Fr. Z Explains Priesthood

From the Pastor:    Fr. Z Explains Priesthood

       Please see the full article cited below at wdtprs.com (see the May 26, 2025 posting). Fr. John Zuhlsdorf does a magnificent job of looking at the 1962 Mass prayers “Pro seipso sacerdote – For the priest himself” and explaining the priesthood as he does so. Due to space limitations I have had to cut several hundred words from the article, including the text of the Mass prayers themselves (!) but I think you will benefit from his explanations even with those important parts missing. Yet I still encourage you to go read the whole thing on his site to get even more out of it.
       This time of year many new priests are being ordained and, consequently, many priests observe their own anniversaries. In the traditional, Vetus Ordo of the Roman Rite a priest can add orations “for himself… Pro seipso sacerdote“, on the anniversary of his ordination. The prayer focuses on priest’s self-awareness of his lowliness. Who he is and what he does is from God’s grace and choice, not his own. It also emphasizes the relationship of the priest to the altar, that is, the bond of the priest and Holy Mass. Priests are ordained for sacrifice. No priest, no sacrifice, no Mass, no Eucharist. In the older form of Holy Mass, during the Roman Canon after the consecration at the Suppplices te rogamus… the priest bends low over the altar. He puts his hands on it. They, his hands and the altar, were anointed with Sacred Chrism. He kisses the altar. Then he makes signs of the Cross over the consecrated Host on the corporal, over the Precious Blood in the chalice, and over himself. Christ is Victim. Christ is Priest. The priest is victim and priest at the same time. This moment during Holy Mass reveals his mysterious bond with the altar, where the priest sacrifices the victim. Sacrificial victim and sacrificing priest are one. At the altar he is alter Christus, another Christ, offering and offered.
       What also comes to mind, in considering the bond of priest and altar and victim upon it, is the Augustinian reflection of the speaker of the Word and the Word spoken, and the message and reality of the Word and the Voice which speaks it. The voice of the priest and the priest himself are merely the means God uses in the sacred action, the sacramental mysteries at the altar, to renew in that moment what He has wrought. Finally, this is done through mercy. The words misericors, clementia, largitas, benignus all point to the mercy of God. The priest speaks and God makes what he speaks reality. He takes the priest’s insubstantial words and makes them firm and real. He takes unworthy men, priests, and gives them His own power. The priest must get himself out of the way when he is at the altar, where the True Actor is in action, Christ the Eternal and High Priest. This is why ad orientem worship is so important. I think that there is little chance of a renewal of Eucharistic faith and piety in the Church without ad orientem worship and without the slow but sure elimination of Communion on the hand. It leaves me astonished, but not surprised, that some bishops fight this. I suspect I am pretty safe in assuming that they neither know nor have celebrated the older, Vetus Ordo. The Vetus Ordo teaches us a lot about priests, who they are and what they are for. That’s not wanted by many today. They want something different.
       Priests are sinners in need of a Savior just like everyone else. They confess their own sins and receive absolution from a priest like everyone else. They, too, must do penance for past sins like everyone else. They, while coming to the altar as alter Christus, come to the altar as sinners. There is only one perfect one. In the older Vetus Ordo of Holy Mass, the priest is constantly reminded about who he is and who he isn’t. In the newer form? Not so much. In this Secret, spoken quietly, the priest prays for what only God can do: remove the stains of sins from his soul. The prayer brings also to mind the burden of the yoke of the priesthood, symbolized by the priestly vestment, the chasuble. Whatever its shape, the chasuble is a sign of the priest’s subjugation. As the priest puts on this most visible of his vestments, he traditionally prays, “O Lord, Who said: My yoke is easy and My burden light: grant that I may bear it well and follow after You with thanksgiving. Amen.” The yoke is the ancient sign of subjugation. The ancient Romans caused the conquered to pass under a yoke, iugum. This attitude of the priest at the altar, formed by the prayer and the very vestment he wears, can teach us a great deal about the nature and design of all the things that we employ for the celebration of Mass.
       On the day of ordination the priest lies down upon the floor. He is, in that moment, part of the floor. He is the lowest thing in the church. Consider two sets of contrasts. First, there is the contrast of the low state of the servant sinner and the majesty of God. Second, there is the present moment contrasted with the future to come. Majestas is like gloria, Hebrew kabod or Greek doxa, a divine characteristic which – some day – we may encounter in heaven in such a way that we will be transformed by it forever and forever.  When Moses encountered God in the cloud on the mountain and in the tent, he came forth with a face shining so brightly that he had to wear a veil. This is a foreshadowing of the transformative power of God’s majestas which he will share with the saints in heaven. 

I hope you enjoyed Fr. Z’s insights into priesthood as much as I did!

With prayers for your holiness,
Rev. Fr. Edwin Palka