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Father in heaven with all of Your heart You desire to unite all of mankind to Yourself, You desire to unite us in a holy and a mystical marriage that endures for all eternity. You desire to unite us to Yourself and You give us Christ Jesus, Your Son, the Bridegroom in order to accomplish this.
Lord Jesus, You have been sent by the Father, may You grant to us a hunger for the Father, a hunger to be united to Him within the Church, may You give us a hunger for the Sacraments of life. May You give us hearts that are set on fire with heroic zeal for union with the Father. May our study of the priesthood, may our prayer for vocations yield a rich harvest of grace for our parish, our Archdiocese and for the Church.
Lord Jesus You promised that what we pray for, in faith, will never go unanswered, this is the cause of our confidence and the cause of our joy as we gather.
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

This evening I will continue where we left off yesterday. I said we would talk about ordination, about some of the issues of the priesthood that are specially affecting us today and I will talk a bit about the greatness of the priesthood and then I’m going to turn it over to Nicoletta and she’s going to say a little bit about the Saint John Vianney Society, what that’s going to involve, and then we’ll close with questions. So if that sounds good to you all we will proceed.

Yesterday we closed by talking about the two orders of the priesthood in the Church, remember that? We spoke of the ministerial priesthood. The priesthood of those who are ordained by the Bishop in order to offer on behalf of God’s people the Sacraments.
Then we spoke of the priesthood of all of the baptized, who make holy the world by their example, who teach by their faithfulness, who guide by their fidelity. And we spoke of how the ministerial priesthood exist in order to serve the priesthood of the people of God. So the priesthood exists in service of the common priesthood; of the priesthood of all baptized members of the Church. It’s the means by which Christ continually builds you up;  He gives the ministerial priesthood in order to build up His life of grace, His service within you.

What I thought I would do then, is talk about the greatness of the priesthood. The Holy Father, one of his titles is Servum Servorum Dei, you’ve heard that many times, "The Servant of the Servant of God", and so the Holy Father is the one who is not at the top of the pyramid, as though everything exists in order to give him what he wants. He exists at the very point of the pyramid, and upon his shoulders rests the Episcopacy and the priests and the people of God. So he truly is for the people of God a servant of the servants of God, and he bears upon his shoulders the burden of the Church as the ambassador for Christ, as the Vicar for Christ, for our time. So the greatness of the papacy for example is not that he gets to live in the Vatican Palace; he actually lives a very, very simple life there, the greatness of the papacy is that he is the servant of the servants of God. So it is a greatness of service.
The Cure of Ars who is one of my great heroes, I had a chance to spend two days in Ars and it rained and it rained and thunder and lightning, so Our Lord was telling me ‘stay in the church and pray, stop being a tourist and pray’, so I spent two days in the church, I offered Mass over the tomb of Saint John Vianney, I offered Mass at the altar where he offered Mass at, and really was a wonderful experience, a beautiful time of prayer. And this is what he said about the greatness of the priesthood, he says: "The priest continues the work of redemption on earth, what God has given, He doesn’t take away, He gives to us redemption, He works that out every time through the priesthood. If we really understood the priest on earth we would die, not of fright, but of love. The priesthood is the love of the heart of Jesus." So the priesthood in its greatness is instituted by Christ for the service of men and women; it is instituted for the good of mankind and for the communion, for the unity of the Church. The priesthood is one of those glues that helps to hold the Church together under the grace of the Holy Spirit.
So the priesthood, if it is to be lived rightly must be lived out by imitating the model of Christ, who by love made himself the least of all and the servant of all. So the priesthood is a great, great calling. And it is great because it is a calling to service in imitation of Christ Jesus Himself; that is the greatness of the call.
Mark chapter tenth says: "Whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be the slave of all, for the Son of Man also came not to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many".  That really doesn’t fit very well with all the modern psycho babble, does it? The talks about self actualization, and our Lord says our self actualization is being a slave of all, being a servant of all, giving our lives for many. That is the greatness of the priesthood, that is the greatness of all of the calls to the Christian life.

