Holy Thursday, the day when Jesus instituted the sacrament of Holy Orders, is an excellent opportunity to rediscover with joy and unending hope, the secret word or the string of characters which persuasively display the authentication of Jesus’ powerful presence among us, namely through the ministerial priesthood. The priestly life’s password is fraternal love, ‘caritas’.
To the apostles, His chosen twelve and friends, the ones who were directly commissioned by the Father to represent Him on earth, Jesus said: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you” (Jn 15, 12-14). Love as charity is the distinctive characteristic of the priest of Jesus Christ.
Laying one’s life for one’s friends is the core of priestly service. It is the hallmark of a life lovingly dedicated to God for the spiritual well-being of the brothers and sisters in faith, the Church. It is the august completion of what Jesus says in the Gospel of Mark:
“For the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mk 10, 45). Even to the point of shedding one’s blood for the consolidation in faith of the flock. One of the major exponents of the patristic era, Saint Augustine, qualifies good shepherding with martyrdom. In his Sermon 138, the Doctor of Grace says: “Christ is the good shepherd? What about Peter? Isn’t he a good shepherd? Didn’t he too lay down his life for the sheep? What about Paul? What about the other apostles? What about the blessed martyr bishops who came after their times? What indeed about this saint of ours, Cyprian? Weren’t they all good shepherds, and not hired hands, of whom it says, ‘Amen I tell you, they have received their reward’ (Matt 6, 2)? So all of these were good shepherds, not just because they shed their blood, but because they shed it for the sheep. You see, they didn’t shed it out of haughty self-esteem, but of love”.
Augustine is well aware of the Pauline encomium on what true means, principally that without charity martyrdom simply perishes. “If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing” (1 Cor 13, 3). Reading through this famous thirteenth chapter of Saint Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, it becomes clearly evident that priestly charity is demanding, almost impossible to attain were it not for God’s grace which is constantly at work. Priestly charity “is patient and kind; [it] is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. [It] does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. [It] bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. [It] never ends” (1 Cor 13, 4-8).
The right context in which this pastoral charity is born to flourish and give life in abundance is the certainly the community of believers, the Church. In his post-synodal apostolic exhortation ‘On the formation of Priests in the circumstances of the present day’, ‘Pastores Dabo Vobis’, Pope John Paul II reiterated this point. “The essential content of this pastoral charity is the gift of self, the total gift of self to the Church, following the example of Christ. ‘Pastoral charity is the virtue by which we imitate Christ in his self - giving and service. It is not just what we do, but our gift of self, which manifests Christ's love for his flock. The gift of self, which is the source and synthesis of pastoral charity, is directed toward the Church. This was true of Christ who ‘loved the Church and gave himself up for her’ (Eph. 5:25), and the same must be true for the priest. With pastoral charity, which distinguishes the exercise of the priestly ministry as an ‘amoris officium’, ‘the priest, who welcomes the call to ministry, is in a position to make this a loving choice, as a result of which the Church and souls become his first interest, and with this concrete spirituality he becomes capable of loving the universal Church and that part of it entrusted to him with the deep love of a husband for his wife.’The gift of self has no limits, marked as it is by the same apostolic and missionary zeal of Christ, the good shepherd, who said: ‘And I have other sheep, that are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will heed my voice. So there shall be one flock, one shepherd’ (Jn. 10:16)” (§ 23).
In his homily at the Eucharistic adoration in Seoul, the Polish Pontiff stressed that as priests, “pastoral charity determines our way of thinking and acting, our way of relating to people. It makes special demands on us”. Are we priests really mindful of the needs of the Universal and the Particular Church we serve? Do we cultivate in ourselves and in the people entrusted to our care the ethos of collaboration? Are we prepared to let the people help us to grow and mature in our priestly consecration?
It all depends if we know, memorise and type well that crucial password of our priestly life: Charity!