“What then is the greatest single need in the priesthood today? It is holiness. What the Church and the world mainly need is holy priests. The next question is the hard one: How are priests to become holy? They are to become holy through the Eucharist. In other words, there is no holiness without the Eucharist.
What the Church most needs in modern times is priests who have not been seduced by the ways of the world but have remained firm in their faith as ambassadors of Christ, chosen by Him to dispense the mysteries of salvation until the end of time. Only holy priests will not be seduced by the devil, who is the prince of this world. Jesus Christ in the Eucharist is the only one who can make priests truly holy.
 |
| Artist Svitozar Nenyuk |
Holy priests will sanctify the faithful. One of the glories of the Second Vatican Council was its outspoken insistence not only that holiness is a realistic goal, but that this is our special vocation as Christians. “All of Christ’s faithful,” we are told, “no matter what their rank or station, have a vocation to the fullness of the Christian life and the perfection of charity.” In a word, we have all been called to become saints. But the sanctification of the world depends on the sanctity of Catholic bishops and priests. In God’s providence, we are to be the principal channels of holiness to the world in which we live.
There can be no ordinary Catholic priests today, not with the revolution through which society is passing and the convulsion in the Church on every level. The Church today needs strong Catholic priests, wise Catholic priests, priests who are not swayed by public opinion or afraid to stand up for the truth. She needs priests who are willing to suffer for their convictions and, if need be, shed their blood for the faith...
Where, we ask, can they obtain this strength and wisdom, this patience and conviction and this loyal love of God that is faithful unto death? They can obtain it from the one who said, “Have courage, I have overcome the world.” He is not two thousand years away, or absent from the earth in a distant heaven that cannot be spanned. No, He is right here in the Eucharist. And He wants nothing more than that we also be with Him as much as we can. If we are, and the more we are – as the great Eucharistic saints tell us – He will not only make us holy, but He will use us priests as He used the Apostles, who, when He first made the promise of the Eucharist, did not walk away. He will use us as channels of His grace even to the ends of the earth and until the end of time.”
Father John Harden, SJ, 1979