In Adrienne von Speyr's The Cross: Word and Sacrament, von Speyr links each of Christ's seven last words to one of the Seven Sacraments; positing that each "word" is a blessing from the Cross upon that sacrament, a commentary, and above all an intimate connection between the Paschal and Sacramental Mysteries. "If the Lord's words are all a piece of his life, and if he surrenders his life on the Cross for His Church, it follows that the Lord's words from the Cross are closely knit to, parallel to, the sacraments, those vessels of the life of the divine grace which overflows from the Cross into the Church." The links are as follows:
- Father, forgive them for they know not what they do - Penance
- You will be with me this day in Paradise - Anointing of the Sick
- Behold your son, Behold your mother - Marriage
- My God, My God! Why have you forsaken me - Holy Orders
- I thirst - Eucharist
- It is finished - Baptism
- Into your hands, Lord, I commend my Spirit - Confirmation
While reading the reflection on the fourth word, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34), linked to the Sacrament of Holy Orders, I was struck by the fact that priests allow themselves to be set apart—consecrated—from the whole of humanity to become totally at service to God's mission to sanctify humanity, mediated through the grace of the Sacraments. And in light of this being linked to Christ's forsaken-ness upon the Cross, I pondered (though I can only speculate, here) how forsaken a priest must feel when the whole work of God's that he has made his own—to make men saints—has not produced saints of every person he's administered sacraments to.
Each Christian is called "to be holy" to be a saint (1 Cor 1:2), what Catholics call "the universal call to holiness." From that calling we are "called to lead henceforth a life 'worthy of the gospel of Christ.' [we] are made capable of doing so by the grace of Christ and the gifts of his Spirit, which [we] receive through the sacraments and through prayer." (CCC 1692) Those sacraments can only be received by the administration of the sacred ministers, those who have received the Sacrament of Holy Orders "who are endowed with sacred power, serve their brethren, so that all who are of the People of God, and therefore enjoy a true Christian dignity, ... and may arrive at salvation." That is the primary purpose of their vocation. So when their whole purpose is based upon achieving our sanctity, how does it make a priest feel when we seem to so carelessly throw away the graces his whole life has been dedicated to?
The priest, in persona Christi, is permanently affixed to the Cross, in a way unique to his vocation; he is crucified daily in his duties, in his obligations, in his vows. How many times have they been mocked by our sins before that Cross? When we have received the Holy Body and Blood from their hands, and then turned around and sinned again. And I shudder when I reflect how derelict I've been to embrace the sacramental graces the priests in my life have administered to me in God's name, while those priests have had to watch me muddle through and fall time and time again in such banal and adolescent ways, a constant refusal, it seems, to make any real progress toward holiness. There must be such temptation to despair when that Crucifixion seems to bear so little fruit. I owe all to God, but in that I believe that I owe so much to the men God has called to be his servants, the servants of the Church, the servants of the faithful.
Let those of us who have received these Sacraments at the hands of Christ's servants, honor that sacrifice and that calling above all by striving for the holiness for which they serve? And it is incumbent to go beyond that by honoring them as individuals who participate so deeply in Christ's Cross by their life, their vocation, and their apostolic mission. Pray for our priests; make offerings of service to them; protect them when they are attacked; thank them for their service; share with them your charity.
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