Ordained to celebrate Mass...

A priest of the Catholic Church is primarily the one who is ordained by the Bishop to administer the Sacraments of the New Covenant which Jesus Christ gave to His Church to sanctify it and to establish it in unity as the Mystical Body.

At Ordination, the man prostrates himself on the ground of the sanctuary as the cantors lead the congregation in the Prayer of the Litany of the Saints. This great prayer ends by asking God to “pour out upon this servant of yours the blessing of the Holy Spirit and the grace and power of the priesthood”. The Bishop uses a twofold sacred sign to bestow on the man the Sacrament of Holy Orders: he lays his hands on his head and then prays the prayer of Ordination which involves the bestowal of power from the Bishop, a successor of the Apostles. The new priest is then clothed in the garments used for the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and his hands are anointed with the oil of sacred Chrism.

The anointing of the priest’s hands with the oil of Chrism points to a life of sanctifying and blessing with those hands in the name and in the person of Jesus, the supreme High Priest in whose priesthood the priest shares in a different order from the “priesthood of he faithful”. The priest is ordained to make the faithful “a priestly people”.

A priest’s whole life is centred on the daily offering of the Sacrifice of the Mass for his own sanctification and for that of the people he serves. The life of the Christian begins with the Holy Mass as the source, foundation and expression of the Christian life of discipleship. “Do this in memory of Me”, Jesus commands at the Last Supper. This is the Sacrifice of Christ made present on the altar which redeems the world and is the source of the forgiveness of sins.

From this “heart”, the whole of a priest’s life is set in the direction of God’s people. He serves them by “teaching and sanctifying”. A priest is a teacher of the doctrine which comes from Christ himself. This doctrine is also called the deposit of faith. By teaching, he draws men and women into a personal love of Jesus. The Holy Spirit speaks from the priest’s lips. In the confessional, people confess to Christ and receive that forgiveness by name.