Pope John Paul II about a year after his consecration as Holy Father, he gave this homily to priests and I thought that it was very beautiful, talking about the greatness of the priesthood and the need for priests in our modern world. This is what he said: "Dear brothers, you who have borne the burden of the day and the heat, who have put your hand to the plow and do not turn back, and perhaps even more those of you who are doubtful of the meaning of your vocation, or of the value of your service. Think of the places where people anxiously await a priest and where for many years, feeling the lack of such a priest they do not cease to hope for his presence, and some times it happens that this people meet in an abandoned shrine and they place on the altar a stole which they still keep, and recite all of the prayers of the eucharistic liturgy and then at the moment that corresponds to the transubstantiation a deep silence comes down upon them, a silence sometimes broken by a sob. So ardently do they desire to hear the words that only the lips of a priest can efficaciously mutter. So much do they desire eucharistic communion in which they can share only through the ministry of the priest just as they eagerly await to hear the Divine words of pardon ‘I absolve you from your sins’, so deeply do they feel the absence of a priest among them. Such places are not lacking in the world, so if one of you doubts the meaning of his priesthood, if he thinks he is socially fruitless or useless, reflect on this..."   Isn’t that beautiful?
Chris Misura told me a story about Kazakistan, one of the former republics of the former Soviet Union and he tells a story about some of the priests, his countrymen, who were missionaries and went into the former Soviet Union several years ago. And they went to this village in Kazakistan which is primarily Muslim, but a few Catholics have always existed there, mostly Germans in lineage. And ever since 1917 when the last priest was executed, they would gather every Sunday and they would set everything on the altar that was used for the Mass and they would then say the prayers of the Mass and they would just simply be there in silence and for seventy five years they did this. They put the things for the Mass, placed the gold chalice there and it always remained empty. And after seventy five years they’ve waited there this polish priest came one day and it was a Sunday, and the people led him into the church. And he offered the Mass for them and for the first time in seventy five years they received the body and blood of Christ. It’s really a wonderful story Chris tells of his country men. It really is a wonderful reminder of the greatness of the priesthood, the greatness of the call.
One quote says: "Who then is the priest? He is the defender of truth, who stands with angels, gives glory with archangels, causes sacrifices to rise to the altar on high, shares Christ’s priesthood, re-fashions creation, restores it to God’s image, recreates it for the world on high, and even greater, is divinized and divinizes." Really wonderful.
The priesthood is a giving to God of our humanity and He gives His Divinity. There’s this wondrous exchange that takes place. Whenever we give to God our humanity, He gives His Divinity.
Saint Agustine says: "Oh venerable dignity of priest in whose hands the Son of God becomes incarnate anew, as He formerly became incarnate in the womb of Mary", wonderful connects between Mary and the priesthood. Our Lord uses a living instrument, Mary, in order that the incarnation of Christ might come about for the salvation of the world. Saint Agustine says ‘in a sense the priesthood is related to Mary, the Mother of God,’ and in the hands of the priest the Son of God becomes incarnate once again in the world. It is really a wonderful meditation upon Mary and the priesthood, and that’s why I think it is so important that we pray for priests, that they have a real love for the Mother of God; because there’s such a close connection between the ministry of the Mother of God and the ministry of the priesthood.

Let me just say a little bit about ordination; ordination to the priesthood. The rite of ordination is really very simple, I quoted yesterday from the Acts of the Apostles the description of the ordination of some of the first that were ordained by the Apostles. And I said it was very simply; the laying on of hands and a prayer of consecration, a calling down the Holy Spirit and the laying on of hands. This is still is the ordination ceremony to this day, there are many beautiful additions to the ceremony. Have you ever been to the ordination of a priest? It’s really very beautiful. The vesting of the priest in the Chasible, the placing the chalice in his hands, the promise of obedience, the priest putting his hands on the hands of the Bishop promising obedience. It’s really a very beautiful ceremony.
Who can ordain priests? Who is that who has the right to ordain priests? Only a validly ordained Bishop can give the Sacrament of Holy Orders. So the order of priesthood can only come through the Bishop, only through a Bishop who is united to the Holy Father in Rome. One who is in the line of apostolic succession. Does everybody know what apostolic succession is? Archbishop Chaput was consecrated by Archbishop so and so who fifty years ago was consecrated by Archbishop so and so who was consecrated seventy five years ago by this Bishop, a hundred years ago ordained by that Bishop back to those who were ordained by the apostles. So the direct connection between the apostles and the present day. And so it is that direct lineage to the apostles that confers the authority on Bishops in order to confer the Sacrament or Priesthood.
And the Sacrament of Holy Orders then, Communicates to the one who receives it a sacred powers and office, which is none other than Christ’s.
There are three degrees of the Sacrament of Holy orders: Bishop, priest and deacon.
Within the Sacrament of Holy Orders there are three degrees.
The Bishops have taken the place of the Apostles as pastors of the Church; and they receive the Sacrament of Holy Orders in its fullness.  All priests and deacons depend upon the Bishop for the exercise of their own office. In other words I can hear confessions only because Archbishop Chaput gives me permission. I can preach to you only because Archbishop Chaput gives me permission; I can serve as your pastor only because he gives me permission. Archbishop Chaput has by right all of those offices; he shares the fullness of the priesthood of the Lord. So he is pastor, he is shepherd, he forgives sins by his rights. The priests and deacons are those who depend upon the Bishop for the exercise of that priestly authority. That is why every priest is so closely connected to the Bishop.
We believe that the Archbishop has been placed over us as our priest, prophet and king by the Vicar of Christ himself. So we have to be very careful that we really say ‘we will stand under him in all things save sin’. So, that saves us from that attitude ‘well, I’ll honor and respect the Bishop if I agree with him, but if I don’t, I kind of reserve that’. Does that make sense? A good example, we all know the Divine Mercy chaplet, the Divine Mercy devotion which began in the early part of the century. As it was beginning to be published on a very wide scale, I think it was back in the 1930’s, the local Bishop had a difficulty, he said ‘No’, all of those materials were burned and all came to halt like that, because the Bishop asked them to. Was the Bishop right or wrong? Well turns out he was wrong and all the sudden the Lord raises up a Polish Pope and we have the Divine Mercy devotions in the Church. But were they right in obeying their Bishop in burning everything? Yes, they were. Exactly right. And if they had not, if they had disobeyed him, the Holy Father never would’ve come back later on and approved it. It would’ve never been approved. Because one of the signs of the Holy Spirit’s presence is love in obedience, so I think that’s an important issue for us. So what do we have to do, we don’t stand in judgment of the Bishop placed over us, we pray for the Bishop that is placed over us. And then we trust that the Holy Father who has placed him over us that our Lord is working and acting through him.

