On the occasion of his Golden Jubilee of priestly ordination, Pope John Paul II wrote an autobiographical treatise on the priesthood, Gift and Mystery. In answering the question, Who is the priest? he explained that a priest is “a steward of the mysteries of God.” A priest exercises his ministry in virtue of the sacrament of Holy Orders which he receives at ordination. Unlike other vocations, priesthood is not defined in the first instance by what a priest does, by his function. The priest’s is an ontological vocation. By that we mean that his call to be a priest is first and foremost a matter of his being one with Christ.

In the title of his most famous work, The Priest, the Man of God, St. Joseph Cafasso – spiritual director of St. John Bosco – describes succinctly the priestly vocation: a priest is a man of God; he is a kind of ambassador of Jesus Christ in the world. For this reason he finds himself in an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. Indeed, in the post Synodal document, Pastores Dabo Vobis, Pope John Paul II explained the priest’s identity in terms of his relationship to the Blessed Trinity. The priest “is sent forth by the Father through the mediatorship of Jesus Christ, to whom he is configured in a special way as head and shepherd of his people, in order to live and work by the power of the Holy Spirit in service of the Church and for the salvation of the world.” PDV #12

Bishop Alvaro del Portillo clarified this simple definition by saying that a priest is a man of God for others. The priesthood, like marriage, is a sacrament – and a vocation – at the service of communion and mission. A priest continues the work of Christ in the age of the Church until the end of time. There is an intimate link between the priest and the Church. The priest seeks to bring people into a relationship with Jesus Christ and with one another in the faith community. This is the service of communion. He is also mandated by Christ and the Church to take up the great commission of Jesus to go out to the entire world and tell the Good News of salvation.

The new Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church places the vocation of priesthood squarely in its ecclesial context. ‘A priest, although ordained for a universal mission, exercises his ministry in a particular Church. This ministry is pursued in sacramental brotherhood with other priests who form the “presbyterate”. In communion with the bishop, and depending on him, they bear the responsibility for the particular Church.’ CCCC #329

What does a priest do?
We all know what priests do. They say Mass, hear confessions, run the parish, visit the sick and help in the parish school. They do lots of different things that are visible to their parishioners. All these activities and the many that are not known - like late night hospital calls, one on one counselling, etc. – have their genesis in the priest’s relationship to Christ. The interior life of the priest is the engine room of his vocation and allows him to exercise pastoral charity especially under difficult circumstances. His closeness to the Holy Eucharist and his commitment to the Prayer of the Church and meditation enable him to reach out with love to those who need and want the presence of Christ in their lives.

In seeking to understand the essence of the priesthood, Pope John Paul II wrote that “a man offers his humanity to Christ, so that Christ may use him as an instrument of salvation, making him as it were into another Christ. Unless we grasp the mystery of this ‘exchange,’ we will not understand how it can be that a young man, hearing the words ‘Follow me!,’ can give up everything for Christ, in the certainty that if he follows this path he will find complete personal fulfilment.”
A man becomes a priest because he understands something of this dynamic. In a sense a genuine call to priesthood is irresistible. In the depths of his heart a man hears Jesus say to him: “follow me!” The desire for personal fulfilment and a reason for existence in accord with will of God means that in total freedom a man can say yes to God.

A friend of mine in the seminary once commented that the call to priesthood is surely the most exciting and attractive mission in the world. Young men searching for a raison d’etre can have a part in changing the world. United to Christ with their self-donation men can make a real difference to the suffering all around us, by being the heart of Christ for their brothers and sisters.

In his homily for Holy Thursday this year Pope Benedict reiterated this: “Being a priest means becoming an ever closer friend of Jesus Christ with the whole of our existence. The world needs God - not just any god but the God of Jesus Christ, the God who made himself flesh and blood, who loved us to the point of dying for us, who rose and created within himself room for man. This God must live in us and we in him. This is our priestly call: only in this way can our action as priests bear fruit.”

The pope ended his homily with the words of the Italian priest, Fr. Andrea Santoro, from the Diocese of Rome who was assassinated in Trebizond while he was praying. He said "I am here to dwell among these people and enable Jesus to do so by lending him my flesh.... One becomes capable of salvation only by offering one's own flesh. The evil in the world must be borne and the pain shared, assimilating it into one's own flesh as did Jesus".

In the priesthood a man gives his flesh and blood to Christ and the Church to use as God sees fits. ‘This is my body,” the priest says holding the host, but also speaking of his very self, “given up for you.”

by Fr Anthony Denton, Director of Vocations