Gratitude for the Vocation of the Priesthood

As we celebrate the Birth of our Lord, we are deeply conscious of the richness of the mystery of the Incarnation. Our minds will never comprehend all that the mystery means, yet God's grace gives us faith in the mystery and helps us to plumb its deep meaning. Our faith helps us to understand the essential relationship between the mystery of the Incarnation and the mystery of the Redemption. Pope John Paul II in fact often refers to the two mysteries together as the mystery of the Redemptive Incarnation.

On Christmas, we recall Christ's Birth of the Virgin Mary at Bethlehem, acknowledging that the same Christ died for us on Calvary, rose from the dead and ascended to the right hand of the Father, so that He might live for us always in the Church. At Mass on Christmas, Christ comes into our midst as really as He did at Bethlehem. He comes in His glorious Body for our spiritual healing and nourishment. The Body which He received at His conception in the womb of the Virgin Mary by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit was transformed at His Resurrection, so that He might give us Himself in the Church always and, above all, in the Eucharist. 

In the words of Pope Paul VI, the presence of Christ in the Eucharist "is called ‘real' not as a way of excluding other types of presence as if they were ‘not real,' but because it is a presence in the fullest sense: a substantial presence whereby Christ, the God-Man, is wholly and entirely present" (Pope Paul VI, encyclical letter Mysterium Fidei, September 3, 1965, Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 57 [1965], p. 764). The image of the Infant Savior in the manger, before whom we kneel in prayer on Christmas, represents the same Christ who comes to us under the veils of bread and wine to nourish us with His true Body and Blood, holy Communion, and who remains with us in the consecrated hosts reposed in the tabernacle of our churches and chapels. 

Inseparably connected with the Real Presence of Christ in the Most Blessed Sacrament is the presence of Christ in the priest who, acting in the person of Christ, renews the Sacrifice of Calvary at Mass and who also acts in the person of Christ, Shepherd and Head of the flock, when he teaches, sanctifies and governs God's holy people at every time and in every place. Writing about the wonder or amazement which should be ours before the Eucharistic Sacrifice, our Holy Father Pope John Paul II reminded us of the truth about the ordained priesthood, conferred through the Sacrament of Holy Orders:

This amazement should always fill the Church assembled for the celebration of the Eucharist. But in a special way it should fill the minister of the Eucharist. For it is he who, by the authority given him in the sacrament of priestly ordination, effects the consecration. It is he who says with the power coming to him from Christ in the Upper Room: "This is My Body which will be given up for you. This is the cup of My Blood, poured out for you." The priest says the words, or rather he puts his voice at the disposal of the One Who spoke these words in the Upper Room and Who desires that they should be repeated in every generation by all those who in the Church ministerially share in His priesthood" (Pope John Paul II, encyclical letter Ecclesia de Eucharistia, April 17, 2003, n. 5c).

The same Christ Who was born into the family of Mary and Joseph at Bethlehem, and Who died and rose from the dead for our salvation, so that He might live for us always, continues to be our Shepherd and Head through the Holy Father and the bishops with their co-workers, the priests. 

At Christmas, our deepest gratitude for the coming of Christ to us in the Sacrament of the Eucharist is also deepest gratitude for the sacrament of the priesthood, which makes possible the Holy Eucharist. Our grateful reflection upon the Real Presence of Christ with us in the Holy Eucharist leads us to thank God for Christ's pastoral presence with us through our priests and their apostolic service.

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Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, Patron emeritus of the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta, was born on 30 June 1948 in Richland Center, Wisconsin, USA. He was the youngest of six children and attended high school and college at Holy Cross Seminary in La Crosse, Wisconsin, before becoming a Basselin scholar at the Catholic University of America in 1971. He studied for the priesthood at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and was ordained a priest by Pope Paul VI on 29 June 1975 in St. Peter’s Basilica. After his ordination, he returned to La Cross and served as associate rector at the Cathedral of St. Joseph the Workman and taught religion at the Aquinas High School. In 1980, he returned to Rome and earned a doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical Gregorian University. In 1984, he served as moderator of the curia and vice-chancellor of the diocese of La Crosse. In 1989, he was nominated defender of the bond of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura. On 10 December 1994 he was appointed bishop of La Crosse and received episcopal ordination on 6 January 1995 in St. Peter’s Basilica. On 2 December 2003 he was appointed Archbishop of Saint Louis. On 27 June 2008 Pope Benedict XVI appointed him Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signature. On 8 November 2014 Pope Francis nominated him Patron of the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta. He was Patron until 19 June 2023.

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