There is a permanent change which takes place through ordination. It’s called the indelible character of the priesthood. So by ordination a priest is enabled to act as a representative of Christ in his office as priest, prophet and king. So, ordination is not just a change in rank, is not a promotion. That is not how we view ordination, but a substantial change in the person  that is irreversible. So in other words, once a priest, always a priest. In the first Eucharistic prayer we refer to Melchizadek, ‘you are priest for ever in the line of Melchizadek’, there is an irreversible change. And somebody might say, well what about priests who are laisized. They are still bound to the discipline of the priesthood. They may not practice the priesthood, they may not serve actively, but they are bound to the discipline of the priesthood because they remain priests. So even, for example, someone who has been laisized and has not in any way practiced the priesthood for years and years is still obligated to for example the liturgy of the hours and some of the other disciplines of the priesthood. And in the case of an absolute emergency, for example an automobile accident, give absolution. Not only can, but should.
Now, sometimes, some priests receive a decree of annulment, which then would allow them in some cases to marry, declaring that because of some defect they never were in fact ordained.

What about women priests?
The code of canon law which govern the Church says: "Only a baptized man, validly receives sacred ordination".  Why? This has been obviously the source of much controversy in the Church. Why is that law there?
Let me just read from Luke chapter six. "In these days Jesus went out to the mountain to pray and all night He continued in prayer to God, and when it was day He called His disciples and chose from them twelve, whom he named apostles. Simon whom he named Peter and Andrew his brother, and James and John, and Philip and Bartholomew and Matthew and Thomas and James the son of Alpheus, and Simon who was called the zealot, and Judas the son of James, and Judas Scariot who became a traitor." When we read that account is really very powerful, isn’t it? Our Lord, as a fruit of intense prayer comes to a body of disciples, we don’t know how many they were, but probably quite large in number and chooses from them twelve who will form the college of apostles, who by receiving on Holy Thursday the authority to confer the Sacraments, receive the priesthood. This account is powerful and it is clear that Jesus chooses only men. This is not an accident. Our Lord chooses only men. Why? Why does He do this? Was He culturally conditioned? Did our Lord commit the sin of sexism? That anathema of the late twentieth century? Was His problem one of being unschooled in the wisdom of the late twentieth century?
Our Lord Jesus chose men to form the body of the apostles. That is clear that He did that. And the apostles did the same thing when they chose their successors, they followed the example of the Lord who had chosen them. They followed His example when they choose their successors under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. And those successors follow the example of the first in the same way coming down to our own age, where in our own day the college of Bishops makes the college of the twelve apostles ever present in the Church until Christ returns.
The Church is profoundly conservative. We don’t like that word, but what does it mean in its depth ? It means conserving all that has been given to us. The Church is not interested in novelty; the Church is interested in preserving, conserving whole and entire what has been given us by our Savior and our Lord. The Holy Father has no right to change this pattern which arises from the Lord’s choice of men as apostles. Even if the Holy Father wants to, he has no authority, and that is what the Holy Father has been saying for the last couple of years. This is a closed issue, he says, not because I hate women, not because I don’t want women in the priesthood, it’s a closed issue because as Holy Father I have no authority.
The Holy Father is the one who conserves and applies to our present age all that is given us by the Lord. Is really ironic that of all of the Christian churches, the Catholic Church is the most resistant to novelty, because the Church recognizes that Her role is to conserve, to apply all that Christ has given to us, and to do so until the end of times. The Holy Father has no right to change the pattern which arises from the Lord’s choice of men as apostles. That is one level of reason; but it goes even deeper. If we look at the nature of the Church itself, and what our Lord accomplishes through the Church, then a male priesthood makes sense. The Lord Jesus, when He appoints these twelve men as apostles, what is He doing that day? What is our Lord doing? He is choosing foundation stones for His Church. Jesus on that day is willfully, purposefully setting a foundation stone for what will follow, what will come forth from His side upon the cross, what will be born from the gift of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost... the Church. The Lord is looking forward, He’s looking to the Church, established from His open side on the cross.
