HAPPY FEAST
mohan Maria Raj
Pope francis speaks to the Priests
Francis beseeched priests: “There should be no Church without Jesus and without mercy!” Because when this happens, when a priest “acts like a bureaucrat and obeys the law by the letter, clinging to it, the Church, which is a mother, turns into a mother-in-law for many faithful. Please always make people feel that the Church is a mother!”
The strength of a priest depends on his relationship with Christ.
Pope Francis asked a gathering of priests at the beginning of Lent, “At night, how does your day end? With God or with television?” At the heart of any priest’s ministry must be a living relationship with Christ, so that the priest sees as Christ sees and loves as he loves. It took the disciples time to really “become Christ” to others so this is not a given at ordination. For this to happen, the priest needs to continue to grow in union with Christ through prayer and intimacy.
“shepherds living with the ‘smell of the sheep’” If priests truly are to be pastors rather than administrators they need to “go out to meet the people,” especially the lost sheep. The pastor who stays behind his computer in the presbytery, he declared, is not an “authentic pastor.”
Pope Francis has repeatedly criticised priests who give in to vanity and worldly ambition. During his years in Buenos Aires, Cardinal Bergoglio’s example of living in a small apartment rather than an episcopal palace, taking public transportation rather than a car with a driver and cooking for himself (all of which we see mirrored in his new life as Pope) was a clear challenge to his fellow priests to examine the sincerity and authenticity of their own spiritual poverty.
The priest must be a model of integrity. There can be no place in priests for a haughty clericalism, any kind of abuse of their position or a concern to climb the ecclesial career ladder – Pope Francis is calling and requiring priests to understand that their authority derives not from worldly power but from personal integrity and humility in imitation of Christ.
Finally the priest is to be a source of blessing for his people. The anointing which he receives at his ordination is not meant just for himself – it is to flow through him to those he serves. As Pope Francis said at his first Chrism Mass, “A good priest can be recognised by the way his people are anointed... when our people are anointed with the oil of gladness, it is obvious: for example, when they leave Mass looking as if they have heard good news.” This was also very much the theme of his second Chrism Mass homily – the priest is “anointed with the oil of gladness so as to anoint others with the oil of gladness.” In his preaching, in his prayer, through being truly present to his flock in the realities of their everyday lives, the priest is to help them “feel that the fragrance of the Anointed One, Christ, has come to them through the priest.”
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