The Priest at Prayer, April 24

The Priest and the Eternal Truths
Esteem for the Priestly Vocation

Second Meditation

Graces of Ordination

I. Let us consider the scene in which St. John records one of the phases of the institution of the priesthood. Appearing to His Apostles, the Risen Christ says to them:

Peace be to you; as the Father hath sent me, I also send you.
And having said this, he breathed upon them, and said to them: Receive the Holy Ghost; whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained.­ (John 20:21-22)

The symbolical gesture of breathing upon the Apostles clearly recalls, and even imitates, the first creating of the human soul: He breathed upon his face the breath of life. But on this occasion the breath of life is the very Spirit of God infused into the Apostles and into all ordained priests, not so much for their own benefit as for them to transmit - as Adam transmitted physical life - to all those who were to become throughout the centuries children of God, children born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:13)

II. Consider some of the graces which that Life-giving breath of Christ has imparted to you.

In the first place, by way of remote preparation for the priesthood, it gave you perhaps from early childhood a marked bent towards the clerical state; it gently and powerfully steered your will and all your propensities towards the priesthood.

Eventually, when the significance of your acts dawned upon you, you found your soul engraved by the Finger of God with your vocation's noblest aim - you wanted to work for the salvation of others, and your heart kept on saying perhaps with St. Paul:
"For my own part, I will gladly spend and be spent on your souls' behalf, though you should love me too little for loving you too well." (2 Cor. 12:15)

Thus, without effort, almost without understanding the meaning of it, you found yourself enriched with the divine germ of those beautiful qualities and virtues that one day were to wreathe your glorious priestly diadem.

III. Recount the graces you have received through the Sacrament of Holy Orders.

Besides Sanctifying grace there is the Sacramental grace: divine enlightenment and assistance forthcoming to you whenever there was a sacred ministerial duty imposing a difficulty upon you, or an obstacle to surmount for the right fulfilment of your manifold obligations.

Turn over and over in your mind, in particular, the sovereign powers wherewith you have been invested:

the divine commission to preach the word of God;
your unfettered handling of the Body and Blood of Christ;
the announcing and communicating to sinners of the grace of reconciliation. . . .

Quid retribuam Domino pro omnibus quae retribuit mihi...?

RESOLUTION
Dear Lord, I who am so profuse in my compliments and tokens of gratitude towards my neighbour for the smallest kindness, have I ever spent so much as a quarter of an hour pondering over and thanking Thee for the gift of my priesthood?

From now on not a day will pass without my doing this, at least in my morning and evening prayers.
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Adapted from The Priest at Prayer
by Fr. Eugenio Escribano, C.M. (© 1954)
Translated by B.T. Buckley, C.M.

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Please pray for our priests and pray for vocations to the priesthood!