Divine Appeal Reflection - 174
Today, consider in Divine Appeal 174: "Many of the... do not know that I am there; they refuse to recognize Me. I need them to know that I am their Brother and Eternal Priest."
The priest must repeatedly return to his first Eucharistic gaze—the gaze before familiarity, before fatigue, before administrative burdens, before disappointments, before the wounds of ministry. He must return to the hour when the mystery first seized him: Christ is here. Christ is alive. Christ is giving Himself. Christ has entrusted this mystery to me. The priest who recovers this gaze discovers that his ministry is not primarily something he performs, but something that flows from the One who possesses him. His preaching becomes the overflow of contemplation; his confession becomes an encounter with the Mercy he himself has first received; his pastoral compassion becomes an extension of the Eucharistic self-gift;(cf. 2 Cor 5:14–20; Col 1:24) his suffering for difficult souls becomes participation in Christ's own pastoral sacrifice . St. John Vianney understood something of this Eucharistic astonishment: the priest does not stand at the centre of the mystery—the Priesthood of Christ does. The human priest becomes most fruitful when he disappears into the One whom he represents and allows Christ to shine through his poverty (cf. Gal 2:20; 2 Cor 4:7). And perhaps this is the hidden cry of the Appeal: “I am there.” Not merely, “Remember Me.” Not merely, “Speak about Me.” Not merely, “Work for Me.” But: I AM THERE. I am upon the altar. I am in the tabernacle. I am entrusted to your hands. I am waiting for your adoration. I am hidden beneath the appearance of bread, yet fully present in My divinity and humanity (cf. Jn 6:56; CCC 1374). The priest therefore lives beside an abyss of mystery every day. He may grow so used to the wonder that he loses awareness that the wonder is in front of him. Let him keep coming back to the tabernacle—not only as a priest carrying out his duty, but as a man overcome by grace. Let him kneel until the ordinary becomes transparent and eternity shines through it. Let him look upon the Sacred Host until his heart learns again what his ordination first taught him: the One whom he carries to the world is infinitely greater than the world he carries, and the One whom he touches at the altar is the very Christ before whom heaven itself remains in adoration (cf. Phil 2:9–11; Rev 5:6–14).
But why does Jesus insist that the priest must know Him as Brother? Here lies an extraordinary mystery of priestly spirituality. Before a priest becomes a spiritual father to others, he must never cease being a brother who himself needs redemption. Ordination does not remove his humanity. He remains capable of exhaustion, loneliness, misunderstanding, temptation, disappointment and tears. He can preach forgiveness while carrying a wound he has not surrendered. He can hear confessions while secretly needing the mercy he announces. He can accompany dying people while experiencing his own fears about death. He can bless marriages while carrying the loneliness of celibacy. He can strengthen the faith of others while passing through his own night of faith. The priest does not stand outside the human condition looking downward upon his people; Christ calls him to stand within humanity while being configured to the Eternal Priest. Hebrews opens a breathtaking mystery before the priest: the Eternal Son did not save humanity by remaining distant from its fragility, but by entering fully into our human condition, taking flesh, suffering, being tested, and becoming able to enter compassionately into the weakness of those He came to redeem, while remaining utterly without sin (cf. Heb 2:14–18; 4:15). Therefore, the priest is not called to become an untouchable spiritual figure who appears incapable of weariness, loneliness, temptation, disappointment, or tears. He is called to become a transparent man before God—a man whose humanity has been so surrendered to Christ that even his wounds can become places through which divine mercy reaches other wounded souls (cf. 2 Cor 4:7–10; 12:9). His humanity is not something Christ must first erase before using him; it is precisely the humanity Christ has chosen to enter, purify, elevate, and employ in His priestly mission (cf. Heb 5:1–2).Thus the priest need not stand before God's people pretending to be an angel. He must stand before them as a man who has allowed Christ to possess his humanity. He must bring his weakness to the Eucharistic altar until it becomes dependence,(cf. Rom 8:28; Col 1:24) his suffering until it becomes intercession, his failures until they become humility, and his wounds until they become compassion . Then something mysterious happens: the priest's humanity no longer merely reveals the limitations of the man; it begins to reveal the mercy of the Christ working through him. Grace does not wait for the priest to become less human before using him; grace makes his surrendered humanity transparent to Christ. The hands remain human, the voice remains human, the heart remains human—but through them the Eternal Priest continues to touch His people (cf. 2 Cor 5:20; Heb 5:1–6). This is not the glorification of human weakness. It is the transfiguration of weakness through surrender, until the priest can truthfully say with St. Paul that what appears fragile is precisely where the power of Christ can become visible (cf. 2 Cor 12:9–10).