Jesus by His cross will unite all mankind to the Father. Through the Sacramental life of the Church, through the infallible teachings of His Church Jesus continues to unite all mankind to Himself. And He does this intimately, more intimately than we can possibly imagine. If we think our Lord’s life with the apostles was intimate, the life we have with Him is far more intimate than what the apostles experienced. Jesus was with them, He was not in them. Jesus was Emanuel, God with us. We as Catholics say: "God in Jesus is in us." God’s life is more intimate in us than even in the apostles themselves, (Isn’t that amazing?) by the grace of the Holy Spirit. These men and those who followed them will stand as priests in the person of Christ as He accomplishes this, Christ continues to unite us to Him and the Father most intimately. How does He do it? Through the priesthood; through men who stand in the person of Christ. The identity should be a close one, the office is the same. The priest has the same office as the one priesthood of Christ. He shares in it as Christ’s minister; he should by his very prayer and life imitate his Master. There should be as close an identity as possible between Christ and His priests.
As the Sacraments are being offered in the Church, what is going on? Jesus in establishing His Church is wedding mankind to the Father. The cross of Christ stands revealed as the fulfillment of the wedding feast of Cana, where Jesus gives the wine of gladness and joy and of salvation to us. At the wedding of Cana, when Jesus was absent there was no wine of gladness, when our Lord is present the wine of gladness flows in great abundance, and so with the Church. Jesus is the groom and the Church which He establishes is His beloved bride; we are His beloved bride. And what is the fruit of this marriage between God and mankind. Jesus is the groom, the Church is the bride; there are nuptials taking place, and what is the fruit of that marriage? It is whole generations of souls for God.
The marriage between God and mankind in the Church bears the greatest fruit, generation after generation of souls for God the Father.
When the Holy Mass is offered, in a mystical way the marriage act takes place. We become very graphic at this point; the Mass is the marriage act by which Jesus mystically, who is the groom, unites His bride, the Church, to the Father. God and man are united in this Mass which is the nuptials between God and mankind. Jesus, the groom, unites His bride to Himself and makes of her a worthy offering to the Father. The priest is the living instrument by which Christ Jesus accomplishes this union which produces great fruit; a harvest of souls for the Father.
The Holy Father says this: "The Church is totally ordered to the holiness of Christ’s members, and holiness is measured according to the great mystery in which the bride responds with a gift of love to the gift of the bridegroom."
When we see a priest devoutly offering the holy Mass we rejoice. Why? Because we rejoice in the sight of our Father who well loves our mother, the Church. And when we see a Mass poorly offered it hurts us because we want to see our mother well loved.
The male priesthood makes eminent sense at this mystical level. To speak of a woman’s priesthood, and I apologize for saying this, would be to speak of a homosexual marriage. The imagery is so powerful and so intimate in the Church between Jesus the bridegroom and the Church the bride, to speak of a woman’s priesthood simply makes no sense.
There will be the argument though, ‘why their exclusion from the priesthood? Women will never have power in the Church.’ And that makes some sense until we think ‘what is the power in the Church? Where does it come from?’ The only power in the Church is the power of the cross, the power of sacrifice. That is the power that has any meaning in the Church. Political power developing majorities and minorities and all of that nonsense makes no sense to Christians. There is only one power and it’s the power of the cross; all other power is an illusion.
Are women then delegated to second class in the Church? Absolutely not. The mother of God is the greatest creature who has ever been created by God, and she is the ark of the covenant in which God dwells. She is the pattern of the Church in her perfection. If you want to point to the perfect model for human living, is not a man we point to, it is a woman we point to. If you want to point to the perfect Christian, we point to Mary the mother of God. Not to a priest, but to Mary. If we want to point to the Church in her depth, we look to the blessed mother who is the symbol of the Church in her perfection.
Of all of the religions of the world only one exalts women in the way they should be exalted and that is the Catholic faith, I’m absolutely convinced of that. Only within the Catholic world do I believe are women given what is the greatest compliment, in looking to the blessed mother as the pattern for the Christian life lived in its perfection.
You and I in our modern world tend to speak of equality as sameness. If you want to be equal, everybody should be the same. In our Christian life we know that difference does not imply inferiority, that our Lord creates the wonderful diversity of His creation and sameness does not mean equality. To speak of it would be like the valleys looking at the mountains and saying ‘they should be tumbled down upon us so everything is the same’. Difference does not imply inferiority.

