The Role of Mary in the Priestly Vocation

(Outline of Sharing at the Novena to Our Mother of Perpetual Help on 30 January 2010)

Luke 1:28

When the angel of the Lord had come to her, he said "Hail full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed are Thou among women.”

Then Mary said “Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to Your will.”

John 2:5

His mother said to her servants, "Do whatever He tells you.”

Judith 15: 9-11

You are the glory of Jerusalem, the honour of our people … the hand of the Lord has strengthened You and therefore, You shall be blessed forever.

The Inseparable Link – the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Priesthood (Part II)

(Sharing at the Novena to Our Mother of Perpetual Help on 23 January 2010)

Dear brothers & sisters in Christ,

Last week, you have heard about how Mary is linked to the priesthood by the Mystery of the Incarnation. We saw parallels in Mary and the priest’s role in making possible God the Son’s presence in the world for our redemption; in engendering life and being at the service of mankind or life; in their motherhood in the Holy Spirit; in the offering of their lives to God as a worship; and in offering Christ to the Father for the expiation of our sins.

Drawing further from Cardinal Rivera’s text, presented in the second International Encounter of Priests in 1997, we shall now see Mary’s presence in the priest’s pastoral ministry.

The Virgin is an “operative presence” throughout history, especially in the “centre of the pilgrim Church”, where she performs multiple functions: cooperating with the birth of the faithful into the life of grace, showing how to follow Christ, and providing “motherly mediation”. In their pastoral ministry in the life of the Church, priests live out this motherly presence when God’s word, faithfully welcomed and given through preaching and baptism, engenders into new and immortal life the children conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of God.

Mary’s spirit of service is shown by the concrete service, i.e. to the Church, that must animate the spiritual existence of every priest, because of his configuration with Jesus Christ, Head and Servant of the Church.

The parallels show how Mary and priests are both committed to the mission of proclaiming, bearing witness to and giving Christ to the world. This is partly why she loves them specially, said Pope Benedict XVI in his General Audience on 12 August 2009. The other reason is that they are more like Jesus, the supreme love of her heart. But Mary’s preferential love for priests is above all due to the special relationship of motherhood existing between them. Nearing His death on the Cross, Jesus entrusted His mother to His beloved disciple and vice versa. The Holy Father pointed out that this beloved disciple prefigures all the people called by the Lord to be the “beloved disciple” and thus also particularly priests. St. John took Jesus’ mother, Mary, “to his own home”; in Greek translation this means that he took Mary into the depths of his being, bringing her into the dynamism of his own entire existence. Because the priest is identified with and sacramentally conformed to Jesus, Son of God and Son of Mary, every priest can and must feel that he really is a specially beloved son of this loftiest and humblest of Mothers, so said the Pope.

Now, does the priestly nature of Mary’s role in our redemption point to God’s approval of women priests ordination? The answer is no. Why? Because Jesus Christ did not allow it. I quote Pope John Paul II, “…the priest represents Christ himself in his relationship to the Church. Now, this relationship is spousal in nature: Christ is the bridegroom…; the Church is the bride…. Because the relationship between Christ and the Church is validly expressed in sacramental Orders, it is necessary that Christ be represented by a man. The distinction between the sexes is very significant in this case and cannot be disregarded without undermining the sacrament.” (unquote)

He further stated: “Mary was not called to the ministerial priesthood. But the mission she received had no less value than a pastoral ministry; indeed, it was quite superior. She received a maternal mission at the highest level--to be the mother of Jesus Christ, and thus the Mother of God. This mission would broaden into a motherhood for all men and women in the order of grace.” (unquote) Thus Mary showed us that by total obedience to God’s plan for us, which He would assign according to our nature as man or woman, we will bear fruits for His kingdom.



We have seen Mary’s link to the priesthood from the theological and pastoral and spiritual viewpoints. Thus is Mariology, the theology concerned with Mary, crucial in the formation of priests, as Cardinal Rivera stressed. I quote him, “The spirituality that the Church wants in her priests is inspired in the spirituality of Mary.” Such is the importance of our Blessed Mother in the priestly vocation, which we will share with you next week.

Amen.


References:

C., Norbeto Rivera. 9 July 1997. The Blessed Virgin Mary in the Life and Ministry of the Priest, Conference of Mons. Norberto Rivera, Yamaussoukro. Retrieved 11 January 2010 from the Vatican website: http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cclergy/documents/rc_con_cclergy_doc_ 19071997_ conri_en.html

Benedict XVI. 12 August 2009. General Audience, Papal Summer Residence, Castel Gandolfo. Retrieved 11 November 2009 from the Vatican website: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/ benedict_xvi/ audiences/2009/documents/ hf_ ben-xvi_aud_20090812_en.html

John Paul II. 27 July 1994. General Audience: Women and the Ministerial Priesthood. Retrieved 15 January 2010 from the Vatican website: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/audiences/ alpha/data/aud19940727en.html

The Inseparable Link – the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Priesthood

(Sharing at the Novena to Our Mother of Perpetual Help on 16 January 2010)

Dear brothers & sisters in Christ,

Indeed, the Blessed Virgin Mary is inseparably linked to the priesthood, by her maternal action and presence. This was evidenced by Pope John Paul II’s wish for the International Encounter of Priests, held in approaching the third millennium, to be profoundly Marian in character, as pointed out by the Archbishop, Primate of Mexico, now Norberto Cardinal Rivera Carrera.

