One of the wonders of today’s modern technology is Facebook. According to the Wikipedia entry on the subject: “Facebook is a social networking website [in which] … users can add people as friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves.” On Friday 11 June, feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Pope Benedict XVI officially concluded the Year for Priests. Throughout this year he delivered three inspiring catecheses that portray how priests are Christ’s Facebooks for the people they minister to. For the German Pontiff, the priestly tasks of teaching, sanctifying and governing are three effective modes that make a priest Christ’s living Facebook.
In his first catechesis on the priest’s mission as teacher, the Pope affirms that the presbyter fruitfully represents Christ the Head through his munus docendi (teaching task). The priest is a teacher when he “render(s) present, in the confusion and disorientation of our times, the light of the Word of God, the light that is Christ himself in this our world… In the confusion of all the philosophies, the priest teaches in the name of Christ present, he proposes the truth that is Christ himself, his word, his way of living and of going forward. True for the priest is what Christ said of himself: ‘My teaching is not mine’ (John 7:16); that is, Christ does not propose himself, but, as Son, is the voice, the word of the Father. The priest must also speak and act like this: ‘My doctrine is not mine, I do not propagate my ideas or what pleases me, but I am the mouth and heart of Christ and make present this unique and common doctrine, which the universal Church has created and which creates eternal life.” In his simple yet profound fashion, Pope Benedict XVI consolidated St Augustine’s idea concerning the priests’ identification with Christ’s word. “And we, what are we? Ministers (of Christ), his servants, because all that we contribute to you is not ours, but we bring it out from his storeroom. And we also live from it, because we are servants like you” (Discourse 229/E, 4).
By letting the truthfulness of God’s Word prevail in both his words and actions, the priest would naturally allow Christ to serve his people via his ministry. As the administrator of God’s grace, the minister is inherently called to help all those who cross his path to connect with God. This capacity of connecting people with the divine realm is theologically known as the munus sanctificandi (sanctifying task). Such a task puts “man in contact with the truth, of helping him to know the essential of his life, of reality itself”, namely God. In his second catechesis on the priest’s mission to sanctify, Pope Benedict XVI reiterated the need for priests to help people come into contact with God through his word and sacraments.
“An essential part of the grace of priesthood is the gift, the task to create this contact. This is done in the proclamation of the Word of God, in which He comes to meet us. It is done in a particularly profound way in the sacraments. Immersion in the Paschal Mystery of the death and resurrection of Christ happens in baptism, is reinforced in Confirmation and in reconciliation, is nourished in the Eucharist, the sacrament that builds the Church as People of God, Body of Christ, Temple of the Holy Spirit. … As the Gospels state, Jesus affirms that the proclamation of the Kingdom of God is the objective of his mission; this proclamation, however, is not only a ‘speech,’ but includes, at the same time, his very action; the signs, the miracles that Jesus does indicate that the Kingdom comes as a present reality and that it coincides in the end with his very person, with the gift of himself... And the same is true for the ordained minister: he, the priest, represents Christ, the One sent by the Father, he continues his mission, through the ‘word’ and the ‘sacrament,’ in this totality of body and soul, of sign and word”. Similarly, in a letter to Bishop Honoratus of Thiabe, St Augustine defined priests as “the servants of Christ, the ministers of his word and of his sacrament [who] must, therefore, do what he commanded or permitted” (Epist. 228,2).
Finally, the priest’s teaching and sanctifying tasks unravel the basis of their authentic union: the munus regendi (guiding task). The main origin for the presbyter’s guiding task is Christ. Thus, the priest can aptly govern and guide the portion of the people that God has entrusted him with, thanks to the authority Christ has faithfully bestowed on him in his priestly ordination. The Holy Father explained that the priest’s hierarchical communion with his fellow pastors brings about and empowers his sacerdotal anointing. This is so because “it subjects the person to the vocation, to the mystery of Christ; it makes of the individual a servant of Christ and only insofar as he is a servant of Christ can he govern, guide for Christ and with Christ. Because of this, whoever enters in the sacred order of the sacrament, the ‘hierarchy’… enters in a new bond of obedience to Christ: he is tied to him in communion with the other members of the sacred order of the priesthood”. In this sacred bond the priest fully understands that “Jesus’ way of governing is not that of domination, but it is the humble and loving service of the washing of the feet, and Christ’s kingship over the universe is not an earthly triumph, but finds its culmination on the wood of the cross, which becomes judgment for the world and point of reference for the exercise of authority that is the true expression of pastoral charity”.
Through these three basic priestly tasks of teaching, sanctifying and governing, we priests mystically, ecclesiastically, socially and culturally network Christ’s love for every human being.