at this time and in this holy place. And it’s repeated as often as is needed, and with the repeating, it never becomes diluted.
So what we are offering is ourselves to that one sacrifice of Jesus on Calvary, on this altar and in heaven. And all three altars are one and the same. That’s why in the eastern Catholic churches, in Byzantine churches, has anybody seen what color they paint their churches? The ceiling? They are blue, and they always have silver spects in them, or often they do. Why? In Byzantine Catholic churches the ceiling is a symbol of heaven. That when we step foot in the church we have one foot in heaven, one foot on earth. Because we are renewing the one sacrifice of Jesus which takes place at the altar in heaven.

I think as Catholics sometimes because of the familiarity with the Mass we lose the power of what is happening. That there is one sacrifice taking place. The only sacrifice that is worthy of the Father and can unite all mankind to the Father. And we can offer everything in our life, and it becomes worthy of the Father when it is united to the body and blood of Jesus which is the fruit of the sacrifice of Calvary offered to the Father.

So, I still in answering the question "Why the priesthood?" We have one answer. But who would be the priests that Jesus would use to stand at the altar. Why the priesthood? We have to go back to the beginning of the Church, born from the side of Jesus upon Calvary. Who would be the priests that Jesus would use to stand at that altar of sacrifice which is the altar of Calvary, which is the altar in heaven. To start with, there were eleven who were chosen at the last supper. Luke, chapter twenty two: "And likewise the cup, after they had eaten saying ‘This cup is the new covenant in My blood which will be shed for you. Do this in memory of Me." It is this power to offer sacrifice which made the apostles priests. Not goats and blood and bulls, but the sacrifice of Jesus which makes the apostles priests. That’s why we speak of the priesthood as born on Holy Thursday. But that’s not the only authority that the Lord gives to these apostles newly made priests. To this power, Jesus on Easter Sunday adds another power; John chapter twenty: "When He had said this, He breathed on them and said ‘Receive the Holy Spirit, whose sins you forgive are forgiven now, whose sins you retain, are retained’." Now the apostles not only offer sacrifice, they forgive. Not in their name, but through the office of Jesus, by standing in the person of Jesus they forgive sins. When a pentecostal protestant says to you: "How dare you believe that your priest forgive sins." How do we answer them? Jesus forgives sins; and He does so in the person of the priest. Jesus forgives sins, and the priest is a living instrument of that forgiveness.
Also at the ascention He then offers another power. Matthew twenty eight: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and behold that I am with you always until the end of the age". The sacrament of life just unfolds for us as we read Sacred Scripture. And the apostles are to be the living instruments of this sacramental life.
The power of the priesthood was not to die with the death of the last apostle. That is obvious, we know that. Why would God give a gift only to let it die away when the last apostle, Saint John, died. Jesus came to save and to care for the souls of all people until the end of time. And so this power of sacrifice, this power of the Sacraments affecting the sacraments is passed on by the apostles in what we now call the Sacrament of Holy Orders. That power is passed on, and what we call the Sacrament of Holy Orders. Acts chapter six: "The proposal was acceptable to the whole community, so they chose Stephen, a man filled with faith in the Holy Spirit, also Phillip, Procurous, (etc) They presented these men to the apostles who prayed and laid hands on them" by the way, that’s the way priesthood is still conferred upon men, is through prayer and the laying on of hands.
So from the very early life of the Church we see the apostles passing on the power to sacrifice, and the gift of the Sacraments to their successors.
So, why the priesthood? So that the living prescence of Jesus, living and effective in the sacramental life of the Church would not die out. The priesthood exists so that Christ Jesus, so powerfully through the Sacraments might live in and save and teach His people.

What I’d like to speak about a little bit is the whole idea of a priest as a living instrument of Jesus.
We’ve talked about ‘Why the priesthood’ as the means of our Lord Jesus remaining and saving His people. The priest as a living instrument of Jesus. The very beautiful image, the priest as an instrument in the hands of our Lord, but a living instrument. The Sacrament of Holy Orders is the Sacrament through which the saving work of Christ Jesus, continues to be carried out in the Church until the end of time when Jesus comes again in glory. By the Sacrament of the Priesthood the apostolic work, the work of the apostles, the ministry of the apostles continues to be exercised in the Church until the end of time.

So the priesthood is a participation in the one priesthood of Christ. Hebrews chapter ten says: "By a single offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified." Jesus offers a single offering, and that offering is the unique sacrifice of the cross. And so, with  the Sacrament of Holy Orders an individual is participating in the one priesthood of Christ. Christ in leaving this world and ascending to the Father does not leave us, but through the priesthood of the Church, His priesthood remains in our midst.
The sacrifice of Christ on the cross happened once and our redemption in this way is accomplished once and for all. This one redemptive sacrifice is made present in the holy sacrifice of the Mass. And so with the priesthood, the priesthood of Christ is made present in the ministerial priesthood, without lessening the one unique priesthood of Christ. Christ remains the One priest, all who are ordained in the priesthood, share in this one priesthood. Saint Thomas Aquinas said: "Only Christ is the true priest, the others being only His ministers". So the priest is united to the priesthood of Christ.  Priests who are ordained are ordained to participate in that one priesthood and by participating in it offering to the people of God the sacraments of the Church.
Ordination confers a gift of the Holy Spirit that permits the exercise of the sacred power which can come only from Christ Himself through the Church. Therefore we cannot speak of the priesthood as a human institution. That this is a convenient way that the apostles decided to structure the Church, that there would be priests and there would be the people of God and that it was a nice convenient human structure, and you had to establish a nice clear hierarchy and that’s all the priesthood is, is a convenient human structure. Impossible! The priesthood is a continuation of the one priesthood of Jesus the Lord.
And so we can speak of a priest as acting in persona Christi, in the person of Christ the Lord. In the service of this ordained priest, Christ Jesus The priest is present to His Church. And so when the priest stands at the altar, he stands in the person of Christ the Lord. Is not another priesthood, it is the one priesthood of Christ. As forgiveness is granted to you through the Sacrament of Confession, the forgiveness is given by the priest, who stands in the person of Christ. I suspect as priests, we hesitate to talk about this because it seems like we are tooting our own horn, or however you’d say that. But I think that a lot of times