This morning you awoke to your first full day as priests. The memory of the past few days and of today, the day of your first Masses, must mark every day for the rest of your lives. Arriving at this morning, particularly as a Jesuit, was a long process involving many steps, with the last two being ordination to the diaconate followed by yesterday's ordination to the presbyterate.
Both ordination rites charged you with what you are to be, who you are to be, how you are to be, and why you are to be. Both charges illuminated a dimension of the vocation to which you were called and which you accepted. Both are crucial to your vocations.
During your ordination to the diaconate you knelt in front of the bishop. He proffered one end of the Book of Gospels for you to grasp while he held the other. And he charged you using the following formula:
"Receive the Gospel of Christ, whose herald you now are. Believe what you read, teach what you believe, and practice what you teach."
Yesterday at your ordination to the presbyterate you again knelt in front of the bishop. He held the chalice containing wine and water with the host resting on the paten covering it. You held the chalice with him with one hand as the fingers of your other hand rested on the paten touching the host. Once again you were given a charge:
“Receive from the Holy People of God the gifts to be offered to God. Know what you do, imitate what you celebrate, and conform your life to the mystery of the Lord’s cross.”
If you keep both of these charges inscribed on your hearts and in your consciousness at all times the rest--be it teaching, social justice, practicing one of the professions, serving the missions, or even relaxing--will flow effortlessly.
The charges you (and we older priests) received at ordination unite us in a common bond; from the hidden Carthusian celebrating his daily Mass in solitude, to the Holy Father celebrating in a stadium, to most of us offering Mass at a nursing home chapel, or parish, in the community, or the multitude of other settings in which we exercise our priesthood.
Both charges began with the word 'receive.' We receive gifts, we receive news, we receive orders, mandates, and missions, we receive the Body and Blood of Christ. The meaning of receive is multifarious. Both of the charges began with the mandate, the order, the challenge, the demand, and the responsibility implied by the word receive. Each involved a giver and a gift, each involves a recipient and a response.
It seems fashionable to scoff at the idea of the ontological change, the fundamental change, in a man that is effected with ordination. I suspect it still is among some. But, appreciating and understanding that essential change that includes how you are perceived by others, (including close friends and family), as well as how you perceive yourself, is crucial to your priesthood. Each of you will have to figure out your relationship to that change for yourselves, just as every other priest has had to figure it out. It is real. It is, like most dimensions of the spiritual life, difficult if not impossible to articulate and describe. Thus, you will struggle with this part alone.
There is a saying attributed to various sources that hangs in some sacristies. It should hang in every sacristy: "Priest of God, celebrate this Mass as if it were your first Mass, your last Mass, your only Mass." It is good advice. It covers everything you received yesterday. Welcome.
____________________________________________
I was ordained twelve years ago today. Yesterday in several locations in the U.S.and Canada, twenty-two Jesuits were ordained priests. I wrote the above while recalling our ordination twelve years ago.
The first set of photos are screen captures from the live stream of the ordination at Fordham.
The laying on of hands. A deeply moving moment for all concerned.
One of the newly ordained praying part of the Eucharistic Prayer for the first time.
Blessing the ordaining bishop, in this case Carinal Tobin.
The cardinal kissing the hands he anointed only a little while earlier. I almost became unglued when Cardinal O'Malley did this.
Preparing to exit the church as priests.
Prostration twelve years ago. St. Ignatius Church at the edge of the Boston College campus.
Very near the end of Mass. The reality was just making itself felt.
+Fr. Jack, SJ, MD
