THE PRIEST AS SERVANT - PART I

Fr Billy Swan

The feast of St John Vianney, the patron saint of priests is celebrated on Monday 4th August. The 'Cure of Ars' famously said, "The priest is not a priest for himself; he is a priest for you". This quote highlights the selfless nature of the priesthood, emphasizing that priests are called to serve the spiritual needs of others rather than themselves.

In this two part series, I explore the identity of a priest as servant. Part II next week.

THE PRIEST AS SERVANT

As part of my role as Vocations Director in my diocese, I receive enquiries from possible candidates for the priesthood who are looking for guidance and accompaniment as they discern their calling. I invite them to meet with me to listen to their discernment journey and ponder what might be attracting them to consider the priesthood as a way of life. As Vocations Director, there are two positive indicators to look out for in a candidate. The first is a sense of being called to this way of life rather than it being merely a personal choice - a sense of a vocation that is stirring in the candidate, a sense of the Lord calling him. The second indicator is the presence in the candidate of a desire to serve, to have an interest in people, a desire to help them and serve their good. If this desire is present, it is the foundation of a possible life in the priesthood – a life marked by a joy that flows from serving God’s people in Jesus’ name.

This article on ‘the priest as servant’ takes us to the heart of the theology of priesthood. The nature of a priest’s vocation is essentially one of service – to God and to the Church. Building on the teaching of Vatican II and Pastores Dabo Vobis, the Ratio Fundamentalis on priestly formation, states clearly: “Priestly ordination requires, in the one who receives it, a complete giving of himself for the service the people of God”.[1] However, in order to understand more comprehensively this calling of the priest as servant, we must first consider Christ as Servant.

Christ as Servant

That Christ was sent by the Father to serve is abundantly clear in the Gospels. When the mother of James and John approached Jesus and asked him to give her sons first place in his kingdom, Jesus uses the moment to explain the reason he came which was “to serve and not to be served and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28). In the new dispensation that was his kingdom, being great meant to be a servant; for one to be first, one had to make oneself last and be at the service of all. In the Gospel of Luke, the same point is made again, this time in a different context where Jesus poses a rhetorical question for his disciples: “Which of these is greater, the one who sits at table, or the one who serves?” His own answer is clear; “I am among you as one who serves” (Luke 22:27). Yet Jesus did not just preach about service. It was the spirit that permeated his whole ministry. His washing of the disciples’ feet at the Last Supper was deeply symbolic of what his whole life was about. It was also a deliberate act of example that he urged his disciples of every age of follow:

“When he had washed their feet and taken his garments and resumed his place, at table, he said to them: ‘Do you know what I have done to you? You call me teacher and Lord; and you are right for so I am. If I then your Lord and teacher have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example that you also should do as I have done to you’” (John 13:12-15).

On the night before his died, with this menial task of washing feet that was reserved for slaves, Jesus expressed the orientation of his whole life as humble service of humanity and instructed that this spirit of service be continued after him by his followers. It is important to note that the shape of this ministry of service by Christ was cruciform in nature. Christ expressed his saving love by serving those he encountered. He served them by his availability to people, by healing them, blessing them, teaching them, feeding them and  including them in renewed forms of community. As the Saviour of all, Jesus extended his mercy to the margins to reach those in most need of it and to extend the saving embrace of God in a way that offered hope. He was the servant of all that was good, all that was true and all that was beautiful. We might describe this dimension of Christ’s service as horizontal or, in the words of Thomas Aquinas who defined love as “willing the good of the other, as other”.[2] Jesus loves us by willing our good for our sake, restoring our peace and freedom as the children of God (Cf. Rom. 8:21).

There is also a vertical aspect of Jesus’ service that concerns his mission from the Father to free us from sin and to “become sin” so that we might become the righteousness of God (Cf. 2 Cor. 5:21). This is what we find in Matthew’s Gospel quoted above where Jesus reveals himself as servant but also the one who would give his life as a ransom for many. Jesus Christ was sent by the Father to become the “lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (Cf. John 1:29). Such was the love of the Father for humankind that this was the price he was willing to pay so that we might be reconciled to God and one another.

In this light, Christ’s passion and death on the cross was the ultimate act of service towards the people he loved – to suffer for us and take our guilt upon himself. It is this redemptive sense of service that St Paul has in mind in his letter to the Philippians where he talks about Christ “emptying himself, taking the form of a slave, becoming as human beings are; and being in every way like a human being, he was humbler yet, even to accepting death, death on a cross” (Phil. 2:6-8).

