THE PRIEST AS SERVANT - PART II

Fr Billy Swan

The feast of St John Vianney, the patron saint of priests was 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.

Below is the second of a two part series on the identity of a priest as servant

Priesthood, Service and Eucharist

The setting of Jesus washing the Apostles’ feet at the Last Supper, forever sealed the connection between priesthood, service and the Eucharist. Because the priest presides at the Eucharist in persona Christi, he is uniquely identified with Christ the servant who continues to offer himself ‘for you’ through the sacrament of his Body and Blood. When he celebrates the Eucharist in the person of Christ, the priest does not just repeat the words of Jesus at the Last Supper. Rather he identifies totally with them for in union with Christ, the priest’s life is also given over in service of the Eucharistic community he leads.

This call of the priest to Eucharistic service is found in the Rite of Ordination. As the newly ordained priest kneels before the bishop, he hands him a paten and chalice with the words: “Accept from the holy people of God the gifts to be offered to Him. Know what you are doing and imitate the mystery you celebrate: model your life on the mystery of the Lord's cross”. This means that every time the priest celebrates the Eucharist, his life is re-configured to Christ’s kenosis – the self-emptying love that wills the good of the other and that serves as an expression of that love. In this sense, the Eucharist is “the center and root of the whole priestly life”.[1] In this sense, the priest is not just a religious functionary or merely the leader of prayer but a man whose whole being is disposed towards service as the primary expression of the pastoral charity that marks his life.

Cruciform Service

We saw earlier that the shape of Christ’s servanthood was cruciform. Configured as he is to Christ the servant, the shape of the priest’s servanthood is also cruciform, having horizontal and vertical dimensions. On the horizontal level, the priest serves with all the baptized through the corporal works of mercy and faithfulness to the ordinary duties and demands of everyday ministerial life. He fulfills his service by spending time with people, getting to know them, being available, professional, listening to people, accompanying them and supporting them on the daily journey of life and discipleship. Through his sacramental ministry, he draws close to the sick, the vulnerable and marginalized with compassion, wisdom and understanding. Through his involvement in the local schools through chaplaincy and management, he serves the cause of good with others by responsible stewardship, upholding Christian ethos and being a visible faith presence in the community.  Through his involvement with parish finance and pastoral councils, he fulfills his call to leadership and a collaborator with all the baptized. These are just some examples of the countless opportunities to serve that are available to priests on a daily basis.

Yet, this service of God’s people “should not be motivated by a desire to please them but by the demands of Christian teaching and life”.[2] This means that priestly service is always directed to a higher good, namely that the people we serve come to a mature faith in Christ and belong more intentionally to the family of the Church. Serving God’s people is carried out by being servants of the Word that we are ordained to preach and teach, being “co-workers with the truth” (3 John 1:8), directing them and accompanying them to reach Christian maturity (Cf. Eph. 4:11-15). This happens particularly in settings such as the Eucharist, the confessional and spiritual direction. This is because priests are ministers of the new covenant (2 Cor. 3:6) with “the message of reconciliation” that has been entrusted to them to proclaim. Priests are “servants of Christ and stewards of God’s mysteries” (1 Cor. 4:1; Cf. Lumen Gentium, 41).

This theology of priesthood is a corrective against any reduction of the priest’s role to remain at the level of social leadership. While his ministry of service is grounded in the human condition and in the social settings, his vocation is to form disciples of Christ as one himself, to serve the vocation to holiness of all the baptized and to nurture their spiritual growth within the Body of Christ.[3] Animated by a zeal for souls, priests serve with the ultimate goal in view, namely that no one be lost and that all reach their destiny of eternal communion with the Father. He is a servant of the Church’s deepest vocation – to be a sign and instrument of communion with God and one another – the communion that saves.

Conclusion

Clarification of the priest’s identity as servant is an essential antidote to the clericalism that “was frequently associated with hurt and abuse of power by participants in the process”.[4] A relational, co-responsible and servant model of priesthood “helps to overcome clericalism understood as the use of power to one’s own advantage and the distortion of the authority of the church that is that is at the service of the people of God”[5]

Putting it more positively, the example of priests whose lives are subordinated to the needs and spiritual welfare of the people they serve is a wonderful witness offered to the narcissism and self -focus of our society. Priests are servants of Jesus Christ who are ordained to “take care of the Church as a devoted father takes care of his household” (Cf. 1 Tim. 3:5-7). Priestly renewal begins with an awareness that “each of us has received a special grace, so, like good stewards responsible for all these different graces of God, put yourselves at the service of others’ (1 Pet. 4:10).

As this article has sought to explain, the identity of the ordained priest as servant is grounded in his configuration to and communion with Christ the servant who “loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Eph. 5:1-2). The days of priests “lording it over” those in their charge are gone (Cf. 1 Pet. 5:3). The authority of priests does not come from imitation of secular models of power but in being a servant leader, imbued with the spirit of Christ himself who did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

[1] Presbyterorum Ordinis, 14.

[2] Presbyterorum Ordinis, 6.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Irish Synthesis Document, p.8

[5] For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation and Mission, para. 74.