Thank you for the priesthood
May 14, 2008 2:19 pm
It was a shock. Well, not quite a shock, but a friend in Virginia was cleaning house recently and sent me old newspaper clippings about my years in Baltimore. It’s clear from the pictures that I was younger then, and doing a good bit of broadcasting as the Director of Communications for the Archdiocese of Baltimore.
Today, I’ll celebrate 44 years of ordination as a priest. As the years pile up a priest begins to realize the reason for his ordination is as valid today as it was on the day of ordination. I try to attend a priest’s ordination each year so that I will be reminded of my own and reminded, too, of the ritual that tells every priest that he is ordained, “to baptize, to preach and to offer sacrifice.”
You heard those phrases or at least two of them in the gospel read for the feast of the Ascension: “Go therefore, make disciples of all the nations, baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Hoy Spirit, and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you.” As I understand the gospel there is only one way to eventually make disciples and that is by preaching. St. Paul says to us, “Faith comes through hearing…” That indicates to me that we must preach our faith if we are going to be able to bring people to it. That doesn’t mean that speaking with someone about faith at a water fountain doesn’t help them on their journey, or that the example of a well lived life doesn’t indeed bring people to faith, but somewhere the Word of God needs to be opened for people so that they can have faith in Jesus, and preaching is vital to the opening of the Word for others.
Baptizing people is the sign of commitment to faith. The story of Paul and Silas in jail is a reminder of how people come to know faith and what happens when the Spirit intervenes. Paul is in prison, there’s an earthquake, the jail doors come off and Paul stays in prison. The guard comes to him and asks what he must do to be saved? Baptism is the answer and then the jailer gets his entire household to be baptized and the scriptures note, “… and the whole family celebrated their conversion to belief in God.” They celebrate their conversion to Christ, a wonderful reminder to all of us of the gift that faith brings to us.
And when people have been brought to faith, how will it be sustained? Through the Eucharist. There is no greater privilege of priesthood that being able to preside over the Eucharist that feeds us and gives us new life as Christians; no greater privilege than being able to offer the sacrifice of Christ again for all the people. So, it is a privilege to preside over a community, a privilege which I take most seriously. And I thank each of you for giving me that privilege Sunday after Sunday here at St. Augustine.
God bless,
(Rev.) John Geaney, CSP
Pastor
May 11, 2008