Because of this service of redemption, early Christians recognised Christ as the ‘Suffering Servant’ of Isaiah - the righteous victim who would grievously suffer in the place of others and be an eternal source of blessing for all:

“See my servant will prosper, he shall be lifted up, exalted, rise to great heights… a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering… ours were the sufferings he bore, our the sufferings he carried…if he offers his life in atonement he shall see his heirs, he shall have a long life and through him what the Lord wishes will be done” (Is. 52:13-53;12).

Another point worth making here is the interpretation of the parable of the Good Samaritan by Church Fathers such as Augustine and Origen who identified the wounded man as Adam and hence all humanity wounded by sin, and Christ as the Good Samaritan who cares for and heals humanity in need of redemption in a spirit of loving service.[3]

This brief reflection on Christ’s ministry of service spells out its cruciform shape with both horizontal and vertical dimensions united in his person. As Son of Man, he enters into radical solidarity with humankind, loving by willing the good of others and serving the good of all with his availability, truth and charity. As Son of God he came to reconcile us to the Father, forgiving sin and ‘becoming sin’ as the price he was willing to pay to set his people free from the slavery and sadness of sin. In doing so, Christ served the ultimate good of reconciling us to God, restoring God’s image and nature within us, healing every human dysfunction and unlocking the door to eternal life.

The Priest as Servant

At his ordination, the priest is configured to Christ the head and Good Shepherd but also Christ the servant. In the words of The Gift of The Priestly Vocation:

“The priest is required to be capable of loving people with a heart which is new, generous and pure – with genuine self-detachment, with full, constant and faithful dedication… The priest is, therefore, called to form himself so that his heart and his life are conformed to the Lord Jesus, in this way becoming a sign of the love God has for each person”.[4] 

This teaching clarifies the essential relational nature of ordained priesthood in which the priest’s identity as servant finds full expression. Priestly service is a service in, with and for the community of the people of God.[5] After the example of Christ, the priest’s life is dedicated ‘for others’ and ‘for you’. His vocation as priest is always understood in relation to the priesthood of all the baptized and within the Church as a priestly people. His vocation as priest is to help all the baptized to be priests, prophets and kings and so to live intentionally and fully, their Christian vocations. In the words of Joseph Ratzinger:

“The essence of priestly ministry consists in him having been ordained for the service of the Lord and this reaches into his very own being. He is a servant of Christ in order to be from Him, through Him and with Him, a servant of all. His being in relation to Christ is not opposed to his being ordained for the service of the community; rather it is the foundation that alone gives depth to that service. Being related to Christ means to be taken up into his existence as servant and staying with him at the service of his body that that is the Church”.[6] 

Pervading all aspects of the priest’s life as servant is love. The priest is someone who serves the people of God because he loves them as Christ loves them. In every pastoral setting, he is there as the one who serves the needs of the people he loves and to whom Christ sends him. Far from being an abstract theological principle, this clarity of the priest’s role to serve is the antidote to potential situations of the abuse of power, dual relationships and boundary violations in relationships where the priest is consciously or unconsciously meeting his own needs instead of the needs of those he is called to serve. Tragically, this loss of service and duty of service is seen with many cases of clerical abuse in the past. This is not to say that the needs of the priest are not important. Rather it clarifies that the priest needs to be free and focused on the needs of the community that comes first and that he is there to serve.

Part II next week

[1] The Gift of the Priestly Vocation: Ratio Fundamentalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis, Congregation for the Clergy, 2017, para. 39; Cf. Pastores Dabo Vobis, 3; Presbyterorum Ordinis, 2.

[2] St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologia I-II, 26, 4, corp. art.

[3] “The Lord Jesus Christ makes us realize that he is the one who cared for the half-dead man beaten by robbers and left on the side of the road” (Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana, I, 30.33); “The man going down (to Jerusalem) is Adam…the Samaritan is Christ” (Origen, Homilies on Luke, Homily 34).

[4] The Gift of the Priestly Vocation, para. 39-40; cf. Pastores Dabo Vobis, 22.

[5] Cf. Lumen Gentium, 20.

[6] J. Ratzinger, ‘The Ministry and Life of Priests’, in Homiletic and Pastoral Review, August-September 1997, pp.11-12.