The priest may encounter Christ as Brother most profoundly in the hidden solitude of priesthood, when ministry has ended and no human affirmation remains to sustain him (cf. Jn 15:15; Mk 1:35). After the final confession, when the church grows quiet and the last footsteps disappear, he may remain alone with the names, wounds, failures, temptations, bereavements, and unanswered prayers he carries before God . Yet such solitude is not abandonment; it can become a participation in Christ’s own loneliness at Gethsemane,(cf. Mt 26:36–46; Lk 22:39–46; Heb 5:7–8) where human companionship failed and the Son surrendered Himself entirely to the Father . Kneeling before the tabernacle, the priest may discover that Christ is not merely accompanying his loneliness; He has entered it before him and now meets him there . The empty church transforms into a secret sanctuary where the priest discovers that the Eucharistic Presence of Christ holds him even when human voices stop. The quiet then becomes communion. His tears become prayer. His unanswered questions become surrender. His inability to save a soul becomes an invitation to entrust that soul to the Eternal Priest (cf. Jn 15:4–5; Heb 7:25). The priest begins to understand that Christ has never asked him to carry His flock alone. Then priestly loneliness acquires a mysterious apostolic fruitfulness. A Mass offered before a handful of people, an hour spent listening to one wounded penitent, a midnight prayer for someone who will never know it was made, or a sacrifice offered for a wandering soul may appear to vanish without trace. Yet nothing surrendered in love disappears before God (cf. Mt 6:4–6; Heb 6:10). The hidden priestly offering enters the eternal intercession of Christ Himself. The world may never count such moments, but heaven receives them. Thus, when the priest feels forgotten, he must listen beneath the silence. The silence may be hiding a Presence. The emptiness may be concealing communion. The loneliness may be the place where Christ draws nearest—not necessarily by removing the darkness, but by entering it with him (cf. Ps 23:4; Jn 14:18). Before the tabernacle, the priest can discover the astonishing reversal: he thought he had come to keep watch with Christ, but Christ had been keeping watch over him all along. His Brother is not merely waiting at the altar; His Brother is carrying him before the Father (cf. Heb 7:25). Perhaps the deepest consolation of priestly solitude is this: the priest is never abandoned within the loneliness Christ has entered and sanctified. The Christ who accepted the anguish and apparent abandonment of Gethsemane remains truly present in the silent tabernacle, waiting with the priest through the hours no one sees (cf. Mt 26:36–46; Heb 5:7–8; Jn 14:18; CCC 1373–1374). What feels like loneliness can therefore become communion, because the priest discovers that the darkness itself is inhabited by the Presence of his Brother and Eternal Priest . Therefore, when every human voice has ceased, the priest can remain. When no one seems to remember, he can adore. When his work appears fruitless, he can offer. When his heart is exhausted,(cf. Mt 11:28–30) he can rest in the Presence that never withdraws . He is not an abandoned servant standing in an empty church. He is a brother standing beside the hidden Christ—and the Hidden Christ is holding him within His eternal offering.
