Traditionally, Maundy Thursday has been associated with the institution of two great sacraments which built the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ; namely, the Eucharist and the Ministerial Priesthood. In this special year dedicated to priests, it is all the more pertinent to reflect on the priest as Jesus’s anointed friend.
In the gospel of Mark, Jesus openly says that he chooses his ministers to be with him and then to send them to continue his saving mission in his name. “And he appointed twelve, to be with him, and to be sent out to preach” (Mk 3, 14). To be with Jesus is the basis of the priestly consecration. Staying at the Lord’s feet is the school from which every sort of apostolate is commenced and led to. Jesus’s loving rebuke to Martha is still valid for those of us priests who are caught up in that frantic activism which erodes our priestly being. “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things; one thing is needful. Mary has chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken away from her” (Lk 10, 41-42).
In his countless and inspiring speeches, Pope Benedict XVI never tires to highlight the need that priests become Jesus’s anointed friends. When addressing the superiors and students of the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, at the Consistory Hall, on Saturday 2 June 2007, the Holy Father accentuated the urgency of spending time with the Master. “The Gospel witness is asked to remain faithful in every circumstance to the mission entrusted to him. For you this requires, in the first place, a personal and profound experience of the Incarnate God, an intimate friendship with Jesus, in whose Name the Church sends you for a singular apostolic duty. Dear friends, … continue to cultivate an intimate and personal friendship with Jesus, seeking to know ever better and to assimilate the thoughts and sentiments that were his (cf. Phil 2: 5). The more profoundly you know him, the more firmly you remain united to him and the more faithful you remain to your priestly duties, the more and the better will you be able to serve humanity and the more fruitful will your dialogue with people be. The peace that you will propose in cases of tension or conflict will seem possible and the more consoling will be the comfort which, in the Name of Christ and His Church, you will offer to tried and defenceless people.”
A good number of the faithful nowadays are capable to discern authentic priests from sheer actors or first class managers. Priests who spend considerable time conversing with Jesus can be likened with “a wise man who built his house upon the rock; and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock” (Matt 7, 24-25). On the contrary, those priests who ruin their priestly consecration by letting themselves be slaves of sterile activism are precisely the ones who act “like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand; and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell; and great was the fall of it” (Matt 7, 26-27). Within the same speech the Pope said that “the Christian faith cannot be reduced to mere intellectual knowledge of Christ and his doctrine; it must also be expressed in the imitation of the examples Christ has given us as Son of the Father and Son of man”. A priest, who puts his intimate time with Jesus as the top of his day’s priorities, can naturally make his own the Psalmist prayer: “The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold” (Ps 18, 2). Since such a priest knows that his sacerdotal life entirely depends on what the Master shares with him, he gradually befriends Jesus so closely that he can literally eat the same bread, thereby becoming Jesus’ faithful companion (as the word companion derives from the Medieval Latin and means he who has in common (cum, with-) the bread (panis)).
As shepherds of Christ’s flock, Saint Peter ceaselessly reminds us of how to prioritise in our priestly calling. Speaking on our behalf he placed the intimate friendship with Jesus as the bedrock and soul of and for the apostolate. “But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word” (Acts 6, 4). His decision was undoubtedly inspired by the Holy Spirit as both the Church’s continuation as well as the countless throngs of deacons, priests and bishops throughout the ages unfailingly attest to.
Friendship with Jesus is the everlasting value that this Year for Priests should inculcate in any priestly heart. For this end, I would like to suggest that the prayer written by the Cistercian Abbot, Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard, the author of the classic book The soul of the apostolate, becomes the daily prayerful yes of every priest: “O God, give the Church so many apostles, but revive in their heart an ardent thirst for intimacy with You and at the same time a desire to work for the good of their neighbour. Give all a contemplative activity and an active contemplation.” So be it!
Fr Mario Attard OFM Cap
San Gwann