Thursday June 20 marked the 100th day of Pope Francis’ pontificate. It was also the 10th anniversary of the sacerdotal ordination of 11 priests, namely Fr Timon Mercieca, Fr John Berry, Fr Antoine Borg, Fr Ivan Scicluna, Fr Louis Farrugia, Fr Robert Grech, Fr Jurgen Cucciardi O.Carm, Fr Renald Loffreda O.Carm, Fr Ivan Scicluna O.Carm, Fr Stephen Mifsud MSSP and myself. Eight of us had the grace of concelebrating at a Eucharist purposely organized at Saint Peter in Chains Church in Birzebbugia on Thursday at 6.30 pm. My heartfelt thanks go to the parish priest Fr Nicholas Pace.
When contemplating on the priestly ministry in his famous homily he gave for the first Chrism Mass of his pontificate, Pope Francis said that “a good priest can be recognized by the way his people are anointed”. What does he mean by this bold statement? When people experience the incessant intercession of their priests on their behalf they are truly transformed in Christ thanks to the oil that comes out from the priestly sacrificial consecration.
The Pope explained: “People thank us because they feel that we have prayed over the realities of their everyday lives, their troubles, their joys, their burdens and their hopes. And when they feel that the fragrance of the Anointed One, of Christ, has come to them through us, they feel encouraged to entrust to us everything they want to bring before the Lord: ‘Pray for me, Father, because I have this problem’, ‘Bless me Father’, ‘Pray for me’ – these words are the sign that the anointing has flowed down to the edges of the robe, for it has turned into a prayer of supplication, the supplication of the People of God.
When we have this relationship with God and with his people, and grace passes through us, then we are priests, mediators between God and men”.
But supplication by its own, although it helps, is not enough. We are consecrated priests to serve God’s people. In that celebrated homily the Holy Father lamented that certain priests become priests solely for themselves. “It is not in soul-searching or constant introspection that we encounter the Lord: self-help courses can be useful in life, but to live our priestly life going from one course to another, from one method to another, leads us to become pelagians and to minimize the power of grace”. Hence, “the priest who seldom goes out of himself, who anoints little ... misses out on the best of our people, on what can stir the depths of his priestly heart. Those who do not go out of themselves, instead of being mediators, gradually become intermediaries, managers. We know the difference: the intermediary, the manager, ‘has already received his reward’, and since he doesn’t put his own skin and his own heart on the line, he never hears a warm, heartfelt word of thanks. This is precisely the reason for the dissatisfaction of some, who end up sad – sad priests - in some sense becoming collectors of antiques or novelties, instead of being shepherds living with ‘the odour of the sheep’”.
Within the same breath the Pope explained what does it mean to be a shepherd. He said that the grace of the priesthood “comes alive and flourishes to the extent that we [priests], in faith, go out and give ourselves and the Gospel to others, giving what little ointment we have to those who have nothing, nothing at all... We need to ‘go out’, then, in order to experience our own anointing, its power and its redemptive efficacy: to the ‘outskirts’ where there is suffering, bloodshed, blindness that longs for sight, and prisoners in thrall to many evil masters.”
Am I really living my priesthood by serving others?
Fr Mario Attard OFM Cap