(answering to a question)
The Orthodox Church have validly ordained priests, because the Orthodox Church has always kept the apostolic succession. The first division in Christianity that endured took place in the eleventh century between Catholicism and Orthodoxy. Orthodoxy has always kept the seven Sacraments, the priesthood, apostolic succession. They have lost within orthodoxy the ministry of Peter in the Holy Father. So that has been lost, but the succession from the apostles remains. As a matter of fact many of the eastern orthodox dioceses are held by Bishops who lived in the sees of the apostles themselves. Like Antioch and Jerusalem and Alexandria which are these ancient cities where the bishoprics were founded by the apostles. So yes, the Orthodox Church keeps apostolic succession, all these priests are validly ordained and the Sacraments are validly celebrated. That’s why the Holy Father is calling for us to pray for union between Orthodoxy and Catholicism, there is so little that separates us, and so the day when Orthodoxy and Catholicism should be united, what a glorious day. It’ll be the undoing of the first great schism and with the first great schism undone well, what next would Our Lord have for us?
(To another question)
Well, they would say that the Bishops are appointed by the Patriarchs. And see, they would call the Holy Father the Patriarch of Rome, and so the Bishops are then appointed by like a patriarch of Moscow or the patriarch of Constantinople.
(another question)
They do, they recognize the Holy Father as the successor of Peter but they will call him the first among equals. They’ll say he is a patriarch who has jurisdiction over the west, but not all of Christianity.

Let me just say a little bit about celibacy.
There is a great complementarity between priesthood and the Sacrament of marriage. Celibacy does not imply that there’s anything wrong with marriage. The things that are the most beautiful are also the things that are also most worthy to be given as a gift to God. Celibacy and marriage are complementary states, and each way of life stands as a living reminder of the beauty of the other. Saint Paul when he speaks about his life says "we are living as angels" is referring to celibacy. So celibacy from the very beginning has been in the priesthood a great sign of the spiritual fruitfulness of the Church that we were speaking of earlier.
So a priest, by his calling, no longer fully belongs to the world. Just as Jesus hangs on the cross between heaven and earth, so His priests, that cross is to be a pattern for Jesus’ priesthood. And the priests do not fully belong to the world; and so the loss of either of the vocations of marriage or celibacy would be the greatest tragedy for the Church. Both are necessary, both are necessary for the Church to be truly, truly fruitful, both physically and spiritually. If the Church is to be fruitful, both lives, the life of marriage and the celibate life must be honored in the Church.
Celibates remind marriage of the beauty of their state. Married couples remind celibates of the beauty of their state. There is a great complementarity between the two lives; each strengthens the other.
The talk about married priests and women priests is our human attempt to fix what appears to be broken. The shortage of priests is not a reason to ordain women; a shortage of priests is not a reason to ordain married men. There is far more profound realities that work here than  the numbers that we think are sufficient. Our Lord will grant to us the number of priests that we honestly pray for and work towards. So often we are a people who say ‘Oh Lord, give us what we want, give us all the priests we want’, and we don’t really pray ‘Lord, give us what we need’, we don’t really say ‘Oh Lord, make us a people that values your priesthood, that values the cross, that values the spiritual life of celibacy, that values the marriage between God and mankind, that values family life; all of those realities from which priesthood comes.
So when you and I pray for an increase in vocations, what we are praying for is that our Lord will make us open as a people to the graces of the priesthood.

I closed last night and I close again with this:
The role of the priesthood of the faithful in relation to the ministerial priesthood. I can sanctify bread and whine but I cannot sanctify the world, that is your role. I can teach in the Mass, but I cannot teach in the world, this is your role. I can lead this parish, but I cannot lead in your home, this is your role.
Both, the ministry of the faithful, the ministry of the priest are complementary; and as we pray for one another our Lord accomplishes a great spiritual and physical fruitfulness. He wins whole generations of souls for the glory of God the Father.