This past week I spoke with a friend to whom I answered a question: “This week I feel truly like a priest of the Seven Sacraments!” We all share in the Priesthood of Jesus Christ, by virtue of our baptism into him. The manner and means of that share for each of us take different forms, and develop most fully during an entire lifetime.
The view from my life of the entire life of the Church and even of the wider community is that of a priest, of course. You could say that I enjoy a certain status within the community by virtue of my ordination. You wouldn’t be wrong. The reality, however, goes or should go deeper than that. In the Sacred Scriptures this weekend, the full reality of Jesus, the Christ and High Priest, is manifest not only in his acts of service to the poor and broken who crossed his path throughout his ministry, but ultimately in his suffering and death. They were not just, not merited by his actions. They were a truth arising from us whom he came to be with and redeem.
Christ didn’t suffer only in the sense that others imposed suffering on him. He suffered as a sacrifice he was willing to embrace and to offer.
We are shaped in part by a social and cultural environment that tries to create heroes for us, to elevate celebrities whose skills or persona give them some manner and measure of power to influence patterns, trends, decisions and choices. With ulterior motives of market share and profit sharing, we are even encouraged to feel our own lives are enhanced when someone with whom we identify is removed even further from us by the rewards of their success.
Jesus seeks to draw near, to embrace us and to be embraced by us. He seeks to be known in the suffering that is his sacrifice for us, and which can be known to the world through us and because we are his!