Last year, in his General Audience before the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in the context of the Year for Priests, Pope Benedict XVI spoke on the connexion between Our Lady and the priesthood. He said that this link is deeply rooted in the Mystery of the Incarnation. Mary is truly at the heart of this mystery because by her ‘yes’, God is able to enter the world as man, thus putting into motion God’s plan of salvation. It is through Mary that God the Son was able to give the gift of Himself on the Cross to become Bread for the life of the world. Throughout the centuries, this salvific sacrifice of Christ is made present in an unbloody manner on the altar by the priest, whose ‘yes’ to God’s call enable Christ to continue His saving action in the world today.

In the text The Blessed Virgin Mary in the Life and Ministry of the Priest at the Conference of Monsignor Norberto Rivera in 1997, Cardinal Rivera highlighted how the priesthood parallels the Blessed Virgin Mary in many ways.

In the light of the Incarnation, Mary listened to the Word and welcomed it, and the Word became Incarnate in her. Today, priests all over the world are celebrating more than 2000 years of the Word Incarnate in her womb. The seminarian and the priest reflect her listening and welcoming attitude towards the Word when they show due appreciation and love for the Sacred Scriptures and the Liturgy.

Mary, the Virgin Mother, engendered on earth the Son of God without contact with man, but by being overshadowed by the Holy Spirit. In carrying out her motherhood at the foot of the cross, Mary is placed by God’s will at the “service” of her children, and even more, of all men. This motherhood, or fruitfulness, is the hidden fruit of the “Virgin mother” in the priestly soul – by “listening to the Word and welcoming it with faith in his heart”, the priest “engenders life and places himself at the service of life”. His celibacy, i.e. virginity consecrated to God, in imitation of Mary, the Virgin of Nazareth, is the source of this special motherhood in the Holy Spirit.

Mary is also teacher of the spiritual life for every Christian. She is above all the model of worship that makes one’s own life into an offering to God. By her “yes”, Mary showed us how to be converted into obedience to the Father’s will towards and amid one’s own sanctification, and in a special way for priests.

Mary, the “offering Virgin”, offered the Child Jesus to the Lord in the Temple at Jerusalem. At Calvary, Mary, with ardent charity and unshakable faith, stood by Christ engendered by her as He offered Himself as the perfect sacrifice, offering herself as well to the Eternal Father. In consecrating the bread and wine, Body and Blood of the Lord, during the Eucharistic celebration, the priest paralleled Mary’s offering of the Child Jesus in the Temple, and having consummated the redemption at the foot of the cross, the priest returns it to the Father as an expiatory offering for our sins.

Thus we have seen how Mary is linked to the priesthood from the theological point of view. Next week, we will see her connexion with the priesthood in the pastoral dimension, why our Blessed Mother loves every priest in a special way, and briefly on what all these parallels teach us.

Amen.

The Year for Priests

(Sharing at the Novena to Our Mother of Perpetual Help on 2 Jan 2010)

Dear brothers & sisters in Christ,

Our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, has inaugurated a special Year for Priests, starting from the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus on 19 June 2009. Concluding on the same Solemnity on 11 June 2010, this year is in celebration of the 150th death anniversary of Saint John Mary Vianney, also known as the Curé of Ars, who is the patron saint of parish priests.

This special year is meant to encourage all priests in striving for spiritual perfection so as to enable them to witness more strongly and incisively to the Gospel in today’s world. First and foremost, it is also to help priests and us, the laity, to realise and appreciate the immense and indispensable gift which priests represent for the whole Church and the whole of humanity. As the Holy Father wrote in his letter proclaiming the Year for Priests dated 16 June 2009, “The Curé of Ars was very humble, yet as a priest he was conscious of being an immense gift to his people.” His Holiness quoted the Curé of Ars, “A good shepherd, a pastor after God’s heart, is the greatest treasure which the good Lord can grant to a parish, and one of the most precious gifts of divine mercy”.

And typical of our Holy Fathers who have great devotion to Our Lady, Pope Benedict XVI entrusts the Year for Priests and all the priests of the world to Our Lady, Mother of the Church. Indeed, our Blessed Mother has a very special relationship with priests. She is called the Mother of Priests, Queen of the Clergy, Queen of Apostles, Mother of the Eucharist. She loves us all, but in a special way, she loves the priests, whom she holds closest to her heart as she does her Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. As Fr. Wolfgang Seitz wrote in his article “Mary and the Priesthood” on the Internet (website of The Work of the Holy Angels), our Blessed Mother’s maternal action and presence is uniquely inseparable from the life of priests. According to him, Pope John Paul II’s theology of the relationship between Mary’s divine motherhood and Christ’s priesthood taught us that to pray for priests means to turn to Mary.

Thus, it is no wonder that all the great priest saints have great devotion to Our Lady. Closest to us are our parish patron, St. Francis Xavier, and St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus which our Parish Pastors belong to. The Curé of Ars himself was greatly devoted to the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin, and has been known to consecrate his parish to her Immaculate Heart. So too Pope JPII, who often renewed the consecration of himself, the Church and the whole world to Her Immaculate Heart. Marian spirituality is never absent in religious orders of the Catholic Church.

Yesterday, on the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, we presented to you the prayer card Pray for our priests in response to our Holy Father’s call to pray specially for priests in this special year for them. In this coming six months, our Novena sharing will be based on the theme Year for Priests. Through them, we hope to share with you on our Blessed Mother’s relationship with priests, her special role in the priestly vocation, God’s gift of priests to us, about priest saints and Marian spirituality in religious orders. Where possible, we will invite esteemed guest sharers to enlighten on specific topics. With our humble but sincere efforts, we hope that the sharings will bring all of us to a deeper appreciation of God’s awesome gift of Grace to us in priests, who enable Christ to be really present in the world today.

In response to the call made by Pope Benedict XVI, let us pray specially for priests, that they will conform with the image of Christ and be men of truth, men of love, and men of God.

Amen.