Yet priestly brotherhood with Christ carries a sobering responsibility: the closer a priest stands sacramentally to Christ,(cf. 2 Cor 3:18; CCC 1551) the more his life can either reveal His face or obscure it . His words can awaken love for the Eucharist or make sacred realities appear ordinary; his kindness can draw wounded souls toward Divine Mercy, while harshness can make them afraid to approach God . His chastity can witness that Christ is enough (cf. Mt 19:12; 1 Cor 6:19–20), his poverty can proclaim God as his treasure (cf. Mt 6:19–21), and his obedience can reflect the self-emptying of Christ . Conversely, impurity, attachment, self-will, or clerical pride can place a human barrier where Christ desires to be encountered . Peter reveals the path of purification:(cf. Lk 22:31–32, 61–62; Jn 21:15–17) after confidently promising what he could not yet sustain, he passed through failure, repentance, and restoration, and Christ entrusted him anew with the flock . The priest must therefore continually allow Christ to convert the man beneath the ministry . He can defend the dignity of priesthood while forgetting Christ’s humility, seek respect while forgetting the washing of feet, or protect his image while resisting repentance (cf. Jn 13:12–15; Phil 2:3–5). The searching question remains: Am I becoming like the Christ whose mysteries I celebrate? For every Mass places before the priest the inseparable mystery of Priest and Victim: the One he sacramentally represents is also the One who gives Himself completely (cf. Heb 9:11–14; CCC 1366–1368). He cannot authentically stand at Calvary while deliberately refusing self-gift in the ordinary sacrifices of priestly life (cf. Rom 12:1; 2 Cor 5:15).
The words, “I need them to know that I am their Brother and Eternal Priest,” disclose something profound about priestly holiness:(cf. Jn 20:21–23; 2 Cor 5:20) it is never meant to remain enclosed within the priest himself. Christ desires the priest to become a living point of encounter through which His own mercy, truth, compassion, and tenderness reach His people . The young man entering confession should encounter mercy rather than condemnation; the grieving widow, compassionate presence; the prisoner, the dignity of a person still loved by God; the confused seminarian, patient guidance; the struggling couple, truth spoken without humiliation; the child, a priest whose joy makes Christ attractive; and the forgotten elderly person, the tenderness of being remembered . Even the sinner returning after years away should find that the door of mercy has not been closed . The priest becomes most truly apostolic when people leave his presence thinking not primarily about him, but about Christ . This is the depth of sacramental configuration: through Holy Orders, the priest is configured to Christ the Head and participates uniquely in His priestly mission for the sanctification of the Church (cf. CCC 1548–1553). The mystery reaches its summit at the altar. The priest sacramentally speaks Christ’s words over the gifts, yet his entire life is gradually summoned to embody the reality those words proclaim: a life given for others (cf. Lk 22:19–20; 1 Cor 10:16; CCC 1368). His time can become consolation, his prayer hidden intercession, his celibacy an undivided offering, his study a service to truth, his suffering an offering for souls, and his availability an expression of Christ’s mercy (cf. Rom 12:1; Col 1:24; 1 Cor 7:32–35). The priest must therefore become so deeply united to Christ the Brother and Eternal Priest that souls begin to encounter Christ through his presence, without confusing the servant with the Lord he serves (cf. Jn 15:4–5; Gal 2:20). The deepest fruit of priestly life is not that people remember the priest’s personality, achievements, or name, but that something within them has been awakened to remember Jesus (cf. Jn 12:21; Jn 3:30). The priest’s greatest apostolic success is therefore wonderfully hidden: that through his humility, Eucharistic self-gift, compassion, fidelity, and transparent holiness, wounded humanity gradually recognizes the Brother it had forgotten (cf. 2 Cor 4:6–7; CCC 1589).
Prayer
Adorable Jesus, Brother and Eternal Priest, sanctify Your priests. Restore their first love, protect their hidden hours, strengthen them in temptation and heal their wounds.Make priests humble, Eucharistic, compassionate and transparent, so that through them humanity recognizes Your nearness. May every altar, confessional, homily and sacrifice draw souls to You. Amen.
Sr. Anna Ali of the Most Holy Eucharist, intercede for us.