On visiting recently the Holy Land, I hardly realised the richness and freshness the sacrament of Holy Orders possesses in itself. When visiting the Nativity Basilica, I could not miss the intrinsic relationship which exists between the nativity mystery and the ministerial priesthood. My father Saint Francis helped me a great deal to discover this powerful and dynamic connection.

In his first admonition Saint Francis writes: “He came into the womb of the Virgin; daily He Himself comes to us with like humility; daily He descends from the bosom of His Father upon the altar in the hands of the priest. And as He appeared in true flesh to the Holy Apostles, so now He shows Himself to us in the sacred Bread; and as they by means of their fleshly eyes saw only His flesh, yet contemplating Him with their spiritual eyes, believed Him to be God, so we, seeing bread and wine with bodily eyes, see and firmly believe it to be His most holy Body and true and living Blood. And in this way our Lord is ever with His faithful, as He Himself says: “Behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world”.

If the significance of the word Bethlehem in Hebrew is “the house of bread” and in Arabic “the house of flesh,” and we acknowledge their close connection with one another, we have every reason to detect and appreciate the Eucharistic connotations in the very name of the town in which Jesus, the Son of God, was born for us and our salvation. And since “the priest acting in persona Christi celebrates the Sacrifice of the Mass”, (The Priest, Pastor and leader of the Parish Community, 1), the perpetuation of what started in Nazareth, concretised in Bethlehem and ultimately fulfilled in Jerusalem, we can say with confident faith that the priest is the man of Bethlehem. Through the anointing of the Holy Spirit, in his very person and deeds done in Jesus’ person, the priest brings to our altar Jesus, the Son of God, born in the manger of the Eucharistic table, the place of his continual self-giving love for us, his people.

Fr Mario Attard OFM Cap

San Gwann